A Merry Little Christmas Vacation

Last Thursday, we took a very spur of the moment mini-vacation up to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. I consider my love language to be "vacations", so it was huge that Garet wanted to travel after he had been gone so much. It was an absolutely perfect two days.

We started the day off with ICE. Having been warned that it was cold, we came prepared. This place was amazing and so creative!

The theme of the ice sculptures was "The Grinch that Stole Christmas":Levi loved this little archway made just for him. We had to walk through it several times:Kara is my warm-bodied child...she loves the cold, so this place was perfect for her. She walked around with this goofy-grin the entire time:The highlight of the exhibit are two ice slides (thus the reason for the blue jackets). Here I am coming down the slide. Wheeeee:

We took Kara up to the top so we could slide down with her, however, it was only one at a time. Against my better judgement, I let her slide down it alone. She, of course, loved it - I only wish we had a picture of it!

After ICE, we went back to the hotel to meet our friends Joshua & Kimberly for dinner. Kimberly blogged about it here (I love the picture she has of the boys walking together!). We discovered that our Sit-N-Stand is good for 3 children:

Noah & Levi picked up where they had left off when Noah moved and we had a good time seeing them again.

We spent the rest of the evening and the next morning walking around the hotel. If you have never been to the Opryland Hotel at Christmas, I highly recommend you add it to your list. We had been several times before, but this was my first overnight stay - LOVED IT!

Finally, no trip to Nashville is complete without a visit to OpryMills! It was especially great, because Garet's sister and kids were able to come by and have lunch. Cousins!!!
This was just the perfect get-away our family needed before the Christmas rush. Merry Christmas, everyone!

We are (Rockstar) Family

I was thrilled when they pulled out Rockband at Garet's work party last week. I have been wanting to play for some time after Garet had played with his co-workers on travel. Levi jumped right into the action: This picture cracks me up with his leg out like that. He looks like such a rockstar:
Garet had the patience to play along with Levi:

The Fields Family Four with backup from Brad and Mitch:

I quickly learned that I was much better on vocals than I was on the drums:

Levi working double-duty:

I had the best time with this game - I can't wait to play it again!!!

I included this picture because Kara is sitting in the box of the "Dirty Santa" gift I won. The contents? A CAT! Seriously, Owen brought his CAT to the party. Thankfully, he was gracious enough to steal it back. If you know me, you know I am not an animal fan and cats make me sneeze. It was pretty funny though.

**Special thanks to Judy for taking pictures of our family on our "non-SLR" camera :).

All Aboard the Choo-Choo Train

Last weekend, my parents treated us to a little train ride put on here locally. Santa rides along and talks to all the children. Levi absolutely loved the whole experience and literally talked non-stop the entire time. You name it, he talked about it. I did enjoy watching his excitement though.

The train car was set-up like an old-timey train:
Here is Levi showing his excitement and telling mom one of the many things he saw outside. Kara was just enjoying the ride:

No attempting having Santa hold the kids this time. I felt like a giant next to him:

This is probably one of my favorite pictures of the year. Levi refused to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas, but when the conductor came around to take up the tickets, Levi went right up to him for a picture and told him what he wanted for Christmas. I need to send this to the train station:

Kara clapping away as the train chugged along:

The train ride lasted about 40 minutes and was the perfect length of time for the kids. If you are in the area, I highly recommend it!

I just realized that Garet didn't make it in any of the pictures, but he was there!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Supper with the Big Man

A few weeks ago, we went to eat "Supper with Santa". Garet was out of town, but thankfully my parents were there to help out. When Santa got to our table, it was as expected....Levi wasn't too keen about the big man (specifically the beard) and Kara screamed. Kara did a little better with Santa's Granny, although still no smiles:
Not the best picture, but it reminds me of my life right now:

After a supper of pizza, salad and a cookie, we headed over to Santa's Village. Every December, the Constitution Hall Park transforms into a little snow village - it is so cute! Here are my parents with the kids in the sleigh:

Levi writing his letter to Santa. It, of course, had the one item we have heard about over and over this season....a flying Dinaco McQueen:

Mailing the letter to Santa:

Decorating a cookie in the kitchen:

Every little bit, they turn on a snow machine. The kids LOVED it:

I thought this was a cute picture of the kids in the craft room at the Village:

Monday, December 15, 2008

Birthday-ville

Over the last 5 weeks, we have had a record number of birthday parties. Apparently a few other people thought the fall was a good time to have children!

Ms. Hannah turned two in November and Miki made the most unbelievable cake. At first glance you might think those are plastic animals on top. Au Contraire! Miki made all of those (edible) animals. I had to get a picture:

I failed to get a picture of Hannah, but Harrison and Levi sure did enjoy the cake:

We celebrated Garet's and our nephew Landon's birthday together. This picture is of all 7 cousins on Garet's side. It cracks me up that of the 8 people in the picture, not one of them is looking at the camera. Elyssa wins the best expression award:
The Fields Family

We enjoyed a breakfast at Davis' house for his second birthday. This was our first of THREE parties this day. Thankfully, they were all at different times. Kara, especially enjoyed this swing:

Here's Davis on his new tricycle!

Party #2 was for Levi's school friends who are twins. We enjoyed a morning at Earlyworks playing in Biscuit's Backyard. Parker and Levi got soaked at the water table:

Kara and Peyton spent some time in the play area:

Kara really liked moving all the pieces:

We ended the day at the bowling alley. Levi had never been bowling before, so I was thrilled to see they had these ramps (as well as the bumpers) for the littlest kids:

Levi was very into watching his ball go down the alley:

Happy 4th Birthday, Annin!

Last week, Garet took the kids to Harrison's 2nd Birthday at Build-A-Bear. I wasn't able to make it because I was otherwise engaged, but it looks like the kids had a blast. Here is Kara with "Flopsey" pre-stuffed:

Levi getting "Aubie" stuffed:

Levi "washed" Flopsey off for Kara:

The kids with their animals:

The kids have had a great time partying it up the last few weeks (and mommy & daddy have too!). Happy Birthday everyone!

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Living in a World of Plastic

I loaded the dishwasher and this is what it looked like: Oh my goodness! Will I ever get away from all things plastic? Thankfully, I won the battle with Kara and the bottle, so those aren't in the picture anymore. However, there are 27 sippy cups in this picture - seriously! Anyone else go through this many? Whew.

Merry Christmas from my Snow(wo)man and Reindeer!

Friday, December 12, 2008

Adventures in Christmas Treeing

For several years growing up, my family went and cut our Christmas Tree down at the tree farm. I have great memories of running through the trees trying to find that "perfect tree". Ever since we had Levi, I've wanted to do that with my family. So, this was the first year that we thought Levi was old enough to understand and be able to participate in what we were doing. I was so excited.

After a brief melt down with Levi regarding tying the Christmas Tree to the top of the car (he thought we wouldn't be able to get it off), we were ready to go. We got the measuring stick and the saw and were off. It didn't take us long to determine that we weren't looking for a "perfect" tree here because half of them were dead! I mean, seriously, they were brown. We trudged on though thinking we could find one that was semi-decent. Nope, it didn't happen. We actually were laughing about it because it was so comical. I'm assuming it was because of the lack of rain we've had around here the past couple of years. Here are the kids next to a Charlie Brown type Christmas Tree. I think Levi is saying "Booooo".

I really wanted to help out this small business, but instead we went to Lowe's where we got the most beautiful tree ever!

When we got the tree home, Levi got his hammer so that he could help Garet put the tree up. However, he needed a pillow because the ground was too hard for him. Sigh.

Here's Kara "helping" put up the tree:

Garet had to leave for two weeks right after we got the tree up, so the kids and I had to decorate by ourselves. I was pretty bummed, but the kids made it fun. We watched "Elf" to liven up the mood:

Can you tell which area of the tree Levi decorated? The area with all the ornaments that "aren't breakable" (in Levi's words).:The finished product. Part of the reason I was a little sad decorating without Garet is because our tree is very sentimental. We collect ornaments from everywhere that we go and half the fun of decorating the tree is reminiscing about past trips and memories that we have had from our first trip to our ones before kids to our ones with kids to the good trips to the bad trips - it makes my heart full. We even have a naked man on our tree (a statue of David from Florence, Italy :). This year we got to add ornaments from the Alamo, Blue Ridge Parkway and Pearl Harbor. Maybe next year we'll be able to cut our tree down...