This morning we had our town's Christmas parade. All of the nearby towns have one too, so every year there are three different ones we can go to in a 20 minute radius of our house and we have never gone to a single one! This morning Anthony was out fishing, so I was debating whether I wanted to take the boys by myself. I am so glad that I did!! We had such a blast. The parade route was right at the end of our street, but since our street is so long I decided to drive to the end of it and then get out to find a spot on the sidewalk. James brought his wagon to sit on, but once we got there he just wanted to sit on the curb. It is a good thing we brought it because he needed something to carry all of his loot! I had no idea that every float throws candy/stuffed animals/t-shirts out to the crowd! I should have known something was up when I saw all the kids around us prepared with big bags ready to be filled :)
James didn't want me to take pictures, but then he got dirt on his hand and thought it was funny and wanted me to take a picture of it.
Both boys did so well! I was really impressed, Rett didn't cry once, not even when all the sirens on the fire engine went off. James waited very patiently for over 30 minutes for the parade to start and did very well sitting next to me for the majority of it. Towards the end of the parade and after several pieces of candy he started to get a little rowdy :)
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
High school marching band:
1st piece of candy for the day. There was many more after this :)
This Sheriff car was pretty cool. A sign on the back says that it was confiscated from a drug dealer:
This float was blowing snow out of a snow machine. Our only snow experience this winter:
Peppermint face!
So this picture is kind of funny. I was taking a picture of these guys doing circles with their motorcycles, and right as I was taking the picture the motorcycle in the far back fell over! I totally wasn't trying to take a picture of him falling down, I promise! :) His buddies and a few other people rushed over to try to help him get up and get his motorcycle back up. Once he got back on, everyone clapped and cheered for him. I hope he wasn't too embarrassed.
While this was going on, the parade stopped and there was a large empty space in the street right in front of us. James decided that it was the perfect opportunity to run out in the street and imitate the motorcycles by running around in large circles. I had to run out there and grab him and pull him back! He had to sit right next to me for the rest of the parade.
A really cool army truck:
After the parade we took our loot and walked back to the car. Rett didn't even cry in his car seat the entire drive back to the house. That is a huge deal!! Even though it was only for a few minutes, usually you can't even get the buckles strapped without him screaming his head off.
We got home and had some lunch while we waited for Anthony to get home from fishing. Both boys took a good nap (another reason I am so glad we went to the parade!) and then it was time to get ready for our ward's Christmas party. Recently we haven't had much luck taking the kids anywhere after 5pm. The crankiness has been too much to handle, so I was a little hesitant about how this was going to go. Luckily everything went great. A sister in our ward wanted to hold Rett while we got our food and James did real well waiting in the long line. After dinner, Anthony and I both walked around visiting with everyone we never get to talk to on Sundays. I didn't see James, so I asked Anthony where he was. He said he was running around the church with some other kids. Unattended... I decided to go look for him to see what he was up to and guess who found the unmanned dessert table in the young women's room? Oh yeah. He had a cookie in his mouth and chocolate on his forehead :) I told him Santa was coming and that he needed to go back into the cultural hall and he grudgingly went with me. After Santa came in and sat down in his chair by the Christmas tree, James turned around and went out the door back towards the desserts. Cookies trump Santa I guess! After we all had dessert we finally convinced him to go sit on Santa's lap. He did great. No crying and he even told him what he wanted (a bike and a helmet).
Rett sat on Santa's lap too, but all of the pictures turned out blurry :(
Then Santa offered to have all of us sit on his lap. So fun! James couldn't look at the camera, he was all about the candy cane :)
Don't you just love this time of year?!
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