Clifton Mill

Well, I'm admittedly behind on the blog but that's only because we've been packing every day with family fun and last week was ridiculously-hectic at both of my jobs. So here are the photos from our trip to Clifton Mill "Opening-Day" when we were in Xenia for Thanksgiving. It was our first official holiday event of this year and definitely got the Schneiders in the spirit.  Seeing the holidays through the eyes of your child certainly brings a whole new level of "magic" to this time of year, and we got our first glimpse of that at Clifton Mill.  I should also mention that our drive to Clifton Mill was really memorable as well. Not only did we run into these donkeys and sheep on the way there (gotta love Greene County) but we used the drive to tell Josie all about Santa, his reindeer, Rudolph, elves, etc.  She thought we were crazy (especially the flying sleigh part) but got really excited about the whole thing. 

(Okay, wait.. sidebar...Josie has a few fave off-the-wall Holiday songs this year including "Jiggity, Jigg, Hee-Haw, Hee-Haw, it's Dominic the Donkey...The Italian Christmas Donkey." At the time of taking this photo, that little ditty hadn't made it into our lives yet but as I write this post, it has firmly sealed its fate as a Schneider Family Favorite.  And - kid you not - we were listening to it last night (it's the bonus track on a CD I made Josie of her favorite Christmas songs) and there's a part that says, "A pair of shoes for Louie and a dress for Josephine..."  Cuh-razy.) Anyway, I digress. Back to Clifton Mill...

Josie's first view of the Reindeer, which she later recounted "a million" of - 

 

Josie making her own antlers -

Josie very much enjoying her first candy cane - 

And the real star of the show - the lights - "ooooh, ahhhh" - 

 

 

All-in-all, a great kick-off to the holiday season. (And also a little foreshadowing into Josie's fear of Santa. More on that later...)