Santa's North Pole Adventure at the Georgetown Loop Railroad

Andrew and I took the kids up to Georgetown to meet my friends for a train ride with Santa Claus! Oliver went on their Pumpkin Fest train this year with Grandma Judy and last year with us and Grandma Colleen. This was his first time doing the Santa's North Pole Adventure. Tickets were pricey, but they included a nice, long visit with Santa (complete with photo op), a jingle bell ornament for the kids, hot cocoa, a cookie, and a candy cane. We had a great time, but Oliver decided the train didn't go fast enough. 

There were many light displays along the loop. I guess they run a nighttime Holiday Lights train and have all of the decorations lit up. That would be fun to do one year!

Oliver adores Baby Grace.

Family photo!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

This past weekend was also the Georgetown Christmas Market. After the train ride, we went to town to enjoy the market. Georgetown is such a cute mountain town. It's a charming place for the Christmas season.

Black Friday and Small Business Saturday

Like many others, I'm unhappy with the fact that so many businesses have pushed Black Friday into Thanksgiving Day. I always enjoyed those two days fully, but, when forced to choose, Thanksgiving will always trump Black Friday for me.

We decided not to let it ruin our fun, so we went out as normal (for us) early on Black Friday. The first stop on our list was JC Penney for the free miniature snow globe. They opened sometime on Thanksgiving evening, but they advertised the snow globes would be given away at 4am on Black Friday. We got there at 3:45am, and the giveaway was in full swing! We got our snow globe and coupon and ran back to the car to Cabela's. Cabela's is new to Denver. This is their first Black Friday here! Their ad said they would be giving away free prizes to the first 600 people there before 5am. We pulled up at 3:55, and the line was long. Phuong and Aminta sprang from the car to the line while I went to park. The line was insane! It completely wrapped around the large store. Phuong held our place in line while Aminta and I went to count. Some parts were dark, but we estimated that we were about number #550 in line. We worried that wouldn't be good enough, as some people hold spots for family & friends to warm up in the car or to go use the restroom or get coffee or whatever. Still, at 4am, we had nothing better to do and decided to wait and see if we made it. At 5am, someone came around with a counter and told us we were about number #650. We wouldn't get a door prize. We decided the store would be way too packed to enjoy without the free gift incentive, so we left and went to Sports Authority.

Oops, I almost forgot. Here are Phuong & Aminta at Cabela's! They're going to kill me for this photo. I told them to look cold & miserable. Hehe.

Sports Authority did a double opening. They did a gift card giveaway on Thanksgiving evening, which I didn't go to, but they had another scheduled for 6am on Black Friday. We got there at about 5:20am, and there were just 2 people in line. The first 80 customers got a free gift card. When the doors opened, there were about 20 people in line. I won free $10--which I used to get some gifts for Oliver--and so did Phuong and Aminta's aunt. Aminta and her mom each won $25! We took our time shopping. It was about 6:30am when I went to check out. There was still an employee at the door, waiting to give out gift cards. I chatted with her for a minute, and she told me the other stores in Denver had given their gift cards away. She said the $500 gift card still hadn't been given out... implying it was one of the cards in her hand. Holy cow! I called Andrew and my parents and pleaded with them to go to Sports Authority. It's like a half mile from the house. I tried every trick in the book, including using birthday guilt (Black Friday landed on my birthday this year). They weren't having it. I couldn't believe they would pass up the opportunity. If they'd gone, I bet they had about a 1/20 chance of getting $500. Those party poopers.

From Sports Authority, we went to World Market. They had free samples of coffee and cookies, and they were also giving away free coffee mugs to the first 100 customers (we all got one!). After that, we went to Park Meadows Mall. We just missed their free pancake breakfast, but we entered their sweepstakes. Aminta ended up winning an American Girl pet set and book, and her aunt won a nice water bottle! We drove over to Furniture Row, as they were giving away free pillows to the first 50 customers there at 8am. The line was surprisingly long for it! I'd say there were about 20 people in line. Imagine our surprise when the doors opened, and there were no pillows or numbers or anything. An employee told us we'd have to go down to the Denver Mattress area, so about a dozen of us trotted off to make sure we got our free pillows.

Phuong is very excited about her free pillow.

We then went to Costco to get our free cookbook. They give out a cookbook to members every year on Black Friday. There was a Minnie Mouse book there that I knew Oliver would love. Phuong got it for me, and, in exchange, I gave her my free $10 coupon to Kohl's, which she used to get a Baby's 1st Christmas ornament. So, I indirectly got a free book from Costco for Oliver!

Stein Mart had a cool giveaway this year, too. I'd never been to a Stein Mart before. Their ad in the Thanksgiving paper was a scratch card. It said to bring in the unscratched card on Black Friday before noon, and an employee would scratch it off to reveal a free $10, $25, $50, or $100 gift. Mine was valued at $10. I picked out a wooden car toy for Jo that was originally $15 but 30% off, making it $10.50. So, i got a nice, wooden toy for under a dollar!

Here is my final loot from Black Friday, minus the free cookbook from Costco that I forgot to photograph. Everything below cost me about $2 total. Not bad!

Of course, we also can't forget about Small Business Saturday! I was a little disappointed that American Express changed the incentive from a $25 statement credit to $10, but I guess we can't complain about free money. Andrew went to a local toy shop and got a $10 board book about monsters that Jo will love. After the credit, it's practically free. I went to Ace Hardware and picked out little stocking stuffers for my siblings. After my credit, they're practically free, too!

Not a bad haul for the first round of Christmas shopping, ey?

Birthday Party at Boo at the Zoo!

Every year, the Denver Zoo holds an event called "Boo at the Zoo," where kids get to go dressed up and trick-or-treat. We decided to have the kids' party at the zoo this year during "Boo at the Zoo." It was so fun (and so exhausting). I think this was my favorite birthday party that we've thrown for the kids yet! And because we weren't allowed to bring in any outside food (with the exception of birthday cake), it was also the easiest party yet.

Oliver helped me bake cakes on Saturday. We made a chocolate round cake, and we made yellow cake pops, which I formed into pumpkins. The cake pops held up better than previous ones because I used a little extra frosting in them, but they were still pretty challenging. Out of a whole box of cake mix, I think we ended up with 20 usable ones.

Here's the spider cake we made! Joanna loves spiders (and monsters and pumpkins and dinosaurs). A few months back, I spotted a spiderweb cake on Pinterest. It was just a photo, but it was enough!

I searched high and low for a pumpkin cake pop tutorial and finally found one. Mine didn't turn out as nicely as the one I found, but too bad!

And I filled little goody bags with goodies and monster hats.

The next morning, we ran around like mad trying to get everyone dressed and ready to go. Oliver dressed up in his chef explorer costume, I was Lady Justice, and Joanna was Amelia Earhart. The costumes were great for a couple of hours, but then it got too warm outside for all of the layers. We had to ditch our costumes by the end of the day.

Parking at the zoo was a total... zoo! We ended up starting the party about half an hour late because people couldn't get there. Most had to park at the nearby museum or City Park and then hoof it over to the zoo. Oliver and Jo's Grandma Colleen & Grandpa Paul came dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2. They were basically celebrities! Everyone wanted their photo.

Oliver was excited to see everyone, but he was most excited that Baby Grace came.

The kids got to meet and pet some animals at the party.

And then we ate cake! Some of these photos came from friends & family. Thanks, friends & family!

Oliver really got into presents this year! Also, he seemed to fully grasp the concept that they were given to him by his friends. He tells me that Dominic gave him Thomas the Train!

Some more photos from friends:

There was a giant, talking pumpkin at the zoo! It was operated by a lady with an iPad, so it was really interactive. It would answer the kids and comment on their costumes. Very cool! Well, it was also terrifying for some children.

The animals were celebrating Halloween, too!

Each kid at the party got a token to ride the train or carousel. I'm pretty sure everyone chose the train. Oliver and Dominic were very eager to get on the train!

It was such a full, fun, and exhausting day! We had a great time, and it was really fantastic that the zoo handled basically everything. Oh, and on our way out, Paul & Colleen (err, Thing 1 and Thing 2) were stopped by Fox 31 News and interviewed about their experience at the zoo! Jo was in the interview, too, but not in costume. Unfortunately, it didn't air because of the World Series game, but I thought it was too cool!

A Baby Shower to Remember

We did it! Even with all the snow, the roads stayed clear, and the baby shower was a go! All those weeks of planning were worth it, as Aminta and I pulled off a wonderful shower to celebrate Phuong & Cactus's baby.

Aminta was in charge of the decorations and totally made everything look cute.

Here is our table display:

I love how my storks looked on the table! You can find the stork tutorial here.

One of the most hilarious mishaps was the fruit salad I made, which people dubbed the "alien baby." I'd found it on Pinterest (you can find that pin here). But, here's the thing: I don't like most melons. I've never bought a honeydew melon before nor a cantaloupe. In my mind, they were the same thing: melons that don't taste good. Ha! So, I bought a honeydew thinking it was a cantaloupe. The morning of the shower, I went to peel back the melon skin only to discover it was green! Oops. So here is the now infamous alien baby fruit salad:

I think my baby bump cake ended up looking cute! I joked that I should have tucked a plastic baby into the tummy, kind of like people do for King Cakes at Mardi Gras. You can see how I made this cake by clicking here.

Deviled eggs are some of my favorite treats. I scoured the internet looking for ways to make them cute for a baby shower. I ended up finding a pin on how to make hot dog babies in the deviled eggs. I don't eat meat, and, frankly, I wasn't sure how good deviled eggs would be with hot dogs on them anyway. So, I just made a few into babies and left the rest plain.

Aren't those little duckies cute? I bought a package of them to decorate the punch I made! I got the rubber duckie idea from Pinterest, but I didn't want to use the punch recipe. I based my recipe off of one from Allrecipes.com. I used two frozen pink lemonade concentrate cans, one two-liter bottle of club soda, and four bottles of sparkling apple juice. To make it foam, I scooped a couple pints of berry sherbet on top. It tasted like sparkling strawberry lemonade! I was so amazed at how delicious and cute the punch ended up! I used another tip from Pinterest and froze slices of lemon in water in a cupcake tray.

Aminta made these cucumber sandwiches that were soooo good. Seriously, I think I ate half of them. She added some herbs and spices to cream cheese, spread it over rye bread, and topped it with fresh cucumbers. Not pictured are some miniature cherry danishes she brought in addition to a beautiful vegetable tray with dip and hummus.

We hung the diaper wreath near the entrance. It got a lot of compliments! Everyone made me feel so appreciated for everything. In case you missed the tutorial on this diaper wreath, you can find it here.

Aminta made these cute "lollipops" for Phuong out of washcloths and baby spoons. She poked them into a sand pail & shovel and filled it with Easter grass. It almost looks like flowers blooming! That idea also came from Pinterest, and there's a tutorial with that pin.

This is the start of the gift pile. Pictured are the "lollipops" by Aminta, the diaper tricycle that I made, the blanket I made, and the giraffe I made. 

Aiiiee! They are so cute! Seriously, Phuong and Cactus are two of the sweetest people in the world, and they are going to make the best parents. They loved the giraffe and tricycle diaper cake, making all of my hard work absolutely worth it.

Here's a close-up of the blanket. The pattern for this blanket is free, so if you like to crochet, you can find it through this pin.

More decorations from Aminta!

The balloons were loved and coveted by all the children.

Here are my best friends and me, ready to get the party started!

Phuong greeted all of her guests at the door. There were new friends and old friends and friends she hadn't seen a few years. We all had one thing in common... we all wanted to create a special day to shower our dear friend with gifts for her baby!

Oh.my.gosh! This is me with my friends from high school! It's been more than a decade, but we agreed that all of us looked exactly the same. 

We had favors for our guests, of course! I'd originally planned on making these fortune cookie favors (and did), but they weren't big enough to hold candy!

So, a couple days before the shower, I was really feeling the time crunch. My supportive husband helped me cut out a couple dozen paper shoes, which I then filled with the candy that was supposed to have filled the fortune cookies. You can find the paper shoe pattern on the Michael's website, or on the description of this Pinterest pin.

I found this poem online.

For games, we had people guess the width of Phuong's belly. We also had everyone fold a paper crane to string up on a mobile for the baby. Actually, folding paper cranes was a lot harder than I expected! I'm glad a couple people there knew what they were doing and were able to help everyone else out.

Here's Jennifer helping me with my crane:

I was able to string up all of the paper cranes while Phuong opened her gifts. The cranes have a gap in the bottom, and I couldn't figure out how to string them. The knotted thread wasn't thick enough to hold up the crane. Sayaka advised me to cut out circles. Using a needle, I thread the string first through a crane, then through a circle, and then I made a knot under the circles. It worked like a charm! You can get the how-to for this paper crane mobile from my Pinterest pin.

Here's our finished mobile:

Everything was perfect. The food, the company, the decorations, the happy couple... It was wonderful! I couldn't have done it without Aminta. Aminta kept everything moving smoothly. She made sure gifts were opened when they should be opened, she had people fill out their addresses on thank-you cards, she wrote down who gave what gift. She was so organized and on-top of everything! I might have had fun decorating the shower and preparing the food, but things would have been stagnant without Aminta's expertise. Thanks, Aminta!

And here are a few random shots from the shower: