It's Beginning to Look ...

A lot like Christmas! And it feels like it too! Brrrr! We've officiall decorated the house .. and just maybe it's enough inspiration to actually share a home tour (mayyybe).

And last weekend we spent the weekend in French Lick with my dad's side of the family celebrating Christmas. It was the most magical, fun (insert all the great words) here weekend!
The kids and I arrived a few hours early and shared some Diet Coke and carrot cake with Papaw.

The we put on our matching PJs and headed to board the Polar Express! While waiting to board our train car we wrote letters to Santa (and I was super surprised at the kiddos requests!).









We picked out our spots on the train and settled in to make our way to the North Pole.



Lainey is still boycotting photos :)

Well, sometimes.

The whole ride is about 1.5 hours and you head through the Indiana forests. There are dancing and singing elves that entertain you, and serve you cookies and hot chocolate.



Once you make your way to "The North Pole" Santa boards the train and the kids go CRAZY! They're so enamoured with the whole to do!

After we arriving back to home base we wrapped the night with way too much pizza and bowling!
 
After the kids got a (ahem) full night's sleep, we had a big ole breakfast and then headed to watch the choir carol in the atrium of West Baden.






Then the younger little's took a quick nap, the older ones got ice cream and we made our way to ride the ponies!!





Lainey was EXSTATIC and rode Trixie.



Bennett patiently waited for his turn and was atop Sam.



After we had our fill of the ponies we headed to view the grounds and once again visit with Santa. Trolley rides were everyone's favorite.



And we wrapped with a grand finale dinner at Hagen's on a spectacular golf course view. And let the little's open a few gifts in the atrium before calling it a night.





It was the very best start to the Christmas season and we can't wait for more celebrations this holiday! A special thank you to my parents for planning such a great getaway and giant hug to all of my family members that's shared in all of the fun memories with us!!

Turkey Recap

Yowza! Is anyone else already up to their eyeballs in The Holiday weeds?! We got hit with a nasty virus/bug/or something or other on Thanksgiving eve and it feels like we are just now crawling out of the nastiness. Mix that with busy season, fourth quarter work environment, and holiday hoopla and you've got typical hot mess Katie around here. Hence why I'm posting about Thanksgiving in the first week of December .... ayyyyiiiyyiiiii! Also - apologies for the formatting, I did this post from my phone and it's not working out too well :/

We had a great Thanksgiving week(s) though! The week before Turkey Day we had a wedding to attend for one of Shane's buddies and it was good to see the whole crew.




Next up was a HUGGGE night and a Championship win for our boys in purple!! SO. MUCH. FUN!
And then our annual Galsgiving:)
Next up, we had little man's Thanksgiving feast at school. Which is always the cutest of days. Each kid brings their favorite thing for the class to share and some of the kiddos favorites are hilarious.
We had to make (another) quick trip to Nashville -more on that later- and this time took the kiddos with us. The weather was pretty great so we made a fun pit stop at Dinosaur World to break up the drive.

And shortly after we loaded up yet car once again to make the trek to Chicago for some fun Turkey day festivities.
 
Cousins table for the win.

We headed back to Louisville Friday and I had a fever the entire time (woof) which caused me to miss out on our final Turkey celebration Saturday ... but all in all it was another year in which we had SO VERY MUCH to be thankful for!