Our Favorite Holiday Tradition

Today we ventured out to Lake Farmpark for breakfast with Santa and toy building in the workshop: one of our favorite holiday moments.

We started with a picture by the beautiful real Christmas trees.  Each tree is decorated by a different organization or company and they were each beautiful and unique!

 Once seated at breakfast the boys began coloring their Christmas pictures.

Our growing boys both must have been hungry because they dug right into breakfast with a big thumbs up!

During breakfast Santa arrived to lots of applause.  He visited each table to give each child a gift.  Xavier didn't take his eyes off of Santa (or "hoho" as he calls him) as he walked around the room to every table.

The boys couldn't wait for Santa to get to our table.  Xavier got a little red car from Santa and Trey picked out football cards.

After breakfast we visited Santa's sleigh so Trey could tell him what he wanted for Christmas.  Trey told Santa he wanted a green ninja Ninjago set and, in his words, "other things I haven't decided on yet."

 Then we sat Xavier on Santa's lap for a picture...

The picture says it all...  He loves pointing out "hoho" in his train set, on the tree, on the TV, on people's lawns, in decorations...but when it comes to sitting with "hoho" he wasn't having any part of it.  I can't help but smile at his reaction.   We are already laughing about this moment and I'm sure we will for many years to come!

After visiting Santa we headed to the toy building workshop and picked out a toy to build.  Trey picked a toy soldier and Xavier picked a Christmas tree.  Xavier watched as his elf built his tree.

Trey helped hammer and drill his toy soldier together.

After building the toys we were off to paint.  Trey did a great job designing and painting his soldier. 

And I had a very relaxing time painting Xavier's tree.  I think next year he'll be all ready to paint his own toy but for this year he had a great time looking at all the Christmas displays in the hallway and seeing the toys in the playroom instead.

While our toys were drying Trey visited a HUGE toy soldier like he painted and measured himself against the soldier...it was A LOT taller!

We also visited the barn to see all the animals.  The boys got to see 5 day-old baby piglets, sheep, a turkey, goats, and they even got a chance to help groom one of the horses.

 When we headed back to the workshop our toys were dry and ready to take home!  The boys have some adorable new toys and we have some unforgettable new family memories.