holidays are here part 2

Brace yourselves for picture overload!

We had a fun time in December trying to cram #allthethings into the holiday season. It was Beau's first real Christmas that he could understand what was happening and enjoy the anticipation of the season so we lived vicariously through him and did as much as we could to make the most of Christmas time.

Mark always tries to save the bulk of his vacation time for Christmas so he took 8 days around Christmas off as well as a random Monday and Friday here and there so we could do a few things without the crowds. 

Check out my post here with what we did for the first half of the holiday season.

After an early nap one day, we headed north to Grapevine to check out the Gaylord hotel. Lots of people in the area flock to the Gaylord for their huge layout, awesome decor, and tons of activities during Christmas. We had no plans except to wander around the hotel and basically let Beau lead us. They had miniature trains so of course that was the main attraction for Beau and we spent an hour and a half just enjoying the decorations and checking out the trains.

Santa was also there but since we had already seen him twice, we just waved and kept on going. Beau was so happy to see his old friend Saint Nick!

We circled around and Beau waved to Santa again!

After our tour of the Gaylord we headed to downtown Grapevine, the self-proclaimed "Christmas capital of Texas" and had a nice tex-mex dinner on the patio (#texaswinter) and then strolled around main street looking at lights and their cute holiday set-ups.

We didn't have huge expectations but ended up loving the low-key atmosphere and the freedom to let Beau explore without too many crowds or a hefty price. They even had fake snow in one area and we loved it!

Over the next few days we spent lots of time in holiday outfits (duh) and drove around the area looking at Christmas lights (we went to the Interlochen lights in Arlington...pro tip: go early on a weekday, like 6:30! no lines!)

We thoroughly enjoyed evenings by the light of the Christmas tree...

...and I tried to get creative with the classic 'baby plus Christmas lights' photo. 

Mark had another day off work so we headed to the mall and Beau got to ride the carousel and play with the toys in Santa's workshop.

Mark got to sneak away to his sister's house while I had a baby shower and Andrea got some cute pictures of these cousins in their matching Christmas jammies!

We love holidays because it means our friends are in town from Miami! We had the Dallas Zoo lights on our calendar for a few weeks and were SO happy when it arrived with 70 degree temperatures. We headed towards Dallas after an early nap to enjoy the zoo for a couple hours before it got dark. 

Beau and Emma are 8 weeks apart and Luke and Davis are also 8 weeks apart (although they were due 10 weeks apart). We have so much fun together when they are in town!

Once it got dark, the zoo was lit up with tons of lights. They had a train, a saxophone quartet, and all sorts of fun holiday festivities to keep us busy for several hours. I LOVED it and although it was the first year for the Dallas Zoo, I hope they bring it back year after year so we can make it a tradition. It was so great!

Christmas Eve was spent at Sunday morning church and then a day at our house with my family. 

Santa came late on Christmas Eve but he delivered! Cars for Beau and friends for Davis!

Beau was super consistent with his requests to Santa and other people, always answering with "cars" no matter the day. Santa got the message!

Davis got some toys and a Jellycat animal just like his brother. Beau sleeps with 'doggie' every night after Santa brought him last year so Davis needed a friend too!

Christmas day started with sickness (me) and hives (Davis) but ended with a nice cozy night with Mark's family (where I took no pictures but a great time was had). 

Later that week, we had big plans for Holiday in the Park with my family. My sister gets season tickets to Six Flags and had enough extra tickets for us to tag along so we crossed our fingers for a fun time for Beau's first visit. He LOVED it, cried when we left, and has talked about it pretty much every day since. We live about 5 minutes away and seeing the roller coasters on almost every drive has been tough...season passes are in the works for this boy in the future!

Last, but not least, we closed out the year celebrating with my dad's side of the family in Fort Worth. We've grown so large that we had to rent out a high school gym for our get-together this year...but we always enjoy the time spent catching up with family.

We're NEVER able to get every single person of the family in the same state at the same time, but this was our group this year. We missed everyone that couldn't make it dearly but enjoyed our time with those that were there. 

Cheers to a great 2018!