My name is Julie DeBaun. I’m a stay at home to two beautiful children, Emma, 4 and John, 2. My husband Chase, is a Real Estate developer and stays really busy with his developments. We decided right before we had John that I would stay home with the kids. Staying home has been the biggest blessing to our family. I have been able to experience all of the great ups and downs of motherhood. I started Mommommymama to blog about all of my experiences as a mom. Let’s face it, being a Mom is hard. It is a beautifully messy experience and one that I would not change for the world. A great example of this hot mess called motherhood is as follows. My sweet sweet Emma just tried to feed me a white candy star that she got in her Christmas stocking. Normally this would be no big deal but Emma got the worst Christmas gift of all…. FLU A. So Mama doesn’t want her grubby hands to feed her candy. Since Emma has the Flu we have been homebound and had to miss out on our normal Christmas activities. I’m trying to make the most of it and find the positive. This is literally the first Christmas that we have stayed home and the kids got to just play with their toys. We weren’t in a rush to get anywhere which was different for us. Typically we are on the go for most holidays.
The kids got a lot of great things for Christmas but the best gift was just being together. We got lots of cuddles and got to spend a lot of time playing. Leading up to Christmas we went on a few great family activities. My favorite was visiting the Gaylord in Grapevine, TX to see their ICE display. This years theme was Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer so the kids loved it. I think their favorite part was going down the ice slide and getting to go on the snow tubes. If you haven’t visited the Gaylord during the holidays I would highly suggest it. There are so many activities. They even have an ice skating rink. If you haven’t been to see ICE make sure that you bring hats, gloves, and scarves for the family. It is 9 degrees in the area where the Ice sculptures are. When we got to the end I couldn’t feel my hands even with gloves on. BURRRR!!! My biggest tip for activities like this with little ones is planning when you want to go. Luckily for us my husband is self employed so we were able to go on a Tuesday at 3P.M. There were hardly any people there so it was great for my family. We were able to see everything and do everything we wanted to do before anyone got bored, too cold, hungry, or fussy. Typically I try to plan our activities for non peak times. It just makes it a much more enjoyable experience for all.
Another great family activity was our visit with Santa. This year we did a mini photo session with Ivey Photography in Midlothian, TX. The Santa is literally the best Santa. He even drives a cute little car that says Santa Clause on it. The studio is setup very cute and even had a little hot chocolate bar setup. Our session was 20 minutes long with no waiting to see Santa. We literally walked in and were taken right back to see Santa. This year the mini session was set up in a tent with snow and a snowman and my sons favorite… Snow Balls. Our pictures turned out great and my husband didn’t get frustrated. My husband doesn’t like crowds so typically when I plan events or activities I keep this in mind. When we went to the Gaylord for example, I had Chase take off work on a Tuesday afternoon so we zipped through everything.
The last thing that we did right before Christmas was visit the Perot Museum in Dallas. My kids are obsessed with Dinosaurs at the moment so I wanted to take them to see the Ultimate Dinosaur exhibit before it leaves Dallas in January. We went on the Sunday before Christmas before lunch and it was so much fun. It was incredible to see all of the dinosaurs big and small. I guess I didn’t realize how many small species of Dinosaurs there were. Chase loves to learn so this was a great activity or him as well. The kids thought it was really great. My son was most excited about the T- Rex. The also really liked the Children’s area. It was a great place for them to run free without having to worry about them. They have all kids of activities for kids in the Children’s museum. It is very hands on. I think they liked the slide the most though. Emma is obsessed with Gems so she really liked that floor. For me it was just great to see the kids explore and learn. Overall it was a great experience and I can’t wait to take the kids back. We ended up buying a family membership when we got there. It will pay for its self if you go twice. I figured I could take the kids back during the week to play in the children’s museum.
Waiting on the elevator. We ended up taking the stairs. 
Now back to Laundry!!!
