Southern Lights 2013

Another of our holiday family traditions is visiting the Kentucky Horsepark's Southern Lights display. As well as the beautiful lights, they have an awesome petting zoo and Santa. Because we generally visit Southern Lights Thanksgiving weekend (which also included Kennedy's birthday this year) we were able to include the Stiriz family and Uncle Chuck and Aunt Julie in this tradition as well as Uncle Dan, Aunt Dorothy, Heidi and Holden. It was a beautiful night and we had a wonderful time as always!

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McKinley's 1st visit with Santa - she did a great job and I think this picture is so sweet! Part of the reason she did so well is because she had her favorite bear from Aunt Arla to keep her company. 

 Jackson wasn't in the mood for pictures or cooperation (a real shocker, I know...) so we just got this super cute picture of the three girls with Santa. :)

 2/3 of the LaBar/Lueker clan

 Aunt Julie and Uncle Chuck with our sweet girls :)

 I love this sweet picture of Aunt Julie and McKinley looking at lights together

 The girls had the opportunity to pose with Frosty and the Nutcracker too :)

 Such a cute picture of Chaz and McKinley - he is so awesome with all my little guys! 

 The four big girls waiting for a train ride

 I'm not sure how it happened, but Tim ended up with basically all the kids in an itty bitty train car. The kids had a fabulous time singing at the top of their lungs and I'm sure Tim enjoyed the ride as much as they did. :)

 Charlie, Kelly, Aunt Julie and McKinley had a slightly less crazier train car (and probably ride too)

 Off they go! :)

 After the train ride we headed to the petting zoo to feed a wide variety of animals

 The kids also took turns on the adult camels

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Anna and Reagan

 Chaz and Jackson

 Kennedy and Heidi

 And Jackson finished off the evening in his usual delightful manner... Kelly just scooped him up and carried him along as he screamed at us. Oh how I love this challenging little boy! ;)

Thanks to the Stiriz, Cox and LaBar families for making our 2013 Southern Lights outing a memorable one! Looking forward to doing this with some or all of you for many years in the future and we especially can't wait to include our new cousin, baby Cole! :)

Macy's Santaland - NYC

Saturday morning, our fourth and final day in New York City, began across the street from our hotel at Macy's flagship store. We got there early so we could enjoy Santaland (all 10,000 sqft of it) and Santa before the crowds became overwehelming. I knew there was no point in trying to get Jackson to take a picture with the girls and Santa so we decided to take a family picture with Santa. I can't believe we managed such a great picture of everyone! :) 

 Santa and my sweet girls

 Hug!

 After our visit with Santa we went on a harbor tour to see and learn a little more about New York.

 It was pretty windy!

 We had great views of the city sky line and the Liberty Tower under construction

 Our last stop in NYC was the Empire State Building. None of us had every been to the top but it ended up being a really neat thing to do and a great way to finish off our NYC experience! I guess we were having a windy sort of day because the wind from the observation deck was crazy!

 Grand-Dad and his girls on top of the Empire State Building

 Grammy and Grand-Dad

 Tim and I with Missy K and Missy Reagan

 Another one of Grand-Dad's beautiful pictures

 The girls each had to have an Empire State Building sucker to enjoy on our way out of town. We also had to get a picture of one of the many beautiful Christmas displays that featured the Empire State Building on the ground level as we left the building.

I'm so glad we were able to see the Macy's Day Parade and Santaland with the kids. It's something I've been looking forward to doing since even before I had kids. Celebrating Kennedy's birthday at the American Girl Doll store and seeing the Lion King were also activities I had been looking forward to doing with children. All in all it was a great trip and we were so thankful to have Grammy and Grand-Dad along to assist us! While we had a great time in NYC I can't think what would ever possess anyone to actually live there! I also don't think I'll be brave enough to go back until McKinley is at least 5. It is just way too nerve wracking to keep track of multiple small children in such crazy crowds! So while we throughly enjoyed our NYC experience I think Disney cruises are more our speed. lol :) We had a great time, but we were perfectly happy to be headed south to one of my favorite cities in the world and a place we called home for the first 6 years of our marriage, Washington DC!