Weekend in Grapevine

*warning: This is the worlds longest post with a ridiculous amount of pictures. Believe it or not, I narrowed the pictures down from 200.
Day 1

Last Sunday, we met my Mom and nephew in Grapevine for a fun filled Christmas weekend. My poor sister was supposed to go, but her boss was being ...well... a jackass! And that's putting it nicely. If you live in Texas and haven't spent a weekend in Grapevine during the Christmas season, you are missing out.

The first thing we did was hop aboard the North Pole Express. You get to ride on a train in your P.J's, Just like the book,The Polar Express. Santa and Mrs. Claus even payed us a visit.

Waiting (not so patiently) to get on the train with our friends!

Chugging along

Presley looking out the window of the North Pole Express.

Her face when Santa came into our train car.

After the train made it safely back from the North Pole, we got pictures taken with Santa and free hot chocolate. Presley and Jackson must have needed to burn off some energy because they spent the next 20 minutes chasing each other around a Christmas tree by the hot chocolate stand. 

Then we walked into historic Grapevine and visited some of the shops on Main street. Shopping with a 2 and 3 year old is next to impossible, so our purchases for the day were 2 lollipops and a pair of pink fur crocs for P ( which we found in the candy store). Once again, we stumbled upon Santa and a few of his elves playing games, and my nephew joined in. He had a blast! Presley was a little leery of this Santa (he was very skinny and on stilts. Can you blame a girl?), so we walked her down the street where we found a life size Nativity. This thrilled the girl beyond belief. She hopped on every animal, talked to the Wisemen, and gave baby Jesus lots of kisses.

Finally, we ended the day with a pony ride and room service back at our hotel. We stayed at the Gaylord Texan which is a beautiful giant hotel and perfect for kids!

Day 2 

We woke up, got the kids dressed, and I took advantage of all the gorgeous photo ops in the hotel.

After I got my photo fix, we headed over to see ICE! featuring Shrek the Halls. Basically, it's lots of different scenes from the movie carved completely out of ice. It's pretty amazing! However, to keep the ice from melting it has to be super duper cold. They give you long parkas with hoods to wear, but it was still pretty chilly. Jackson loved every minute of it, but poor Presley was a little too cold to enjoy it. She made it through the whole thing and even went down the ice slide, but then she was ready to get out of there.

Right after ICE, Jackson and Mimi warmed up by snow tubing! Presley wasn't tall enough and this made her very sad. I missed out too because they don't let preggo's go tubing either. Poor us!

But, Presley cheered up pretty quick because we got to have breakfast with Shrek, Princess Fiona, and Puss in boots (who Presley thought was our cat, Rambo. This made her very happy). Mind you, Presley had no idea who or what this Shrek character was before our Grapevine adventure, but she is a fan now. Unless Shrek comes too close, then she cries hysterically!

Jackson with his Shrek ears on, looking just thrilled to have his picture taken.

Princess Fiona drinking her Shrek Juice.

Jackson in a much better mood now that Shrek is here!

 Presley blowing "Rambo" kisses

Finally, it was time to pack up and head home with two exhausted kiddos! It was such a special weekend for the kids (and the kids at heart). Thank you, Mimi!