Lights for St. Lucy

First of all, a Stitch Fix update. I decided to go with my gut and send it all back. That's the end of the Stitch Fix road for me.

 

Anyway, onto Advent festivities. We didn't do anything for the two big Marian feasts last week. Well, we went to Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and read a great Tomie dePaola book about Mary. We read another great Tomie dePaola book for Our Lady of Guadalupe. Our parish had a posada celebration that looked really fun, but there was also a young adult "holy hour, happy hour" event that evening, so we got a babysitter and went to that instead.

 

But we did celebrate St. Lucy's Day on Saturday! We started the "light" theme off with the glowing light of screens - by heading to the mall for new phones. Both of our phones were pretty much dying as our two-year contract came up. Highly suspicious, don't you think? I upgraded to the iPhone 5 and Adam got a new Windows phone, which came with a Fit Bit, that lucky duck.

 

To reward the girls for being so patient at the store, we rode the Christmas carousel.

 

Claire loved it.

While Maggie was a little more apprehensive.

 

And, of course, no trip to the mall would be complete without a free sample at See's Candies, which Maggie is proudly sporting the results of.

 

After lunch and naps (aka frantic play kitchen painting for the grown-ups), we went to confession and had dinner at our favorite pizza place, Tutta Bella. We love that they give kids pizza dough to play with while they're waiting.

 

We ended the day with a trip to the light show at the Bellevue Botanical Garden. People don't decorate their homes with Christmas lights here nearly as much as in Texas, where we grew up. Although I suppose it's not terribly surprising that Texans are more into holiday decorating than Seattleites.

 

So driving around looking at Christmas lights would be rather underwhelming. Besides, small children can't see out of car windows very well anyway. This light show was perfect for toddlers because you get to stroll through the gardens, taking in all the colorful displays.

 

It was different from what we expected - there's no Christmas trees, reindeer, snowmen, candy canes, etc.
 

 I guess, given that they're a botanical garden, they decided to stick with what they know best - flowers, fruit, vegetables, and animals.
 

 

Claire especially loved finding all the purple flowers. We're constantly hearing "purple is my favorite color!" these days. She's also decreed that pink is Maggie's favorite color...

 

 

 It was a fun, inexpensive activity for little kids and I think we'll be back next year!