Scenes from Our Weekend | Breakfast with Santa

We had another busy weekend full of fun Christmas festivities.  This year, more than ever; I’m obsessed with doing all the holiday activities!! I love it!

I packed up the kids on Friday and we drove over to Fairhope, AL after I picked them up from school.  It’s about an hour drive and it was perfect because they both fell right asleep as soon as they got in the car.   We finally had some cooler temperatures come in, so the weather made it feel even more festive.  We met Matt in Fairhope and did a little exploring around the hotel we were staying in for the night.  We stayed at the Marriott Grand Hotel which was so nice and great for the kids.  It’s the first time we’ve all stayed as a family in one hotel room and I was a little nervous, but I thought it turned out pretty good!

Brody finally agrees to wearing a hat now and I love it!

this amazing gingerbread town display they had at the hotel…

I posted a photo on Instagram asking how families typically travel with kids.  Do you upgrade to a suite, put the crib/pack in play in the bathroom, or what??  We had a super early dinner (5:15pm) at the hotel and then it was time to get the kids back to the room and get ready for bed.  We were in a standard hotel room and opted to roll the hotel crib into the bathroom.  Madelyn goes to bed at 7Pm, so we figured that was our best chance of getting to enjoy our room without having lights and tv out.  I knew we would be in the room early, so I packed Matt and I a bottle of wine and the whole family some matching PJ’s which he hated of course :). I truly loved our little slumber party and looked forward to having us and Brody together for a fun movie night.  I even packed us some popcorn, but we were so full after dinner we didn’t eat it.

But, it sounded like the consensus for traveling with kids is to get a suite!!  Having the separate space for the babies really is so crucial.  It’s a shame that so many hotels totally gauge the prices on suites though.

Saturday morning we got up in the hotel and I definitely wish I had packed some bananas or a few breakfast snacks for the kids because our reservation for breakfast wasn’t until 9:15am.  Instead, we made the mistake of ordering room service which always takes awhile and is so expensive! I will definitely plan better next time.

We got everyone dressed and headed over to the Santa brunch which was in our hotel.  The hotel had the perfect outdoor space with lots of games (for older kids and adults to play) for the kids to run around and burn some energy.  We snapped some photos of the kids and then went inside for brunch.  The line for Santa was super long and since we had just had our photos with him last weekend, we opted to skip it!

We got home Saturday afternoon and unwind a little bit before getting bundled up to go to the downtown Christmas parade that evening.  We were just planning to go for a little bit because Matt and I had a Christmas party to go to that evening.

The parade took forever to start and we were at the end of the parade route, so we actually missed the whole thing.  We snapped some photos with a giant teddy bear and did our best to entertain the kiddos while we waited; but ultimately we just left early.  We had to get the kids back to meet the babysitter and then Matt and I walked to our neighbors house for a Christmas party.

Sunday morning was chocolate chip and banana pancakes, snuggles and jammies all day!! We had a total lazy day just relaxing and getting stuff done around the house.  It was nice to regroup!  We drank hot chocolate with way too much whip cream and capped the night off with a steak dinner and Frozen 🙂

Here’s to a productive week!! I can’t believe we are in the two week window ’til Christmas!! Hooray.

Linking up with Biana