Zoolights 2011!

One of our Christmas traditions is to have nieces and nephews over to have sugar cookies and hot chocolate and then go to look at lights. Last year we went to the Zoolights. We really like it so that is our new place to go and see lights.

The Saturday before we went to the Zoolights, Ayla and I got some new boots for Christmas!

Her are Ayla's!
I hope you can see them because they are so darling! The night we went to the Zoolights is the night Ayla got to try out her boots for the first time.

The Morning of the Zoolights, I baked 62 sugar cookies. It is a family recipe. I grew up on these cookies. It is a pretty simple recipe.

1 Cup of Shortneing

1 Cup of Sugar

3 eggs

3 1/2 Cups of Flour

2 TSP. Baking Powder

1 1/2 TSP. Vanilla

Cream shortening and sugar, add the eggs and vanilla. Blend in shifted dry ingredient. Chill dough for 3 hours or overnight. Roll out on counter with flour and cut into shapes. Bake at 400', 8 to 10 minutes. Makes 24 or more cookies.

This time we had pizza before the cookies!

Lane came!

Brooke came!

Suzanne came too, she is standing behind Ayla in this picture but you can't see her.

Now you can see her!

See the cookie in front of Ayla? Ya, the frosting is still white. I had a very busy day that day and I didn't have time to dye the frosting. I always dye it green because that was always the color my mom dyed the frosting that she made for our cookies growing up. We may not of had green cookies that night but I dyed the rest of the frosting, so the rest of the cookies were green.

And of course, Ayla only ate the frosting!

Here is Lane with his hot chocolate!

Ayla had Chocolate milk instead of hot chocolate. Ayla doesn't like hot chocolate. Ayla doesn't like a lot of things.

Here is the Christmas shirt I bought Ayla. It says, "Mommy's lil' Present."

After all the fun at our house, we went to the Zoolights!

This was when we first got there.
They had some ice sculptures when you first walked in.

We went into the gift shop and Ayla sat down and started to pet the mechanical weasel. I ended up buying her one because every time we go to the zoo in the gift shop, she runs right to the weasels. She actually gave this one a kiss when she had to put it back. It was too cute but a little gross!

Suzanne bought Lane this alligator because Ayla and Brooke both got something from the gift shop and Suz didn't want Lane to feel left out. I thought that was sweet of her!

We then went to see some of Santa's reindeer. Comet and Vixen were the 2 deer that were there.

Then we went all over the zoo.

The cool thing about the Zoolights is you get to go inside a lot and look at animals.

In the monkey exhibit they had a craft for the kids to do. It was a scratch paper ornament. This was Lane's, he did an elephant.

Ayla insisted on sitting on the metal elephant. She does it every time we go to the zoo.

Here is one of Ayla and me.

Lane was so funny with that alligator that night. Here he is posing it for the picture! LOL! He cracks me up!

Ayla and me in front of the gingerbread house.

One of Suzanne and Brooke!

Suzanne was so nice to carry every thing that night. I couldn't have done it without her.

We then rode the carousel. Ayla decided to sit on the bench next to Lane halfway through the ride. I guess the bar you hold onto was too cold for her hands.

Here is Lane air guitaring it to the music! I love him!

Here we are at the tiger's cage. I am not quite sure if you can even see the tigers in the picture. You can see Lane blowing up his alligator though! LOL!

And last but not least, Ayla really wanted a picture with the dragon. She loves dragons because of "How to Train Your Dragon."

We had such a great time at the Zoolights!

I think I only have 2 more Christmas posts and then I will be caught up with the Christmas stuff. Then I can move onto what we did during the summer. By the end of this month I should be caught up on my blog!!