We visted Santa!

This morning, we went to the Cherry Creek mall in Denver because we heard there was a neat Polar Express train display with huge snow globes inside. We also heard Santa would be there. We got there and the line to see Santa was two hours long--Santa had a lunch break in there too to go feed the Reindeer. But, when we finally got to see Santa, he and little man had a really good conversation. We forgot to bring his letter (see the last post), but D was able to remember it all and Donovan came away from it very happy. He kept saying "I can't stop smiling".



They also took a family picture "on the back of the Polar Express caboose". A little cheesy, I admit...but still cute. Don't be surprised if this one shows up as our Christmas cards!

Christmas time in CO!

This past week, it snowed about 8 inches here. It's so beautiful! The snow on the foothills is breathtaking. With all the snow on the ground, it's beginning to feel like Christmas time to me. We've started listening to Christmas music at work, and it's really putting me in the Christmas spirit (and driving my coworkers nuts!).

The kiddo wrote his letter to Santa today:

It reads "Dear Santa, I have tried to be a good boy this year. Can I please have: Star Wars Figures, a plastic motorized train diesel 10, Pictionary, Jenga, Mouse Trap, I Spy Eagle Eye, Insaniquarium Deluxe. I will leave cookies and milk. Love, Donovan". We've been doing a family game night, so I think that's why he's asking for so many board games. He's tired of the same old same old.

We're looking forward to Christmas!

Back from Thanksgiving

We traveled to Missouri for Thanksgiving. A friend of mine got married in St. Louis, so we thought this was a good excuse for a road trip. Overall, the trip was great! The wedding was beautiful (here's a picture):

We spent a few days in SEMO with Aaron's side of the family, then we headed to SWMO to see mine. We ended in COMO and visited with friends. By the end of the week, we were all ready to go home and sleep in our own beds.

Clone Commander Rex goes Trick-or-Treating

The kiddo dressed up like Clone Commander Rex for Halloween. For those of you who don't know who that is, it's one of the clone troopers from Star Wars. That's two Star Wars costumes in a row for us (he was Darth Vader last year). Here's a couple pictures:

We started trick-or-treating about 6:30pm. We trick-or-treated down one side of our street to the street of one of his friends. There was a haunted house on that block that we walked through (and it was SCARY, but they toned it down for the kiddo and there were no nightmares last night). We went down that block and came back towards our block.

About halfway home he decided he should start doing a "trick" for his treat. Grandpa has been teaching him jokes and he decided that would be a good trick. So, he started telling two knock-knock jokes--one was "Boo...Boo who?...whatcha crying for" the other was "Ice Cream Soda...Ice cream soda who?...Icecreamsoda whole neighborhood can hear me!" and the other was "why did the clown go to the doctor? 'Cause he was feeling kinda funny". Those were the only ones we could remember. Anyway, in general the people answering the doors thought they were funny.

We quit trick-or-treating around 7:30. Kiddo wasn't feeling well and I think he was just exhauted. He had a blast handing out candy to kids at the door. We ran out of candy a little after 8pm and he was having so much fun, he wanted to give out his own candy (which he didn't have much of considering we didn't trick-or-treat long).

Overall, a fun night!

Halloween, DICKSON style

We carved some pumpkins for Halloween. We had a BLAST doing it too! D-man did a skull and cross bones, hubby did darth vader and I did John Mccain and Barack Obama. We're having a hard time getting a good photo of them all lit up. We'll keep trying and post when we get a good one. Until then, here's the kiddo with the pumpkins on the front porch:

Here's a shot of the pumpkins along with the spider web on the wall and the lights in the front window:

Happy Halloween, ya'll!

Little Man, Karate Master

The hubby and I decided that the little man needed some more physical activity, an additional way to make friends and an opportunity to learn self-control and discipline. So, we enrolled him in Taekwondo. It's really close to our house and there are a few kids from his school there that he already knew. Thursday was his first day.

His "nice" look.



His "mean" look.

He had a blast in the class and was eager to come home and practice. Needless to say, Friday morning, he was very sore. When it was time to go back to class today, he was a little upset that he would be sore again. I promised him that it wouldn't happen this time. Here's hoping he doesn't wake up tomorrow and prove me a liar!

I love you Thomas!

Last week I bought tickets for the fam to go to the "Day out with Thomas" in Golden. They have a life-size Thomas train that pulls cars you can ride on and lots of activities for the kiddos to do. We went to one in Branson several years ago and the kid loved it. We decided not to tell the kid what we were doing, just that we had a surprise for him.

We got up early this morning and headed down to Golden (about an hour drive) and got there around 8am. The kid's getting too smart because after we parked, he read a sign that said "Bus to Thomas" and he put two and two together and FREAKED OUT.

We rode Thomas (the scenery was beautiful from the open car):

They also had several large electric train tracks set up that the kid liked.

We met Sir Topam Hat:

And since this was at the Train museum, they had LOTS of old trains that we could climb around and on:

And now for the title of this post. The kiddo kept saying, "This is the best day of my life!", which I thought was really sweet. But, at one point Thomas drove by:

and the kid screamed "I love you Thomas!".

He had a wonderful day and we had a great day watching him enjoy it.