God Bless Fort Benning Day and other fun family activities

Last weekend we attended a local festival called God Bless Fort Benning Day. The community throws this event yearly to celebrate the brave men and women who live and serve at Fort Benning. It was a nice little event and those who know me know that I don't miss a festival if I can help it! We had a lot of fun on a cold Saturday morning checking out the fun activities. It was 38 degrees when we started out in the morning and so we bundled up the kiddos and headed out.

Maura spied the inflatables right off the bat and got busy jumping and sliding as soon as I would let her. This little girl kept up with her and played with her while we were there. This was the result of Maura's vigorous bouncing. Her hair was standing on end in a matter of moments. It was too funny.

They even had some little amusement park rides for the kids. Maura waved at us the whole time. All the rides and inflatables were free--perfect! We stopped and watched a puppet show that Maura was moderately interested in. It was really cute and old fashioned.

We capped off the day with a visit to Santa. Maura would NOT sit on his lap, but she consented to standing there and talk to him. She was tongue tied and couldn't tell him what she wanted.

Despite being tongue tied, she did get to pick out a toy. We really had a great time and we'll try to make it to more area festivals soon.

That same weekend we decided to go ahead and put up our Christmas decorations despite the fact that the kids and I will be gone for the majority of December. Maura loved looking at all the treasures we unearthed from our boxes. She loved the nesting Santas that we bought years ago in Germany. She thought they looked like the Higglytown Heros and she has loved playing with them ever since.

I loved watching my baby experience Christmas music for the first time this season. She's been asking for it ever since.
On Veteran's Day, Brent had the day off so we took off to see Madagascar 2. We have one of the coolest entertainment complexes here in our town. They have amusement rides, games and inflatables. Maura loved the carousel and wanted to ride it over and over. She named her horse "Day." She's still talking about that horse. Look at that smile! This girl was loving her ride!

Waving to Mommy and Tristan. Maura was so excited about the movie. We talked it up all day and she couldn't wait for the movie to start. We were singing the theme song and talking about the characters so she had great expectations.

Once the movie started, she was hooked. Brent nudged me to look at her as the movie opened and I looked over to see her watching with eyes wide and mouth hanging open. She was so into it. She really paid close attention to it for much of the movie and just got a little restless at the end. She really "got" it, though, because she keeps telling me things about the storyline and the characters. We went to McDonalds the other day and she just about had a meltdown over the fact that she got penguins in her Happy Meal rather than the hippo character from the movie that she really wanted.

We like to move it, move it! Maura loved seeing the cutout characters in the lobby of the theater. She even gave the penguins a hug. So cute! We loved experiencing the movie with our little ones.