More Christmas activities

This weekend we attended a few more Christmas activities. It's wonderful how many fun FREE activities there are to do around here....as you'll see!

Saturday, while daddy was at a movie (Avatar, supposedly the most AWESOME movie ever according to Eric), Eli & I attended "Somersault with Santa" at the Gage Center. They provided a craft (which Eli quickly bypassed), obstacle course, MASSIVE blow up slide & of course, Santa! The Gage Center is a gymnastics studio so the obstacle course was made up of mats, swings, balance beams, & slides:

See the big, tall slide? See ALL the kids climbing up the left side in a huge mob?? Well, Eli had no fear climbing up with all the kids, big & small, & slid down so fast I couldn't even get a picture taken. He liked it so much he immediately ran over to do it again. This time, though, there were more big kids who were making the whole slide (it was a blow up slide) bounce & shake. I literally lost track of him amongst all the kids & finally saw him at the top crying & calling my name. I tried to encourage him to slide down (the quickest way off the darn thing) but I don't think he could see or hear me so he climbed the wrong way down the ladder side crying the whole way. Poor guy:

I then thought maybe seeing a nice friendly Santa would help him feel better. But, as with Santa #1, he wanted nothing to do with the guy. He did enjoy the candy cane he was given, though:

Spur of the moment, we decided to take Eli to Union Station to see the model trains. He really enjoyed this:

We then checked out the line to the "Holiday Train", a train with 6-7 cars decorated inside for kids to venture through, & of course, see Santa. The lead train was a "Thomas-like" train with a face. Unfortunately, the wait was an HOUR so we decided to try again next year. We didn't tell Eli about this so thankfully he wasn't disappointed. Next we ventured to Crown Center to see all the decorations:

...and brave the cold weather to play in the wooden cars/trains:

This morning we went 45 minutes early to Bass Pro to wait in line for Santa. We went last year & were impressed by their Santa (VERY real looking) AND the free 5x7 photograph! What is nice, too, is everything in Bass Pro is exciting for a 2 year old so they are easily entertained during the wait. Here is Eli watching a boy play with a remote controlled truck:

Another train set!:

Well, we can pretty much sum up this year as "I want nothing to do with Santa" for Mr. Eli. Try #3 resulted in the same:

This Santa has obviously been doing this awhile as he was very gentle with Eli & even said I should sit in his chair & he would stand next to us for our picture. See how Santa is holding his finger to his mouth? Too cute:

And of course, Eli finally cracked a smile when Santa offered him a candy cane:

Also last year we took pictures of Eli exploring the Christmas tree:

Here's how Eli felt after getting in the car to leave....I think he is DONE with Santa this year, don't you?:

We'll be spending Christmas home this year. Christmas Eve will be just the 3 (or 4, with baby :) of us & Christmas Day some family will join us. I'm sure I'll post several times about the festivities. Oh, & tomorrow because it will be 18 weeks for this little one twitching around inside me as I type :)