Ringing The Bells

This year, our family rang the Salvation Army bells again....

And this year, we changed our location--last year we were in the entrance to the mall at JCPenny's. For fun, we changed it up a bit and we chose the movie theater. One would think swarms of people would be walking by us, hearing the kids sing carols and donate money into the red kettle right?
WRONG.
The movie theater was pretty dead at 4pm on a Saturday, surprisingly.
We did get a moderate amount of people drop dollar bills into the kettle and they were thanked with a "Merry Christmas" from the kids as well as given a candy cane for their donation. Let's just say that I WAY over-purchased candy canes though...

Have any of you ever woken Ava up from a nap? Ava's now at the age that she should just be left to sleep instead of trying to include her in the rest of the day's events. She was NOT happy for the first half of the bell ringing. Deal was this though: everyone gets happy and rings the bells with a smile...and we'll go to Stevi B's for dinner. Below, right photo is of the big girls understanding that we would go out to eat for dinner. The kids LOVE Stevi B's...and let me tell you....it is most definitely worth the money to feed our kids there. They eat a tremendous amount...and even eat off the salad bar!

This year, Colin was also a key player in our family's bell ringing. He took the bell very seriously...and when he wasn't ringing, he was dancing all over the lobby of the movie theater. I'd love to know what the ticket sellers were thinking as they watched him and his moves!

And...since I do not have a video to share with you, I will leave you with a funny story...ok, maybe 2 funny stories!

The week prior to bell ringing, Colin was on this kick of "I'm the boss!" and would tell me that he was the boss ALL. THE. TIME. It became out of control and we re-directed him many times...he then changed his tune to "YOU'RE the boss (mommy) and I'm the MAN!". As we loaded the van to go ring bells, Ava was upset with something that I had said to her and Andy said "Ava, that's just how it is today...Mom makes the rules." At that point, Colin started tapping Andy's arm and said "Daddy no! Mommy is THE BOSS!" It was rather hilarious.

We did have a wonderful evening....we volunteered, ate yummy food....and then drove around looking at Christmas lights. Of course, there was also funniness with the lights. This year, Colin is OBSESSED with the santa mannequin type decorations. As we were making our way back to Neenah, he was begging to see one more santa. Suddenly, I spied one of those inflatable santas in someone's yard and told Andy to turn quickly to the right. We were all excited that we had found "one more santa" for Colin and excitedly said "Look Colin! Another santa!" As we slowed to a stop to look at this santa, Colin said "THAT is NOT a santa! THAT is a BALLOON!!!!!!"
We tried....right?!