The Burrus Family: A Fun Holiday Weekend

After the ice storm scuttled my Christmas plans the weekend before, I was determined to really get into the holiday spirit the next weekend. We had lots of activities planned and it ended up being SO much fun.

First, John Charlie arrived to tell us that Santa had come to the Arboretum with Mrs. Claus and they wanted to invite us to breakfast!

Daddy got pulled into work to do some interviews that morning, so we convinced Ahh (who was in town visiting Baby Elle) to come join us. We were so glad she did, as it was such a fun morning!

Here we are getting ready for our breakfast.

Our breakfast/lunch consisted primarily of cookies...

Look who dressed up for Santa! She loves her "baby Jesus dress," her gold shoes "like Mommy's," and her "necklace" that "Caga gave."

Eagerly watching Santa...

Before we went over to chat with Santa, we got to read some stories with Mrs. Claus. Charlie, our little bookworm, totally took over the story time session. He wasn't a fan of the Elmo books that the little kids were requesting, so he straightened Mrs. Claus up and got her reading some better stories. He was quite directive and I think would have had her on a strict reading/no visiting regimen if we hadn't finally yanked him away.

Evie preferred to watch from a safe distance.

Finally, Santa! Charlie was so excited to see him again, and got out his wish for a bike with pedals AND training wheels (whew!).

Although she really wants pouches and cookies, Evie still wasn't so sure about sitting with or talking to Santa. So Mommy decided to get in the picture with her, which kind of helped, but she still looks fairly miserable. :)

After Clint got home, we decided to spend the chilly afternoon walking around the Dallas Heritage Village. They do the cutest historic Christmas celebration, and the kids loved all there was to see there.

First off, "Ebie's horsies," pulling a real carriage!

As you can see, they were both entranced...

Unfortunately for Miss E, she can't escape Santa anywhere. An old-fashioned "Father Christmas"/"St. Nicolas" was waiting for us at the Heritage Village. Charlie was thrilled to chat with him and collect another candy cane.

Evie is beginning to get used to the whole situation, but is determined not to like it. Daddy coaxed her over there, but she went completely limp and vacant. Her eyes wouldn't look toward Santa, and it seemed very much like Evie's body was present, but no one was home inside...

[Note: I tried to get Evie in a Christmas outfit, but she was not having it that day. She just wants to wear PINK.]

Next up was the train exhibit. The kids could have watched these model trains chug around the little village all day. They are so fun!

We got to hear fun Christmas music...

...and then took a hayride!

After the hayride, we went down to the campfire to warm up. There was a group of kids hanging out down there, and Mr. Social Butterfly immediately jumped into their game. His first introduction to them was this tackle:

Evie preferred to warm up with Daddy. :)

After a few minutes, they were fast friends and we had a hard time pulling Charlie away.

They would come warm up and strategize for a minute, and then run off to continue wrestling and tackling. Charlie was quite thrilled with it all!

After we got home, we got into Christmas pajamas and settled in with the Rudolph movie. We all found the Abominable Snowman pretty scary, but luckily he became nice at the end. The movie was a big hit!

That generous little John Charlie had another surprise for us the next morning. We awoke to jingle bells and a note that he had planned a carriage ride/holiday lights tour for us. We were pumped!

We met up with the Stoltzes and Gannons for the carriage ride. At dinner, prior to the ride, Charlie and Brad got into several interesting discussions. One that I overheard began with Charlie telling Brad, quite matter-of-factly, "Brad, I can't really see your eyebrows that well." Brad was a little thrown off by this and started wondering if there was something wrong with his eyebrows. But always the bigger man, he retorted with, "Charlie, I can't really see yours that well either!"

After that fascinating dinner conversation, we rushed over to our carriage ride. Our horses were so awesome and it was such a fun evening.

Blythe and Charlie brought lots of holiday cheer to our wagon. There was a lot of "1, 2, 3, MERRY CHRISTMAS!" being shouted to everyone we saw, some Christmas carols sung, and lots of discussions about the lights and decorations we were seeing. At one point, Charlie laid down in the wagon and when we asked what he was doing, he told us that he was "hiding from the white lights because my eyes only like the colorful ones." Apparently the Highland Park light displays were a little too tasteful for Charlie!