It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas...

9 days left until Christmas and we can hardly wait! We've been getting in the Christmas spirit with visits to Father Christmas, decorating our tree and house,special school concerts and shows, baking cookies and visiting Christmas markets! Riley officially finished school until 2012 on Thursday, but not before scoring a speaking part in her school's Christingle service and playing the part of a Christmas tree in the school's Christmas production. Here are her and her classmates as beautiful trees.

We also visited Father Christmas in his grotto at a Charity Sale, which did not go great. We learned that Brits do not plop their kids on Santa's lap for a picture, whether screaming or smiling, like us Americans do. People watched in horror as Lyla screamed and Wayne and I snapped pics, yelling, "Cheese!" Even Santa looked pretty afraid...

Our second experience with Father Christmas went much more smoothly. We took a Christmas Train Ride through the Cotswolds to see Santa and the girls loved it! The girls' friends Owen, Charlie and Chloe went as well and we all got to see Santa and enjoy mince pies (THE Christmas treat here in England...kids even leave them for Santa instead of cookies!) and tea. This time Santa insisted we not force Lyla to sit on his lap and so instead Wayne held Lyla and joined in the picture.

The girls enjoyed the train ride too...and posing in their pretty dresses beforehand.

The girls also enjoyed decorating our Christmas tree! The trees are really different here (much less full) but we bought one that looked sort of American...which may be why it was significantly cheaper than the others! ( : We picked it out and then it was delivered later (after the girls were in bed) so we had a lazy pj morning full of decorating the tree and making pancakes!

We traveled to Birmingham this weekend to purchase a seven seater used car (the Prius just isn't going to cut it when we have visitors) and stopped by the Birmingham Frankfurt Christmas Market, which was great! Despite the cold, rainy weather, we had lots of fun and found lots of yummy snacks! Lyla insisted on riding the carousel, which was absolutely beautiful but turned out to be very fast and scary! Overall, the market was really nice and we may try to visit again later this week when we pick up our new car!

Donut mouth!

Lyla spotted the carousel through this hole and insisted on finding it and riding a horsey!

Ignore Wayne's face and looks at these crazy pretzels!

We found it!

Can you see Lyla hanging on for dear life in the corner??

We are getting very excited for Christmas and are planning lots of fun things for the rest of Riley's school break! We will celebrate here in Cheltenham and then visit London the week after, before returning with GG and Gramps, who are visiting for three weeks! Stay tuned for more Christmas updates! We love getting everyone's Christmas cards and now have a beautiful display in our kitchen! Keep them coming!