Simple Elegance

Back at the beginning of December I co-hosted a table at our churches annual 'Simple Elegance'. It is a fun event for women to support The Women's Ministries. There are about 50 tables that are adopted and decorated by different groups within the church. The "Caring Christian Mom's" group that I am apart of adopted a table and my friend Lisa and I co-hosted together. We choose our theme and decorate the table how ever we would like. Some tables are more simple and others are not! As a hostess, we are also responsible for providing a dessert too. It is an evening event with dessert and coffee. The ladies arrive, meet and greet, then tour all the tables, sit and eat desserts and drink coffee and then there is a brief message given. I really enjoyed it and just had to share not only our table, but all the others that were so neat!

Our tables theme was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". Lisa collects this theme already and I had the book and stuffed animal. We actually didn't spend a lot of money at all, which was so nice! I think I spent $15, including the dessert I made!

I have to give Lisa a lot, if not all of the credit. She envisioned Mt. Crumpit after last years event and saved this large Styrofoam block. She carved the block into the mountain and then wrapped it with batting.

The dessert I made. I was very happy with the results!

Our dessert plates for our table!

Lisa and me!

This was my seat. Notice the Who's around the base of the tree, again, Lisa's handy work. The china, including the white plates, coffee mugs and glass goblets are mine. ;)

Close up of Mr. Grinch.


And here are some of the other tables that I liked...

I BELIEVE!

After our failed attempt to see Santa at North Park (see previous post), I woke up the next morning (Christmas Eve Eve) with a determination to see him! I decided we had to go to our Mall around the corner, North East Mall (for those of you who don't live here, I am sure that might be confusing, but they are in different cities). It was not a tradition we had when I was growing up, but for some reason I'm drawn to taking the boys to visit Santa!

I have to say, meeting this Santa, for me, was a magical experience! He was extremely authentic! At the risk of sounding dramatic, again...It seemed like his eyes could see into your soul and his smile could soften the hardest of hearts. As I took my boys from his lap, he reached out a touched my hand and pulled me in towards him and said, "You have very special boys, I know that they have been good boys, because they are on my good list." And he said with a smile, "I know that they are blessed to have you as a mom." - I thanked him and as I turned I was trying to quickly blink away my tears! I wanted to turn back around and scream, "I BELIEVE!" It was just magical and at the end of it all, I am glad our attempt at North Park didn't work out.

Getting to see him for the first time!

High Five Santa!

A quick chat before brother joins in. Jonathan asked him for a Lion and Santa brought him one!

Yeah!

Ben is mesmerized!

This was the photo I purchased that they took. (I like mine better! :)

Another one of their photos.

Christmas at North Park Mall

The day we went to visit Michael at his work, I decided on a whim to take the boys to North Park Mall to see Santa. I heard some other mom's talking about how awesome their Santa was, so I had to check him out!
As I drove up to the Mall I saw people parking in the grass and walking from far away!! Aaaa!! I was thinking to myself, what in the world am I doing here??? But to my surprise a nice pedestrian waved me on to their front row parking spot - thank you random friendly person!!
All in all I am glad we made the trip! It was very memorable for both Jonathan and I! We will have to go back again, on a less crowded day next year!

Seeing the big fountain for the first time, and he said "I want to jump in!!!"

Ebenezer Scrooge Puppet Show -- Jonathan is recently potty trained and doing great, but I knew it had been a while since his last bathroom break and we needed to find one quickly! But after we walked inside we were immediately distracted by a puppet show that was just beginning. It was Scrooge and he was hilarious! Jonathan snuck onto the front row and as soon as the show began, Ebenezer started talking directly to Jonathan, he said, "hey you, in the blue shirt, how old are you?" Jonathan froze up and didn't really respond, I am not sure if he was scared or just being shy. But it was funny none the less! He picked on several others but came back to Jonathan again! ...then thankfully we made it to the bathroom!

Jonathan watching the Scrooge show.

Okay, so apparently there is a procedure that I am unaware of to be able to see this Santa Claus! As you can see he is pretty awesome...but this is as close as we got. Have you ever seen the movie "The Christmas Story"? Well, we lived out a scene from that movie. You know when the two kids want to go see Santa at the dept store and they see the line and they are like "hey, that's not too bad" and then this guy yells, "Hey kid, the line starts back here?" and the line is like a mile long - As you can gather, that is what happened to us. I saw like 5 people in line and my heart jumped! I thought, wow, front row parking, front row seats at the show and now a 5 min wait to see Santa...WORLD's BEST MOM! But that was short lived. We walked to the line and an official looking man approached and asked for our tickets. I knew immediately this was not good, so I said "No, where do I get ticket's?" and he Laughed...and my sinking feeling continues...long story short, I still have no idea how you get tickets, I swear the guy was still laughing at us as we walked away, I turned and saw the line off to the side and it was a mile long. So I quickly put a smile on my face and said, "Good news, we get to go wave at Santa!" but Jonathan wasn't buying it, he cried a little and kept asking me why he couldn't sit on his lap. Total bummer.

Our sadness about Santa was quickly forgotten when we found the train exhibit. I had heard about this and seen it on the news and I knew that it would go over well with Jonathan and boy was I right! It is a charity for the Ronald McDonald House!

Texas State Fair!

TownTown Tallas!

Grand Central Station

We discovered Thomas the Tank Engine! He is the blur to the right of his hand.

So he patiently sat there and waited for him to come back around...again and again.

Oh my goodness, then suddenly we discovered the Polar Express! And again, we were mesmerized and we waited again and again to see it pass by! I loved it. I wished my Dad was there with us!

"Look Mom! It's the Polar Express!!!" 

And again...

Spontaneous jump for JOY!

The White House!

Christmas at Hunt

As you may already know, Michael works at Hunt Oil. His job title is GIS Specialist, in short, he makes maps. Hunt is located in downtown Dallas in a relatively new building to the Dallas skyline. The construction on the building was completed in 2007 and Michael went to work there in 2008. The building it's self is gorgeous, sleek, modern, just plain cool, and it has won many awards. Inside there are so many details and beautiful things and artifacts. It is almost like going to a museum! So when Michael invited us up to have lunch with him, I jumped at the chance to go up there again! It has been since Jonathan was about 7 months, so 3 years! Jonathan has not stopped talking about visiting Daddy up at work, in "TownTown Tallas"!

I stole this picture from Hunt's website so you can see what the front of the building looks like. I can never get one of the front myself! The guy to the top right there is Ray Hunt, the CEO of the company.

This is in the lobby. A giant pendulum. It's hard to see what you are looking at, but the big brass thing is what is swinging. It's really neat in person.

The front desk. Giant Geode's behind them! (I love geode's, so I was impressed)

One of the neat features of the building is that on every floor there is a featured rock. This is Michael's floor. You can click on this picture to enlarge it.

Ben is hanging out in Daddy's office!

Michael and Jonathan checking out his computer and desk! (that is one of the map's that Michael made behind him)

We went upstairs to the top floor, where the cafeteria is located. They had a large train table set up! Look up, that is a Dale Chihuly master piece (the glass chandelier! I love his work)!

Looking down on the construction of the new park that they are building over the freeway! It is going to be so cool! They say it will be completed Spring/Summer 2012! So stay tuned! We will for sure go hang out with Daddy for lunch one day at the new park!

J is pointing all the cool stuff. The top of the building you see the most of is the Dallas Museum of Art.

Hey Ben!

The inside of the dome of the top floor! Very cool! - It was super crazy up there that day. It was the Thursday before Christmas and they were having a Christmas Luncheon. But we didn't stay for that, went to eat at Campisi's on Mockingbird, Michael and my favorite place to go.

Fossil's located in between the bathrooms.

Info on the above fossils.

This is the entrance...it is super secure. Looks like the FBI or CIA of something! :)

Very neat petrified wood.

The info for the above Petrified Wood. (click on the photo to enlarge)

Outside playing in the rocky river. Check out the giant Nutcracker!

The boys walking to the car...and another giant wreath!

Looking back at the building!