Two Exhibits during December

We all enjoy when pop up exhibits come to Atlanta celebrating some of our favorites movies or shows. There are two really great ones in Atlanta right now, and we were excited about both.

The first was the Stranger Things exhibit at Pullman Yards. We planned this as a Christmas countdown item, and each girl was allowed to bring a friend. Mia brought Judson Sampler and Lily brought Lauren Martin; they're both really big fans too!

Once you passed the sign above, you had to put phones up through a 45 minute interactive experience; no pictures were allowed! This part was really fun as you go into the Hawkins lab under the guise of a sleep study. At some point, they find out that you have some really cool powers, so they want to usher you in a different direction. About that time, our favorites from the show appear via video to let us know what's really going on and they want to help us break out. All sorts of interesting items ensue as we seek to break out. It ends with us being in the upside down (wearing 3-D glasses!) where Elle and Max are facing all sorts of horrible creatures that we have to defeat. This was a really fun experience!

When this part was over, you walk out into an area that's designed to look a lot like the Starcourt Mall. They had several sets you could be a part of, food and drink, lots of picture spots, a scavenger hunt, and of course...merch. We spent a ton of time in here taking it all in. Here's some of the fun we had.

We all loved this set from Season 1 when Joyce is trying to connect with Will as he's in the Upside Down.

Mia had fun working at the Family Video store.

Oh no, a demigorg is breaking through!

Mia seems to be a little terrified of Veckna while Lily and Lauren must think he's kinda cute.

We all shared a couple of Surfer Boy pizzas for dinner, and then we were excited to get Scoops Ahoy ice cream for dessert!

What 80's kid didn't play at an arcade?!

We all tried a couple of tasty mocktails from the Upside Down bar. Half of us enjoyed "The Starcourt Special" made up of sparkling orange juice, grenadine, orange slice, and maraschino cherry. The other half of us enjoyed "The Eleven" which was lemon lime soda, cherry lemonade, lemon slice, and maraschino cherry.

Lily and Lauren had fun doing a photo booth session. We all liked seeing some of the costumes from the sets, including this famous one of El's.

Ryan and I had fun doing this too!

This was a fantastically fun evening with friends!

This was outside of the exhibit, and I just loved the picture of Lily in front of it.

One of the family fun gifts that the girls opened on Christmas morning was tickets for the four of us to go to the Harry Potter Exhibit in downtown a few days after Christmas. We couldn't wait to see what all they had here!

After checking in we walked into a big room where they had a Marauder's Map on the wall. As we tapped our wristbands on the way in, our names appeared on the map which was cool to see.

Then it was time to see the Hogwart's Express enter in.

We opened the doors with the help of some magic, and started to walk through. There were lots of "living portraits" hanging on the wall, including the Fat Lady.

We went to our houses. Lily and I are in Ravenclaw while Ryan is a Hufflepuff.

Mia has been re-sorted into Slytherin instead of Gryffindor.

It was neat to see lots of props and outfits along the way. They did a great job of explaining the reasons behind a lot of the details that were chosen for each one of the characters and their outfits.

It was really neat to see the Great Hall with all its floating candles.

We all practiced our Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Riddikulus spell.

Potions was an interesting area as we could see all the different options to use.

We were able successfully brew a few potions ourselves!

Props from the TriWizard Tournament.

It was fun to go into Hagrid's Hut and see just how huge his giant items are!

Mia seeing what it's like to live under the stairs at the Dursley's house, and learning what it's like in Umbridge's office.

We all tried our hand at some Quidditch.

The Black family tapestry.

Outside the chamber of secrets.

With the three deathly hallows; good luck finding the invisibility cloak.

A wand duel at the Battle of Hogwarts.

A memory of Mia in the pensieve and a few items from Dumbledore's office.

There were some fun parts for Fantastic Beasts as well. We all managed to escape into Newt's suitcase!

This was definitely a morning of family fun!

Other December Fun

We had some other fun during December!

We used these as part of our countdown this year. Ryan and I loved the Bonne Maman jam calendar a few years ago, so we tried it again this year. There were some good flavors in it which we enjoyed on toast or English Muffins. Our whole family enjoyed the Sugarfina calendar. Each day there were four little candies inside for us to try. This one was a lot of fun for all of us!

I finally broke down after about a decade and bought the adorable little wooden reindeer from Love Street! Look how incredibly cute they are sitting on our front walkway. Ryan surprised me with a fifth little one for Decker!

We are so thankful for weekly small group! We decided to switch it up one evening for a murder mystery dinner instead of study. It was a ton of fun (though Charles and Katie were definitely missed!). We had good food and a lot of laughs. We were all surprised to learn that Adam was the one who killed Mrs. Claus!

We gave Ryan an outdoor pizza oven for his birthday. We haven't used it yet, so we were excited to put it to the test one evening. It turned out so incredibly good! We can't wait to use this again!

Ryan and Lily took one morning to drive to Buc-cee's. Lily was quite excited to get this Christmas Buccee outfit, and she wears it often. How adorable is she in it?!

Mia has been sewing up a storm, and I can't help but take pictures each time. I've previously put in her pin cushion and the Tennessee pillow she made for Granna. Look at these cuties! She made this elephant for Bama, this penguin for Josie, the dinosaur for herself, the frog for Emma, the duck for a JTF friend, the Alabama pillow for Brynn, and the Braves pillow for Lindsey. They all turned out so cute!

Mom and I spent part of a Sunday afternoon together with a visit to the Governor's Mansion. It was a lot of fun! The mansion is decorated so pretty for Christmas right now, and we had a great time walking through to see a lot of the house.

Ryan, Lily, and I went to see Avery Hobson in a production of Chicago Teen. They were incredible; we were blown away! This was a ton of fun. In this picture, Avery is on the far left in the front.

This girl loves her Decker.

It's always fun when one of our daughters wants to cuddle!

The World Cup final between Argentina and France in Qatar was playing while we were driving home from Birmingham. When we saw that it was going into penalty kicks we pulled over into a Publix parking lot somewhere off I-20. Ryan pulled the game up on YouTube tv, and we watched Argentina win it all! It was such an exciting end, and I'm so glad we got to see it!

I placed a Goldbelly order from Over the Rainbow Cakes in Miami to take with us to the Brown family gathering. It looked so pretty, and was perfect for a Christmas gathering. The chocolate cake was delicious, and I loved the icing between the layers as it had a white, green, and red checkerboard pattern to it. This was a fun one!

The high school at Stonehaven has a progressive dinner each Christmas. Lily had a lot of fun with her friends. This is such a great class!

We stopped for some chocolates and macarons at a cute little French bakery after our evening at Puttshack. These were really tasty!

Granna took Lily, Mia, and me out a couple of days after Christmas. We all enjoyed lunch at the Grand Lux Cafe at Phipps (look at Mia's pretty drink!). We are always thankful for some girl time!

The ladies Bible Study from school met for a Christmas breakfast at Doceur d'France one morning. This is a great group of ladies to study with and learn from.

It's been a very busy but fun month!

Christmas!

Christmas Day finally arrived! Our tree looked beautiful with all its travel ornaments on it. This year's new ornaments for our family included: an orb from the Atlantis Aquarium, a Phantom mask, Peggy's Lighthouse, Maine lobster sketched on wood, leaves from Acadia National, and a Stranger Things Demigorg. I love our tree!

Stockings were stuffed and ready for the morning.

It appears Santa left a couple of gifts for the girls to enjoy! Lily received a gift card tree with cards to some of her favorite places: Target, QT, Zaxby's, Chick-fil-a, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks and just a regular Visa one to enjoy. Mia received a sherpa fleece blanket with 16 shows on it; all ones she has seen or been a part of! Both girls also received a blind date with a book package which they were excited about. In the middle was a big bag of surprise candy from Rocket Fizz; we liked the Charlie Brown Christmas design on it. There was also a magic box in the middle; the girls can share this by leaving it hanging in the shower so they can put their phones in to easily enjoy music while there. They each had a "family fun pack" to open. Mia opened one telling her our family was going to the Harry Potter Exhibit in town later on in the week. Lily opened one telling her our family is going to see Riverdance at the Fox Theater in January. This was a great way to start the morning!

Decker was pretty excited about the "Starpups" stuffed cup of coffee that was in his stocking. He had fun trying to destroy it as quickly as possible.

Just a few pictures from the morning:

Ryan loved the "I miss Uranus" Holey Moley mug that Lily got him!

I absolutely love this gift from Ryan! We have used this little hand drawn heart picture for a couple of years. One of us would hide it away for the other to find, and then we'd switch. It was always a sweet reminder of our love for each other when we'd find it. I love this little heart card. Ryan had it framed and we hung it up outside our room to keep it from getting damaged or lost along the way. I could not love this gift anymore.

Our afternoon was lazy and restful which was wonderful. Granna and Papa stopped by to visit in the afternoon which was great. Mia enjoyed a big mug of hot chocolate and Lily had fun putting together her new Lego set of succulents. It was an absolutely perfect day.

We were excited about a special Christmas dinner. Look at these amazing Wagyu steaks Ryan grilled for us!

Every bite of dinner was delicious. Wagyu steaks, green beans, mashed potatoes, cinnamon apples, crispy Italian bread, and sparkling cider to drink. This was fantastic!

We ended the meal with one of our family's favorite desserts. It's an easy combo of orange sherbet and strawberry jello with whipped cream on top. It's so good!

We couldn't have asked for a better Christmas day!