Lights on at the Zoo and More Christmas Happenings

One of our favorite Christmas activities is Lights On at the zoo. It's so atmospheric with the lights and the fake snow.

They had some new lights we hadn't seen before. This zebra was really cool.

Dancing tree lights.

Now you see them...

...now you don't.

They always have a great Santa. Jalen wants Captain America and Max Steel. He is going to be happy Christmas morning. Baylie changes her mind every time she thinks about what she wants. I'm worried about how she'll feel come Christmas morning. This is the third year in a row that this is the case.

Our favorite thing about this night at the zoo is roasting marshmallows to make s'mores. The kids have become pretty expert at toasting their marshmallows. They hardly needed any help this year.

In other news - we continue to add homemade ornaments to our little tree. My sweet friend Erin gave me a recipe to make cinnamon ornaments. I loved these because not only were they easy, but they smell amazing. Our whole house has smelled like cinnamon ever since we made them.

David is completely disgusted over the fact that I keep making the Texas ornaments upside down because I can't remember what the state looks like. Whoops!

Krystal Kringle has been up to her usual pranks and thanks to Pinterest, she's discovered some new ones.

I learned that if you boil pecans, they are easier to crack, so I boiled all of our pecans. We had a huge box full and I think it ended up being about five huge pans that I boiled.

And last, but certainly not least, we put Baylie's hair in extensions for the holiday. Twelve hours and 92 braids worth of extensions! She is very happy as she loves having long hair. It makes her giddy. I like it because it will be a lot easier to maintain over the holiday, especially when we travel.

I love Christmas. We are trying very hard to establish family traditions around the holiday. Those are some of my favorite memories growing up and I want to create similar memories for my kids.

Note: I wish Santa would bring me a camera for Christmas. I hate taking cruddy pictures with my phone!