A Walk through the lights at Rhema Bible Church and Seeing Santa with Traber

On Monday night, we took a stroll through the lights at Rhema.  Everyone who lives in the Tulsa area knows about Rhema--they put on the most amazing display you will ever see!

The RHEMA Christmas Lights Display was introduced in 1982 with approximately 60,000 lights. This year, more than two million lights illuminate the RHEMA campus.  This year’s display is expected to draw more than 200,000 visitors from all over Oklahoma and surrounding states. As always, admission is free--this makes for excellent entertainment!!

My favorite section of the park was the Rhema park bridge.  In this section, the hundreds of thousands of lights were synchronized to Christmas music.  I could have stood there all night--it was truly amazing!

Here is an example I found on youtube of the display I am referring to....it isn't a high quality video, but you can still get the idea of what it is like.



Here are some pictures from Rhema and some pics of Luke and his cousin, Traber's, visit to see Santa.


We also thought we'd let Luke visit Santa for the 4th time this year, with hopes that the fear would have subsided by this point. However, the fear is still there...

As soon as Luke saw we were going to be approaching Santa's lap, he started screaming.   Santa said to me, "You're going to have to sit on my lap with him...that's what we have to do with the criers."

Later, Luke's cousin Traber arrived to the Bass Pro Shop where Santa was--I guess he felt the same way about Santa.

And we figured out that adding another cousin to Santa's lap didn't help.  Poor little guys--but we got some classic pictures regardless.

Ok....so, we now have succumbed to the fact that Luke will not like Santa this year.  It must be pretty common at this age, and we are ok with that.   I think I would be scared too at that age. 

A Trip to the Tulsa Zoo and Living Museum

Luke and all of his Oklahoma cousins visited the Tulsa Zoo and Living Museum recently and had a blast! Perhaps it was because it was December and the temperature was in the mid-50's, but we were one of the few families that decided to visit at the time we went. This meant NO CROWDS at all! And, the animals must like the cooler temperatures, because we were able to see all of them except the elephants--I think they were getting a bath.

Here are some pics of us enjoying the day at the Zoo!

Christmas, Christmas Time is Here

It has been so much fun this year with Luke, watching him experience so many new things and this Christmas season is no different.  We're anxious to start new traditions with him.  Our neighborhood association hosts a "Breakfast with Santa" each year that is really neat for the kiddos.  Not only do we get to see Santa, but we get to eat breakfast with him.

Before Santa arrived, we checked out the beautiful decorations and Luke enjoyed mingling with some other kids.

Daddy and Luke in front of one of the trees.

and a little dancing and running

Luke doing a little mingling.

When Santa arrived at our Community Center, Luke was coloring and was caught off guard.  We have shown him Santa a few times, and he is very interested in seeing him---from afar that is.

 

 

Luke wasn't so sure about Santa coming right up to him and singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."  But, we decided to take it a step further and sit on his lap.   We should have known how this would end up, but everyone tells us we need to get one of those classic pictures.

So, here we go.  First, the family in front of us actually asked Santa to get up out of his chair and stand behind them, while they sat in his chair.  I thought that was pretty bold, and wasn't about to ask Santa to do that.  But, I did ask him if I could sit on his lap, with Luke in mine, hoping Luke wouldn't notice and we could snap a picture.  Because Luke hadn't seemed too upset yet, I went ahead and put him directly into Santa's lap.

Here, it looks like Luke is happy---but, actually, the nice lady who snapped the picture did so quickly enough to get him in his beginning crying stages.  I'll take it.

 

Then, I picked Luke up, hoping to console him and get Drew to snap of quick picture of Luke on Santa's lap by himself.  It didn't happen---but I did get this.

Merry Christmas!  :-)

After the event (Breakfast with Santa) every year, Santa goes around the entire neighborhood aboard a firetruck, yelling "Merry Christmas" to all the kids.  He also throws out some candy and the firefighters sound their sirens.  It is so much fun to watch all of the kids try to chase down the fire truck.

Of course, we also want Luke to understand the true meaning of Christmas.  When he gets a little older, we plan on beginning even more important traditions involving Luke.  These traditions will evolve around giving back to others, just as God sent us the greatest gift of all--his son Jesus Christ.  For now, we have been trying to teach him the Christmas story using the Little People Christmas Nativity that his Grandma and Grandpa bought for him last year.  The other day, we lost Joseph and Drew was looking through the toy chest saying, "Joseph, where are you?"  It was so cute to then watch Luke dunk himself into the big toy chest saying, "Joseph....Joseph?"

It's the Holiday Season! Bring on the Holidays!

Wow---it's been a little while since our last blog post.  Luke is a toddler, we celebrated Thanksgiving and now we are getting ready for Christmas!  So much as happened since our last post, but I will highlight just a few of the most recent happenings.

1.   We had a wonderful Thanksgiving potluck with our Austin Stone Missional Community Group.   It was a lot of fun visiting with everyone and sharing a meal together.   Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures while everyone was together.  We snapped a couple before everyone arrived though.

2.  Then, we traveled down to Sugar Land, TX to visit Drew's side of the family.  We had a great time---Drew and I even got to play golf with Drew's dad on Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  On Thanksgiving, we shared a wonderful meal together.  It was delicious! 

Mitchell contemplates what to put on his plate.

Chef Kathleen (Mimi) and Tom (Papa)

(Luke loves saying "Papa."  He has a picture book with family photos in it and enjoys finding Papa and then pointing to him and saying his name over and over.) 

The beautiful table

On Thanksgiving morning, I did a little online shopping.  I found some great deals and didn't have to leave the house.  I am thinking that online shopping may be the way to go from now on.

As with most of our adventures, travels and visits, we wish we would have snapped more pictures on Thanksgiving.  Sometimes we have to be VERY intentional about remembering to take pictures.  When we are having a lot of fun, we often forget to take the time to go get the camera out and snap some pics.  We will be better about it.  

3.  When we got back to our home from our visit with Mimi and Papa, we decided to decorate our house for Christmas.  Luke was fascinated by the decorations!  We tried to accomplish most of the decorating during his Sunday afternoon nap.  So, when he awoke and went downstairs, he shouted "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh" with extreme excitement when he saw the Christmas tree.  That's when we truly realized it was going to be so much fun this Christmas season!  We can't wait!  

Luke examines the Christmas lights on the tree in our front yard.

Our house

 While I was finishing up with some indoor decorations, I noticed that Luke had found daddy's shoes.  It was so cute!   He put them on and attempted to walk in Daddy's size 11.5 shoes, while saying "Dadda....Dadda." 

The pics above with Daddy's shoes reminded me of this pic I posted on my Facebook page in July.  Luke has always been fascinated with shoes.  He sure is growing up quickly.

Our tree...we decided to put less on the tree this year since Luke is so mobile.  We figured there is less to break this way!

Our stockings, hung by the chimney with care.

 Oh yeah--one more important note--Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State last Saturday in a very exciting football game.  Our household was extremely excited!  Now, we need to beat Nebraska this weekend!  We'll all be decked out in our OU gear cheering them on from home!  Boomer Sooner!

We have many adventures ahead this Christmas season.  More to come this weekend!