Parades, Parties, and a Weekend Milestone

This weekend was our busiest in a long time, with something planned for each day from Thursday to Sunday.  'Tis the season, I suppose.

Thursday evening, Addison & Mackenzie attended their first Christmas parade.  The past few years have been cold and rainy, and it just hasn't been ideal for us to take them out to it.  This year was pretty cold, but not unbearable, and the girls absolutely loved it!

My aunt lives very near the parade route, so as we did so many times during my own childhood, we hung out inside at her house until we heard the wail of the sirens approaching.  We walked down to the end of her street to take in the extravaganza.  A & M had lots of fun gathering candy, waving at the people on floats, and watching for Santa to come by.  Afterward, we made the short walk back to my aunt's and enjoyed a warm meal together.

First Christmas parade=success!

Friday, Jeremy and I had a "date" to finish our Christmas shopping.  We dropped the girls off with Jeremy's parents and had a very delicious dinner before heading to the most dreaded of all children's stores...Toys R Us.  I never go there, and actually I try not to shop there since a few bad experiences with Babies R Us when the girls were babies, but J was convinced we needed to go see what they had (translation:  he wanted to play with the toys himself!).

It was horribly crowded and took forever to check out (I was honestly in shock over the amount of toys some people were buying), but we survived.  We did find a wooden train set for the girls at a good price, as well as a play coffee pot, since they love to "make coffee" for us.

After that task was complete, we spent an hour or two wandering the shopping center, ending with coffee in the bookstore.  Just as we got in the car to leave, Jeremy's mom called and said Addison wanted to come home instead of spending the night at her house.  We weren't really surprised, since she has been very much a homebody lately, so we arranged to meet his mom and pick her up.

And thus, we accomplished the second "first" of the weekend:  Addison and Mackenzie spent their very first night apart from one another.

I will admit it...I was a little sentimental about the milestone.  My girls have spent each and every night under the same roof since birth (actually, since before birth, if you want to get technical about it!), so it was definitely a strange feeling to creep into their room and see only one bed occupied.

I think it was probably a good thing for both of them.  Addison got to spend some quality time with Jeremy and me, and Mackenzie got to have her NiNi all to herself.  The first thing Addison said on Saturday morning was, "Where's my sissy at?"  And when Jeremy brought Mackenzie home on Saturday afternoon, Addison was still asleep in her bed.  Mackenzie barged through the house, saying, "Where's my Addison?"

Ahhh, melts my heart!

I was originally supposed to attend The Nutcracker on Saturday evening, while Jeremy and the girls had a movie night at home.  Mackenzie was pretty attached to me once she got home, though, and she cried real tears and begged me not to go.  Who could deny a pitiful little girl asking, "Mama, will you stay home and watch a movie with us?"  Not this mama!  I decided time with baby was worth way more than the $30 I would be losing for the forfeited tickets, and we had a fun movie night at home.

Sunday was a flurry of church, baking, wrapping, and preparing for the Christmas party with our youth group.  It was a success, and I wound up with a dirty santa gift I actually wanted:

Jeremy, on the other hand, was not as lucky...though Addison & Mackenzie are having a ball with his gift!

How was YOUR weekend?  Is the holiday busy-ness in full effect for you too?