Carriage Ride

Country Club Plaza in Kansas City was designed in 1922 as the nation's first outdoor shopping center.  Bet you didn't know that!  The Plaza has great shops, restaurants, and lots of fountains and artwork.  During the holidays, all the buildings have Christmas lights and beautiful decorations, so we decided to take a slow, leisurely carriage ride to take in all the sights.  Lauren's been staying with us and my parents drove up from Wichita, making it a family affair.  Too bad Zach's had to miss all this fun while he's in Germany for work!

The boys loved riding in the carriage and looking at all the lights.  Our horse's name was Bob, but they didn't seem to pay too much attention to him.  Dan was too busy hanging over the edge and Ben just wanted to stay warm and cozy.  It was actually not too cold out, maybe about 45 degrees or so.  After the ride, we had dinner and then my parents brought the boys home and Lauren and I walked around and window-shopped (and picked up dessert from The Cheesecake Factory, of course).

Dan's Christmas Concert

On Monday, Dan's class (and the other morning preschool class) performed a selection of Christmas songs for parents and friends.  They all did a great job!  Dan had been singing all the songs non-stop for a few weeks, but the day of the concert, he decided to let the other kids have a chance to shine and he just did the hand motions.  I kept mouthing to him, "Sing! Sing!" but he ignored me, as usual.  Oh, well--he was still the cutest one there, in my humble opinion.  (I was also glad that I got to reuse part of his adorable ring bearer outfit from last summer.)

 

Pics with Santa

After all the fun of cutting down the Christmas tree, I had to do some serious bribing (cookies were involved) to get Dan and Ben to sit with Santa.  Luckily, no one else was waiting in line or even the best bribes would have been unsuccessful.  They both sat nicely and told Santa just what they wanted (Hiro the train for Dan and Scruff the train for Ben).  I'm just glad that Ben got near him because he usually has an intense hatred of men with beards.  I guess he could tell that this beard was fake and, therefore, nothing to be scared of.

Proof of a successful visit with St. Nick:

Cutting down the Christmas tree

Since Zach's out of the country for work, the boys and I high-tailed it to Wichita for the weekend.  We all needed a change of scenery (and two extra pairs of hands were a nice bonus because Dan and Ben are wearing me out!).  As an added bonus, we went to Prairie Pines to cut down the Christmas tree for my parents' house.  The weather was really nice--chilly but sunny and not windy at all.  Pretty much a perfect Kansas winter day.  

Dan insisted on carrying the saw the whole time but he was closely supervised, so please, don't call CPS on us.  It was fun to walk around checking out all the different kinds of trees.  Ben was in a grumpy mood but we mostly just ignored him when he was at his whiniest.  Dan had a great time and I'm sure Grandpa appreciated all the help when it came to actually cutting down the tree!  

(I'll put the Santa pictures on tomorrow.  Stand by for cuteness overload!)

Leavenworth Christmas Parade

Last Friday, Dan and Ben experienced their first parade!  We drove the four blocks or so to downtown Leavenworth for the annual Christmas parade.  It was probably only 10 or 15 floats/bands/horses long but the boys absolutely loved it.  Dan said his favorite part was the old-fashioned police car with its funny horn and I think Ben really liked the carriage with Santa (despite his aversion to men with beards).  The next day, Dan would just randomly say, "You know, Mommy, I really loved that parade."  Mission accomplished!

Christmas trains

My mom came up for a few days this week and I took full advantage of her help by dragging all of our holiday decorations down from the third floor.  The boys loved seeing all of the ornaments and stockings and lights.  And they really loved that Grandma could finally come with us to Union Station and Science City!  We headed down there on Thursday and had a great time.

The train station was decorated for Christmas with huge trees, lights, and a giant miniature train display,  in addition to the normal model train room where we spend so much of our time.  Dan was brave enough to ride the train by himself after Ben opted out at the last minute.  Thursday morning was a perfect time to go because we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  We also went to Science City to show Grandma all of our favorite exhibits--the dinosaur digging area, the block building area, and the KC Rail Experience (of course).  We can't wait until Aunt Lauren comes in a week or so and we can do it all again!

Making "snow" in his hand (just to prove that we did something "science-y" at Science City).