Christmas 2011

i know that this is a long overdue post. i am trying to catch up. i am way behind and i have a good reason which you will all see why in a future post. but, first things first...

i love Christmas! Christmas 2011 in the altop house was great!! i was scheduled to work so we sent our letters to santa a couple weeks prior asking him if he could come on the 26th instead. i ended up getting put on call and so we discovered when we got home from church that santa had come. because, even though we asked santa to come a different day, santa knew that i was home. santa knows everything! it was a great surprise for the kids and super fun. i still ended up having to go into work later on in the day, but atleast i got to enjoy all of the christmas festivities with the fam first.

the gift of the year was getting tickets to ride the polar express and staying at the lodge in williams, az. so the day after Christmas, we packed up and headed to williams. i love family trips. this was a smaller, shorter trip but still so much fun with all of the anticipation from the kids! here are some pics from the event.

waiting to board the Polar Express in the jammies of their choosing

arriving at the north pole, looking for santa.

and look who slept almost the whole way.

after our trip to the north pole, we went back to our room, watched movies and ate pizza in bed. the kiddos love staying in a hotel so the whole experience was a treat.