Festival of Trees & Trains

Today, we attended one of my favorite annual events: The Festival of Trees & Trains at the Paramount Arts Center! Today is opening day, and it runs through the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The main floor of the theatre is transformed by the addition of nearly a hundred beautifully decorated trees of all sizes. In the balcony, there is an elaborate scale model train display, complete with a wooden bridge that spans the crowd below. It's truly magical!

Luckily, we got to spend our time there with some good friends, two of which are pictured here with Jordi: Baby Ava and Mamaw Susie! We were checking out all the fancy gingerbread houses in this picture, although it looks like Ava's more interested in Jordi's pink balloon cat!

We were very excited to find out the our friend, Julie Thacker, was once again the official picture-with-Santa photographer at FOTT! We got there early so as to have plenty of time to enjoy the complimentary Christmas cookies & hot cocoa before our picture. Isn't Caroline smiling so sweetly in this photo with Nana? (Unfortunately, she wasn't so agreeable during our Santa picture, but that's a story for another posting!)

In addition to getting a picture with Santa, the kids could also make crafts, have their face painted, or even have a balloon animal of their choice made for them. Here's Jordi waiting in line for a balloon with her friend, Maria, from ballet class!

Here's Jordi with her balloon animal: a pink kitty cat! Julie had done a great job of working quickly through the large crowd wanting pictures, which gave Santa bit of free time. He was then nice enough to start conversations with a few kids, including Jordi; it was a sweet moment!