Macy's Santaland, Minneapolis European Market and a Visit with Best Friends

We took our annual trip to Macy's 8th floor and saw A Day in the Life of an Elf again. 

It was the same theme but we did it with different people who hadn't seen it before and it was wonderful. So Christmasy! It was more crowded than other years but we loved it anyways.

Our good friend Erin and her daughter Emma who is Linnea's good buddy met us there along with my best buddy from like 4th grade! Mack and Timo are here visiting from Germany for the holidays so we thought his was a perfect holiday event to do together :)

Picture by Linnea.

Fascinated!

Yearly Gingerbread boy from Mrs. Claus' bakery.

And here is Mack!

Instead of the Holidazzle Parade Minneapolis put together a European Market. It was very cute but I am sure glad it was family day so we got in for free :) It would not have been worth paying 3-6 bucks to get in. We did enjoy the carousel, the girls did a scavenger hunt, we tried some samples of honey and fried cheese and I bought these delicious potato pancakes! The girls either really did love them or were super famished but they ate them right up with me!

We then went to Emma's and did some crafts, another tradition we have created.

Then we met Mack and Timo back at our house for our traditional John's Pizza. Always the Veggie 2000. We also played old school Nintendo and had so much fun! 

Linnea did some more photography for us...

And she played a musical instrument game with us and we watched The Snowman :)

Another perfect holiday night! This season goes to quickly!

12th Date and it was for my 35th Birthday :)

I'm skippping Linnea's Frozen Birthday and going straight to mine! 

Once I get the pictures from Chris I will do her 6th birthday post. For now you can read about my 35th birthday! Yup 35. And we did about the exact same thing we did for my 34th but we switched the restaurant. Last year we went to the Blue Door Pub and A Christmas Story at the Riverview, this year we went to The Longfellow Grill for a quick cheap happy hour (pork and beef sliders and boneless buffalo wings with a beer each all for $20) and then off to the movie (only $1 since we brought a food item to donate!) I love this date so much! 

It was a perfect 35th birthday date...maybe in January when life is less busy we will go out with some friends but for now this was just what we needed. And it completed Chris and I's year of 12 dates! We completed our resolution and hope to do it again in 2015!

Last Day of School Before Break!

Well we are a week into break and birthdays and Christmases have been celebrated. We have one more to celebrate on New Year's Day and then its off to Disney World!!! I'd like to have this caught up by then so here goes...

We assembled some simple gifts for Linnea's teachers and Harper's daycare provider:

Reindeer Mix and Hot Cocoa with a candy cane, marshmallows and hot cocoa cookies. Im pretty sure we put caramel corn and other cookies in some too. Harper's daycare provider also got fudge since the girls went to daycare one extra day after the weekend when Chris made it :)

My dad and I got to watch Linnea in her school winter program:

And then we made gingerbread houses!

Papa and Linnea

Linnea and Ben (her lil crush)

It was a super sweet morning. I made it to work only about an hour late and we also had a special laid back day...

Plenty of afternoon snacks, we watched Rudolph and Santa came!

It was a great last day and will be three weeks until we return! 

Crazy! 

Sunday School Program 2014

Harper spotted the elf taking at a train ride on our table before we left for the Sunday School program.

 All that practicing paid off and the program was super sweet!

Linnea said her line into the microphone about a candle and Jesus being the light of the world and she also sung her little heart out. 

so proud!

church selfie.

silly girl...at least this may have been after the service...something about those steps.
She did that during practice too.

 The Meyers Fam.

After the program we made Christmas cookies at my parents house.

 It was a very successful and festive day :)

HO HO HO!