Santa's Workshop (Colorado Springs)

On Sunday of our vacation, we headed to Colorado Springs to visit Santa's Workshop and then on to the top of Pike's Peak. (which didn't happen, because it started snowing heavily.)
On the way there, we got out of the car to take a few pictures of the surrounding mountains:

Then we finally reached Santa's Workshop!!

Our first stop was Santa's House. Lily got her picture with Mrs. Claus before we went in.

Once inside, the kids got to take a picture with Santa and talk to him.

He spent a lot of time with them, which was really nice!

After Santa's House, we headed to the rides!

We had an impromtu snowball fight after the kids got off the ride. :0)

The carousel had Santa's reindeer. Lily chose Rudolph.

The boys chose the sleighs.....

While the boys went off to ride rides Lily will not ride, Lily & I went off to ride the kiddie rides.

When we caught back up with the boys, they were riding this Santa & reindeer themed zip-line! The boys loved it!! Here are Zach & Jeff:

While Riley & Jeff waited their turn, Zach talked Lily into getting on this ride:

He told her it didn't go very high at all. ;0)

Yeah......that went pretty high. She was not very happy with her brother after this ride. :0)

Then it was time for Riley & Jeff to ride the zip-line:

Next up was the scrambler!!

I don't think that Zach was a fan of this ride, but Lily, Riley, & I loved it!

Jeff & Zach were the only ones brave enough to ride the ferris wheel:

Waiting in line......it was COLD!!!

Luckily we got to drink hot chocolate and sip hot apple cider while we were there. :0)

Train!!!
The boys insisted sitting clear in the back.....

We saw reindeer!!

Baby reindeer!!

We all went on this ski lift ride. I thought it didn't look too bad......yeah....that thing was SUPER high!!!

We saw that lots of snow was coming, so we told the kids they could do one more ride, then we were going to head back to Colorado Springs. They chose driving their own cars. :0)

The kids were a little disapointed we didn't get to go to the top of Pike's Peak, but it would have been too dangerous. 
So, we headed back to our hotel and let the kids swim. Then Jeff went out into the snow to get us dinner. We watched Malifacent while eating popcorn and watching the snow fall outside. :0)

Fabric Covered Benches (That the kids made)

Warning: This is not an actual tutorial on how to make a bench. ;0)

So, a few weeks ago, when Jeff & I went out to dinner & my parents were watching the kids, my dad let Lily & Riley build benches out of scrap wood in the garage. They were so proud of these benches! But the wood alone was not good enough. No, we needed to cover them with fabric and make them soft too. ;0) So, I bought some cotton batting and fabric to cover the benches.
Here is Riley with his bench:

He measured out and cut the cotton to size:

Here is Lily's bench:

She measured and cut her cotton and then they both glued it on:

Then they laid their fabric on top of the benches to see where they needed to be cut. This is where we realized Riley's was way too short. We continued with Lily's and Ri had to wait until we got more fabric.

We used a staple gun to attach the fabric:

After doing one side, Lily cut off the excess fabric and stapled the rest:

Here is her finished bench:

I think it's a bench for Barbies. ;0)

A few days later, we got more material for Riley. Yeah!

He cut his fabric....

and stapled it on:

Riley's bench:

They are both SO proud of their benches!! Thank you Granddad for letting them build something! :)