"A TREE IN THE GRAND HOTEL"

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas,

Everywhere we go.

There's a tree in the Grand Hotel,

One in the park as well.

The sturdy kind that doesn't mind the snow. 

The day after Thanksgiving, the Grand America Hotel has their tree lighting ceremony and it's always super fun.  This is our second year attending.  They have free hot chocolate, and other fun things for kids.  This year we had my nieces Becca and Hannah staying with us so they got to come too.  Mike's sister's family was in town, so we took their little boy, Brennan, too.  He's Spencer's age and they are best friends.

Here are Melia and Hannah with the big penguin!  :)

 They had window displays representing Christmas all over the world.  Here's Mike with the Mexico one (because he served his mission in Mexico City).

 Family picture!!

 Melia loved the little dressing room in one of the shops.  It was so cute with a little toadstool table and chairs!

 The candy and toy shop was pretty awesome.  Spencer and Brennan loved the giant robot!

 I loved this gorgeous wooden Snow White doll.  (I LOVE SNOW WHITE!!)

 I love this man.  Those kids are pretty great too!

 Seriously...

 I loved all the old fashioned candy in La Bonna Vie, the Grand's candy and pastry shop.

 Becca is the best babysitter EVER!  I wish she could just live with me!

 My cute girl in front of the Christmas fountain!  (It kinda looks creepy!!)

 Ev loved climbing around on the fountain.

 All the kiddos at the fountain.

 Lovebirds at the tree!  :)

 Self portrait -- me and Hannah!

 Self portrait -- me and Becca!

 Becks put Ev on one of the big metal deer on the lawn out by the tree.  By this point we were the only people left looking around, so there was no one to get mad at us!  :)

 Evera thought he was so big riding on the deer.

 Then Spencer thought he better do it too!  lol!

 Then all the kids wanted to ride the deer.  Melia got one just her size!

 3 kids on one deer!

 Brennan's deer must've been a wild one!  ;)

 Becca looks a little scared!  Lol!

 Hannah lovin her deer!

 We had to get a pic of the kids with the big tree!

 How cute is that kid?  Even when he's eating his coat!

 After doing the events at the Grand, we headed downtown to see Macy's window displays.  They brought back the old ZCMI candy displays!  It was really fun to see.  All the stuff in the windows was made of candy!

 Then we visited Temple Square.  I loved the Mary and Joseph with Baby Jesus in the reflection pool.  It was so beautiful!

 Trax was free that night to go downtown, so that's how we got there and back.  Evera LOVED riding on the big train and he was so hyper!!  (I love and miss how he only had those two bottom teeth.  SO CUTE!!)

 The boys thought they were pretty cool trying to stay up without holding onto anything!

 You wanna talk about cool?  haha!

 We had to back through The Grand to get to our car.  Evera and the kids started being silly in the halls.  I don't know how it started but someone pretended to trip and fall down on the floor and Evera thought it was the funniest thing ever.  So then everyone was doing it to make him laugh.  Then he started doing it and was CRACKING UP!  This picture is blurry but is the perfect representation of how crazy they were.  I love how Evera is almost the only thing in focus and he is just laying completely still on the floor like he's dead.  He thought he was so funny.  He'd run and run and then fall flat on his face.  He'd just lay there and then he'd start laughing hysterically! 

 Crazy kids!

 It cost $10 per person to go see Santa and Mrs. Claus and get a picture with them at the hotel, and we were NOT ABOUT to do that (nor were we willing to wait in line for it)!  But we totally lucked out because when we were heading to our car, we ran into Santa and Mrs. Claus in the parkinglot.  Apparently they had to drive their car rather than take the sleigh that night.  ;)  So we got to get a picture with them anyway!  Free of charge!  :)  They were SUPER sweet too!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!  :)