A Busy Saturday in December (December 6)

I'm going to break this post into 3 different sections: Santa, Party and Mankato. See, this day truly deserves to be broken up a bit, because oh.my.goodness. It was truly like 3 different days in one day, or at least it felt like it!

I know we used to tackle day like this before kids, no problem. But add in two little kids, and although the day itself was comprised of 3 very laid-back, workable chunks, we ended up spending the entire day on Sunday walking around like we had just run a marathon the day prior.

I digress...

So let's recap a bit, shall we?

Santa!

We started the day with a trip to work to our Christmas Open House, where the boys got to have encounter #2 with Santa. If you recall last year, Kendrick was happy as a clam, but Cashel was pretty terrified, so I had to hold him. This year, however, the roles had switched. I, once again, had to sit with them, but this time it was because Kendrick was terrified (granted, you wouldn't know it from looking at this picture).

We got there about 20 minutes early, and were thankfully #2 in line to see Santa, so we didn't end up having to spend 45 minutes standing in line like last year (hallelujah!) and spent a little more time exploring the plant, enjoying popcorn, cookies, getting some balloons, and beginning their training to take over Mommy's job :)

We really did have a great time at the open house, and truthfully, it would have probably been enough, in my mind, for an entire day's worth of fun (I told you I'm getting old).

Party

We got home around 10:30am, and Cashel and I had a birthday party for his little buddy Hudson (his mama and Mark and I work together and they're also our neighbors) to go to in town just 30 minutes later, so I got the gift wrapped up and we headed to the store to pick up a birthday card, and we made it just a tinge late. The party was at this place called "The Center" down on the square, and it was such a FUN place! Cashel had a blast (as did I), and I think we both left sore. Here are the few remotely non-blurry pics I have from the party. We could hardly even get the kiddos to stay still long enough to eat.

Here Cashel is with the birthday boy! Happy Birthday, Hudson!

Mankato

We actually ended up leaving the party a little early (we had planned to) to rush home in time to get Kendrick in his carseat before he fell asleep. (Unsuccessfully...we made it home about 2 minutes after he conked out in his high chair). We quickly loaded the boys into the car and made our way to Mankato for a fun afternoon. And, truthfully, it really was pretty fun. Well...after the HOUR long wait at Menards, anyways: Apparently giving Mark $118 in store credit to spend is a lot harder than giving it to me haha

I snapped this adorable picture of my boys walking in :)

We made a few short stops afterward (TJ Maxx, Michael's) before making our way to the Mall for a little bit to let the boys play in the play area. We, thankfully, didn't have a significant amount of actual shopping to do (by plan), so it was a pretty laid-back afternoon.

What wasn't so laid-back, however, was the wait at Grizzly's to get a table. We decided after about 20 minutes of waiting for a table with two VERY hungry and VERY squirrelly toddlers that we needed to leave, so we made our way to Culver's instead. I guess these are the "sacrifices" we make as parents of toddlers haha There will come a day when we'll be able to frequent places like Grizzly's again :)

One of the reasons we had decided on going to Mankato was to check out their huge light display (the largest in Minnesota, I guess) down at Sibley Park. And seriously - it is a VERY cool display. But it is VERY stupid to go on a Saturday night. STUPID. We waited an entire hour in line to drive the 2 miles to get into the park, and by the time we got in, it was well after the boys' bedtime, and they were cranky and tired, but AWAKE, so we all went and wandered around, and they really did great overall. Next time, we'd definitely go on a week night, though, to avoid the ridiculous line.

In all seriousness, we did really have a fun day, though. We certainly did pay for it the next day in tired, sore bodies, but we had fun! The boys were so well-behaved overall, and they LOVED it all :)