Christmas festivities

On Friday night we went to the lighting of the Christmas tree at Allen Civic Plaza. I didn't take pictures that night but we went back the next morning to get a few pictures of the Thomas look-alike train and the big tree. It was fun Friday night, just cold!

The next day we went to visit Santa...if you remember last year's picture, this one looks pretty much exactly the same except I'm in it this time. I thought Hagen might do better if I was sitting on Santa's lap while holding him, but nope...and seriously, he did just fine in line beforehand, and waved bye-bye to Santa (just like last year), He just doesn't like sitting in Santa's lap. I thought he might do better because about a week ago he had even said he wanted to see Santa and I thought, oh, great, maybe he'll do really well this year! Oh, well. There are also pictures of the big Christmas tree and two of Santa's reindeer.

After Santa we went to the Christmas festivities at the shopping center where I work. It was REALLY fun! We went with Matt, Darby, Madi and Aly. They had carriage rides (we avoided the one with Santa), face-painting, pony rides, hot chocolate, cookies and things like that.

Here are Hagen and Madi getting painted. Hagen said he wanted a butterfly and I thought it would be on his cheek, but these are really cool face-painters and the lady painted his whole face. I wasn't sure Hagen would sit still for that, but he did and he LOVED his face painted like that! It was neat.

Hagen wanted to try the pony ride at the end of the night, but he only sat on the pony for about two seconds (with me RIGHT there with him). The pony BARELY moved and Hagen flipped out, so I quickly removed him and we didn't try again. I felt bad for the pony - I wanted to tell him (or her?), "Really, it's not you...sorry...". I felt better because another child got on the pony and was fine.

Last weekend my friends Jen, Val, Donna and Donna's son Steven got together to celebrate Val's birthday. Here she is with her "Twilight" t-shirt. Her party was pretty much "Twilight" themed. The teenage girls behind us were jealous. And there is a picture of Steven and Hagen.

Here's Hagen pooped out after our lunch out with the girls, then Shawn's hockey game.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone! We were in Glen Rose from Wednesday through Saturday. Opa and Oma came over on Thanksgiving Day. We had a lot of fun and Hagen played a LOT of hockey with Granddad, and football with me, Daddy and Granddad. Hagen has to play hockey every day. We never say, "Hey, Hagen, do you want to play hockey?" or anything. He just gets up and that's always the first thing he wants to do. It's the first thing he wants to do when he gets home from school, too. I realized recently that a lot of the pictures I take these days has Hagen in his hockey jersey and it looks like that's all he wears...I swear he is always wearing a different, clean shirt underneath, but at some point EVERY day he has that jersey on. I just wanted to clarify that we do dress him in regular, clean clothes...daily...

Oh, and yes, my dad DOES know that his pads go UNDER his jersey. He put them on to show Hagen and just left them on. I made sure he knew these pictures would be posted on the internet. :-)

And of course, Mom's beautiful centerpiece.

And here is the little hockey player taking a break, watching "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving".

Dad hamming it up when I turned the camera to him and Mom.

These pictures are ones that Dad took. Dad has learned how to fly these really neat airplanes and has half the garage turned into a hangar. He has some really cool planes and we went out one morning with him to fly a couple of them. Hagen watched for a little bit then had just as much fun playing in the dirt.

Here is a video of Hagen and Granddad playing hockey - one of MANY hockey games from our trip.

We went to Fossil Rim on Saturday morning to the petting zoo area and gift shop. Hagen REALLY surprised me by being totally brave and petting, brushing and attempting to feed grass to a goat. The goat wasn't hungry but Hagen tried. I was really proud of him. The last time we went to Fossil Rim he was really scared of the petting zoo area so I wasn't sure what to expect, but apparently he thought it was really cool this time! I was really proud of him.

Granddad and Hagen found these really cool masks in the gift shop at Fossil Rim.

I wish every night was this easy...

Sunday evening Shawn had his first ice hockey game in Frisco (they won, 9-1). He scored two goals and had an assist! Oh, and he was playing against my boss's husband...Jenn had to boo us a couple of times. :-) On the way home, Hagen fell asleep in the car, around 7:15. We picked up a pizza on the way and got home around 7:30 or so. I didn't really want him going to bed for the night that early so I figured I would wake him up to eat his pizza, then he could go to bed after that if he was still that tired. I brought him inside and put him on his knees in his chair at the table and told him we were going to have dinner. He looked around, started to climb out of the chair, and just stopped halfway and zonked out. I seriously tried to wake him up because I didn't want him going to bed without eating, but he would not wake up for anything! I had to take pictures - it was just so funny. I've never seen anything like it. I gave up worrying about him being hungry and we just put him to bed completely dressed. He slept until 7:15 the next morning! Obviously he needed the sleep.

Here is a video of Hagen, Madi and Aly playing "Ring Around the Rosie". They had fun.

Trick or Treat!

Here are a couple of pictures of Hagen in his costume. He didn't want to wear the foam helmet at first, but he wore it for a little bit later on. We started out at a neighbor's house down the street that we know. They have a dog and Sherri had to put the dog in another room when she came to the door because the dog scares Hagen. So, after that, he was convinced that EVERY house had a dog. He did well, he just didn't want to walk - we had to carry him the whole time (and he is getting HEAVY!!). One of the last houses we went to was decorated really neat and the people were outside handing out the candy. The man was dressed up as a Ghostbuster (he looked awesome) and Hagen did NOT like his costume. I tried getting closer to the man because he was coming toward us to give Hagen candy, and Hagen was pulling me back, saying "I don't like him!". I told the guy I thought his costume was really cool because I didn't want him to feel bad (and it was really neat, anyway). We were out for maybe an hour, then came home and handed out candy. It was fun, overall.

On Sunday we made caramel apples! Shawn bought a kit that had the caramel as well as nuts and sprinkles you could roll the apples in. It was fun and Hagen had fun watching and helping.