CHATEAU MABILE

Yours truly turned 26 on the 22nd of December. Whoa. Was 16 really 10 years ago? Is 30 really only 4 years away? Yep. Well, to distract me from the 24 hour mope-fest I had planned (normally I LOVE my birthdays but going over 25 and my kids growing so fast made this one hard) we decided to go downtown which is always fun! Our neighbors had told us about the cool Santa's work shop they have set up on the top floor of the Macy's so we decided to take the kids.

We had to stop in and take a peek at the tree in the grand hotel! Haha, this is Greg's hotel! This is his banquet space! He had been wanting Liam to come see it.

There was an added bonus that day, they had a mobile crane out in the ballroom cleaning light fixtures or changing bulbs. We had to drag Greg away from them. PS, do you know why hotels have such busy-printed ugly carpet? It's to hide the stains!

Priss and Dada in the skyway

You would have thought they were giving away toys or at least food at this thing from how crowded it was! We only waited in line about 5 minutes (this was a Thursday morning), but the lady behind us was telling us that by that night it would go down several floors and be at least a 2 hour wait. INSANE and not worth it. She said it reminded her of Disney World. We shoved Liam at the entrance and took a picture as fast as we could haha.

And then the nice lady behind us offered to take a family picture!

It was an animatronic thing. You walk through what amounts to parts of Santa's workshop. This year's theme (or maybe it is every year...we don't know) was "A Day in The Life of an Elf." People had their infants at this thing expecting them to give a rat's @$$. Ginny was okay in the crowd, but she kept switching between Greg and I. I think she thought one of us might feel safer haha. Liam thought it was cool. He was a bit freaked out at times, but then again...so was I!

Scampering woodland creatures with presents were a favorite. Greg and I had just watched a certain South Park episode the night before so we were not fans...LOL. Across from this were these singing trees...NOT COOL. They were just going "treeee. treeeeeeee. tree. treeeee-eeee." Super weird. We passed by quickly.

This was my favorite part. I loved Mrs.Claus' bakery. Liam liked the mailroom and the toy shop.

This was a neat thing that we will definitely take them to again next year (on a weekday morning for sure), but I think it would be even more awesome if there were live actors doing it. Any kid over 7 or 8 is gonna think it's lame-o for sure. Still, we enjoyed it and were glad we went. And hey, we only had to pay to park.

Hands down, Liams favorite part. Revolving doors at Dada's hotel.

I had been on a real Italian food frenzy lately and chose Olive Garden as my birthday meal. I'd have taken Taco Bell though if it meant no cleaning or cooking that day!

Sharing some of Dada's coke. Aren't we adorable?

They just might be as cute.

Oh it was a great day :)

Forgive this one. I wanted Maw Maw and Paw Paw to see the outfit I bought with some of the money they sent me. Let me brag for a second: I got that shirt, those pants, those shoes, another pair of shoes, another pair of jeans, AND a dress all for $53. Oh yeah...great birthday.