A few December Adventures

December 1 was our church Christmas party.  It was breakfast with Santa.  I like morning parties a lot because they don't mess up bedtime.  And 9 times out of 10 pancakes taste better than ham.  Luke was excited to talk to Santa and tell him that he wants a candy fan for Christmas.  I expected Micah to cry, but while waiting in line he realized that Santa gave candy, so he went up to talk to Santa very willingly.  Micah liked Santa's beard.

One of the women Jared works with printed off an article from the newspaper listing Christmas activities around town, and she sent it home with Jared.  I marked off several activities and we had fun trying some of them out.

Amarillo Botanical Gardens had a free light display during the first week of December, so on Wednesday (the 5th), we went to check it out.  It was very pretty!  All the trees and other plants were decorated with lights.  There was a choir singing, and there was free apple cider.  The boys had a blast running along the paths.

 We are not starving and destitute, as you might think by this picture.  Luke just REALLY likes his "pants with a hole" and insisted that he wear them.

Micah liked the red lights the best.

It was pretty cold that night (Oh, the wind in Amarillo!) so the greenhouse felt really good after running around outside for awhile.  There was a big waterfall in there that the boys liked and lots more pretty lights.

 (in front of the waterfall)

We wished we could have stayed longer, but it was nearing bedtime and we thought Micah might not be warm enough.  Also, Micah hurt his finger pretty badly earlier that day (he stuck his finger in the vacuum cleaner when it was turned on,) and he had pulled off his band-aid during the trip.  We didn't want the scrape to get dirty and infected, and Micah was starting to get frustrated that we weren't letting him touch everything.  But it was a very fun evening.

Then on Saturday (8th) we went to the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum.  I had heard this museum was really fun and had wanted to go see it, so when they had a Christmas food drive on Saturday that allowed can food donations instead of an admission fee, we went to check it out.

There was an entire room of windmills!

And old cars

And little cars

We spent most of our time in the pioneer town at the old water pump.  I think Luke pumped water for about 20 minutes straight.  Well, he actually stepped away several times when another kid looked like he or she wanted a turn to let them try it out.  But the other kids usually pumped once or twice and moved on, and Luke could reclaim his spot.  Which he did.  Micah spent most of the time looking for staircases to climb.  

We went to look at lights one time.  I think the one and only thing I didn't like about Williamsburg was the disturbing lack of Christmas lights.  But here there are lights on many of the houses, and in the nice neighborhoods almost all of the houses are lit up and pretty.  The boys enjoyed that.  Micah would yell things like, "Gosh! Look that!"  He is becoming quite the play-back button, repeating whatever he hears.  He sure is cute!