Our Annual Family Santa Visit and Shopping Trip

We've unintentionally created a tradition of trekking up to Bellevue Square to visit Santa every year.  I think we've been doing this for the past five years!  We all just enjoy the atmosphere at this mall and we love the festive decorations.  It's so pretty and as you stand in line to wait to see Santa, you get to walk through his 'workshop' and as you look out the workshop windows you see Santa's reindeer (led by Rudolph) flying through the air!  Very cute!  After we visit Santa and put our requests in, we do our family shopping.  Wes and I team up with each of the kids and then we split up to shop for each other.  After about 45 minutes, we meet back up and switch kids and do the same thing.

I had to include this picture of Hayley... just thought it was super cute of her...

Another fun thing about going to Bellevue Square is that we get to see Snowflake Lane.  Each night at 7 p.m. there is a performance on the sidewalks with lots of fun, energetic music and dozens of live drummers.  The 'show' lasts for about 20 minutes or so and it ends with a 'snowfall'!  Here's Hayley posing with her very favorite animal in the world... PENGUINS!  She's been hooked on them for years!

After we finished our shopping we headed to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens to see the lights.  The temperature was a chilly 34, but we still had a fun time.  Thank you to my friend, Carmen, for suggesting this!  It was absolutely beautiful and just amazing to see what they did with lights!  If you're able to make it to Bellevue, I highly recommend this event!  Another bonus:  it was free!  (They do ask for a donation at the gate).

Another cute thing they do at the Botanical Garden is they give the kids a sheet of paper to search for about 20 different animals... Luke is amazing... he found 28!  :)

Here's our attempt at a Christmas card photo... not sure it's going to make the cut... actually not sure that a card is going to happen this year...