Alpine Village Four-Peat

This is the fourth year in a row that we've been to Trinity Baptist's Church Alpine Village. The church transforms their gym into a village filled with all of these adorable little houses that offer the children a different craft to make, snack to eat or gift/ornament to take home. In addition there is a live Nativity, a "park" where the kids can play with snow, a puppet show and of course the opportunity to see Santa. Can you believe that all of this is free? Well, Isabella absolutely loves everything about it. And just for fun I thought I'd take you on a stroll down Memory Lane regarding our last four visits to Alpine Village:

~ 2005 ~

Our first visit to Alpine Village. Isabella was not even 5 months old yet and although she was a bit overwhelmed by all the noise, she was quite mesmerized with all the lights. Her older cousins on the other hand had a blast.

~ 2006 ~

I love her expression in this picture. Isabella was 16 and a half months old and instantly fell in love with this wooden horse. Sharing was not even in her vocabulary at this time so trying to get her off the horse while explaining that other children deserved a turn was pretty much a catastrophe.

~ 2007 ~

Yep, she's almost 2 and a half years old and definitely in charge. She knows she wants to ride the wooden horse, she kind of knows the concept of sharing, but she's totally unwilling to do so. Luckily she got over her huge tantrum when we distracted her with the other activities available.

~ 2008 ~

This was taken last Saturday. She's now almost 3 and a half years old. Once again the wooden horse is a big hit, but she's now old enough to remember all there is to do once you get past the horses. So she rode it for a while and eagerly let another kid have a turn so that she could move on to bigger and better things,...

Like for example, playing in the snow:

Playing in the snow is definitely the highlight of the entire event. Yes. Snow. In case you couldn't tell it's shredded plastic. It gets everywhere. And it's pretty darn close to impossible to get out of your hair. This, my friends, is the highlight of the entire event!

In previous years we have not been to see Santa for a couple of reason, the main one being Isabella's paralyzing fear of him, so we've gone to the puppet show instead. Well this year is a whole different story. Since she's now understanding the concept of Santa bringing gifts, she's all about seeing him, sitting on his lap and reading off her list.

Now, before you go and make a judgement on the following picture and me personally as a mother, please understand that I try to be the best mother I can to my children, but I am also a scrapbooker. How sad will Sam be years from now when he's looking through his scrapbooks and asks where his first Christmas picture alone with Santa is only for me to respond that there isn't one because he was too scared? No, we can't have that. So luckily I'll have this to show him instead:

Pitiful, isn't it? Poor baby!

While there I also tried to get a picture of the kids together for our Christmas card. Yeah, let's just say my efforts yielded unsuccessful results. But regardless, we had a great time on our Four-Peat visit to Alpine Village.