Our town has an “Old Fashioned” Christmas parade. It is entirely horse drawn. So fun! We’ve never gone before, and I’m so glad we went, even though it was the coldest day ever for the parade.

As much as I enjoyed the parade, my absolute favorite part was Gus’s reaction to seeing the horses. “MOOOO!” “Those are horses, buddy. Cows say ‘mooo’. Horses say ‘neigh!'” “MOOO!”

There’s a video here, but apparently WordPress doesn’t allow you to embed Instagram videos.

Gus was done by the end of the parade, but Reed, Lena and I still had a lot to accomplish!

We dropped Aaron and Gus off at home, then we headed to R&L’s school’s Holiday Shop. I have fond memories of doing this myself as a kid. You feel so grown up to be shopping without an adult!

I made them modest lists, hoping that they wouldn’t exceed the amount that the school gives them for the shop. I didn’t include myself on the lists. But, sweet Lena and her “Elf”, a girl who was probably in high school, got me something anyways (and still stayed within budget!). I can’t wait to see what it is and it’s so sweet that they thought to do that.

Next up was our random act of kindness for the day. Feeding the empty parking meters downtown to prevent someone from getting a ticket!

Reed insisted on bringing some of his own change to help and even let Lena put some of it in.

Today is Aaron’s birthday and by this point, Gus was taking a nap. So, to give Aaron some kid-free time, I took Reed and Lena to lunch and grocery shopping. Burgers, fries and giant ice cream sandwiches = happy kids.

(She insisted that I take a picture of her smiling like that!)

We celebrated Aaron’s birthday pretty simply. A dinner of his choice, the kids made him cards and I got him a much-needed pair of hiking boots.