Life and Times of The Johnston family: Festival of Trees....Decorating, Opening Night and Trip With Kids and Nana.

Monday morning bright and early....way early, I got the kids up and ready after getting myself ready and packing the kids lunch and snack. My dad drove us to my dear friend Ruth's house who kindly agreed to watch them for me. Then we came back loaded everything we needed into the van and my parents and I drove to South Town Center to decorate our tree we named Moose Brother Computers in loving memory of Eric, as we did our best to combine two of his favorite things, moose and computers. We are really starting to get too good at it because it only took us like 3 hours to be completely done! In fact we were the first to check out!! We really liked how it turned out too! We stopped by Hires Big H on the way home for some delicious lunch. The next night one of my good friend's daughter came and watched out kiddos. She is absolutely AMAZING!! It is definitely no easy task to handle out kids and their given challenges but she makes it sound easy! It helped a lot that they adore her, and she has 4 siblings some of which have very similar challenges, so she's very knowledgeable on how to deal with them. My dad drove me to Jen's house where we picked her up, then we picked up my mom from her work and met Tony there. Tony, Jen and I found our tree first, then wandered the large trees, until we were ready to take a break and grab a plate with a roll sandwich veggie of some sort(I honestly can't remember) and a brownie(THAT I remember ;) ) Then we wandered and looked at the rest of the large trees. We went through the gift shop and picked up wooden sign I loved that has a simple picture of the nativity under the words O Holy Night and a nice star. We picked up a little stocking filled with treats for the kids at the sweet shoppe. My parents bid on and won a sleigh center piece. We waited for my mom to get her pecan log she always gets there then we went over to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner, which was great! Friday my mom took the kids and I, Jen and Daniel there. First thing we did was make an appointment to see Santa as Devin does NOT wait in lines well at all....he had a hard time waiting at all, and had to be held by me until we came upon an amazing giant ball run that entranced him. He finally let me put him down and watching the balls go round and round really helped calm him. He then walked with us and looked at some of the trees until it was our appointed time. He was so excited to see Santa! He didn't really listen to what Santa was saying to him and didn't answer any of his questions but he did blurt out importantly that he would like him to bring him the "Paw Patrol rescue center"(as he calls it) and all the pups. Oh and he stated very matter of factly that he was trying to be good. They managed a great picture of him on Santa's lap. Lizzy was very cute with him and very kindly asked him for a Barbie doll house. She too got a very cute picture, they also got a picture with all of us. Then it was off to the kids corner. My mom got them tickets and first took Lizzy who was looking forward to making a stuffed animal for a sick child in the hospital. Devin got a Christmas wand while we waited as did Daniel so they naturally had some good sword fights. ;) Then we were off to the big bubble maker, then my mom took Lizzy around while I took Devin who painted an ornament got a whistle from the giving tree then went back to the bubble maker. Lizzy made a sand layered necklace, wrote a sweet Christmas card for her daddy, went to the giving tree and got a little flute which she kindly gave to Daniel when he just got a pencil he wasn't too thrilled about. Then she got a cute Christmas tattoo on her cheek. Once all the tickets were spent we went and looked at a few more trees, and while Jen and I took the kids for a potty break my mom got delicious cut apples with caramel...Devin had a granola bar I had brought. Then we went to lunch at Iggy's, they had the best hot chocolate!

These are some pictures I took when we took the kids to the Peanuts Movie some time in this time frame. (I think)