HunterTrek.com

We have been busy this Christmas!

We have had a wonderful morning of opening gifs and playing with the kids.  Pictures and videos will come later today…

We hope everyone has a great Christmas!

After dinner on Saturday 12/6 we walked down to the Wells Branch Homestead for their annual visit of Santa and luminaries.  The trails around Katherine Fleischer Park are lit up with hundreds of beautiful luminaries.

Luminaries

Santa was visiting from 6-9.  We got there right at 6.  Good thing, because this Santa was a talker!  He was really sweet with the kids, but the line moved VERY slowly!  When we were done, there were about 50 people in line.

Once it was our turn, we started with Jillian.

Not a happy girl!

As you can see, it did not go well.

I like Daddy much better.

Joshua rescued her and then it was Wesley’s turn.

Say Santa!

He knew exactly what he wanted to ask Santa for.  Two books - one about dinosaurs and one about penguins and Candy.

Talking to him about books.

Then we wanted to try to get a picture of both of the kids with Santa…

This time was not any better.

Santa gave each kid a small candy cane.  Wesley and Jillian were both very polite and thanked Santa for the yummy treat.

Next it was time to ride the “train”.  It is a sweet man who drives a tractor around that pulls 7 “cars” that are made out of 50 gallon drums.

Goodbye Mom

Both kids enjoyed the ride.  Jillian was very sweet at the end of the ride and was giving Wesley hugs.

After the train ride we went over to the community center where they had hot chocolate, cookies, and a few snacks.  We ate them outside at the playground then walked back to the stroller.

Still eating their cookies.

We then walked around the trail to see the luminaries.  We also walked around a couple of houses that had a lot of decorations.  There was even a sweet man, who had a ton of decorations in his yard, outside in his driveway passing out yummy hot chocolate and cookies.

Looking at the snow globe with a penguin inside.

Wesley was so sweet - he said goodbye to all of the decorations.  It was a good thing we were on a short block.  He made us laugh when we were on our way out of the neighborhood and Wesley said, “they even had bats!!”

Wesley sees a bat - we see an angel

It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday night!

Wesley turned three.  You know that by now.  And not just because I’ve written about it on this website, but also because he’s been talking about turning three since Jillian’s birthday in August.  For months now he’s been asking if it was his birthday and then given the response is always “no” asking when is his birthday.  And finally it came.  And it was over.  But not really.  He got almost a week worth of birthdays.  He deserves it.

We started on the morning of his actual birthday by opening a few presents.  He likes to open presents.  And then continued celebrating by going out to lunch, all four of us, even though it was a work day.

Kind of excited.

That evening we opened a few presents.  The next day of course was Thanksgiving.  And that means a party and to Wesley every party is especially for him.  Especially when the party comes with juice boxes and dessert.

On Friday he got to hang out with me all day since I had the day off.  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but to Wesley that is fun, maybe not as fun as a party, but still fun.

On Saturday we prepared for his real party.  We decided that instead of doing a big elaborate cake which would be both time consuming and hard to get to the park we would let Wesley decorate cupcakes for his party.  He had a blast for at least the first 15 or so.  The last few took a little coaxing to get him to finish.

Decorating cupcakes.

Too many blue sprinkles.

I'm three.

The original plan was to meet up at the park and then walk over to the fire station for a tour and afterwords come back to the park and have the party.  Remember that it was 80F on Thursday.  Saturday of course turns out chilly and then as we are at the park setting up it starts pouring.  So change of plans, no preparty.  Instead we met at the fire station.

I had my concerns.  Our group was pretty young, the oldest are in Kindergarten, and I’ve been on tours with other groups of kids that were a little academic.  Luckily, the firemen were great.  They pretty much let the kids run amuck.  On the trucks, in the trucks around the garage.  It was great.  The kids had a good time and even came away with some hats and stickers.

Ready for action.

New recruits.

We thought we might have to have the party in the back of our Subaru, but luckily it had dried out by the time we were done with our tour.  So we set back up at the park and had a nice little party.  Wesley opened more presents, blew out candles (even though it was too windy to get them lit) and ate cupcakes.  All in all it was rather nice and much less stress than our usual birthday celebrations.

He didn't notice they weren't lit.

More goodies.

After the party we played with his new toys.  And for no real reason took turns dressing up in his new chef’s outfit.

Wesley is goofy.

Dad too.

And Jillian...

And Mommy too!

We didn’t forget that it was Wesley’s birthday on Wednesday.  We are just saving the big post for after his birthday party Saturday.  In case you can’t wait, here is a photo.

Even though his party isn’t until Saturday we’ve still had some fun.  He has opened a few presents and I came home from work mid-day and we all went out to lunch at Burger King.  Later in the day he spent some of his birthday money shopping with Amber and Jillian and got himself a stuffed orca among other things.