The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

  It's officially time to start Christmas celebrations!!!!  I am so excited.  Christmas is literally the most fun time of the year.  I've been trying to make a list of things we can do as a family every day in December (or starting now really).  If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.  Bear in mind I have two kids who don't particularly love cooperating. :)  We'll be taking them to the local Christmas parade, making cookies, decorating cookies, getting our tree, stuff like that.

  Today Mike was able to get off work early today, so we decided to go to Bass Pro Shop in Springfield so the kids could visit Santa.  Andrew was excited, and kept telling me he was going to ask Santa for robots.  ...........this coming from the kid who begged for 2 weeks straight for this toy workbench he found in an Aldi catalog.  I'm pretty sure that's what he's getting from Santa.  (Don't ask me how I know...)  But luckily he changed his tune on the way to the store and said he wanted tools.  :) 

  The kids were super impressed with the free (yay) carousel they had there.  Andrew loved it, and Emily started to say "wee" as soon as she got on the moose, and then I had to literally peel her hands off the pole when we were finished.  It was a big hit...





  About a half and hour before we left, Emily was babbling to Andrew, and he got down on her level and here was the conversation:
               Andrew: Elowee, do you wanna go see Santa?
               Emily:  Yeah.
               A:  Yes?
               E:  Yes!
               A:  Okay, let's go!
  I would have bought them a real robot if they had asked in that moment.  It was the cutest, sweetest little exchange.  I'm so glad they have each other.  Anyway.
  They had a really great Santa.  He had a great smile, and when he saw Andrew staring at him in line, he waved.  Andrew got a huge smile on his face and started waving like crazy.  He was really nice to the kids.  Unfortunately, the man takes a terrible picture.  I don't know if he was talking, laughing, or making weird faces to get the kids to smile, but I laughed pretty hard when I got a peek at the photos.  I had to just take a picture of the picture, so forgive the slight blurriness.

Emily and Ol' Long Beard.  She loved his coat and kept playing with the fur.  Pretty cute. 

This one I call "The Santa Sneeze" or maybe "He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sakes Santa, please stop making that face."