Trip to.....see Santa

At Santa's village. Our only Santa picture for 2009

So this past Saturday, Rob and I decided to take Adriana to see Santa. We got to the mall, there was only 4 people in line and was so excited. Come to find out, seeing Santa has gotten way more sophisicated and you now get a time to come back and wait in line. So we really did have an hour wait. And really just got a time to come back and stand in line for another 45 minutes. But it actually worked out and Adriana was great with the waiting.

She was very excited all morning to see Santa and the Elves. She talked and talked and talked about it. She has been telling me for the last week that she wants a fish tank and preceeds to tell me "mommy buy it". So I told her that she needed to ask Santa for a fish tank. So we practiced the entire time we were waiting in line. (and still today when you mention Santa she tells you fish tank...)

Finally it is our time to visit. Santa is ready, Ade is smiling and waves at him. Rob gets near Santa, and the "no santa scary" scream begins. So Rob passes her off to me and I try to just sit by Santa and have her sit with me, no luck. She wanted nothing to do with sitting by him and had a death grip around my neck so there was no setting her down. Once we stopped trying to put her on his lap, she was perfectly content. Santa handed her a lollipop and she said "thank you", gave Santa knuckles and we were out of there.

So no Christmas photo with Santa this year. Not even a screaming child one. :) All day she told us "santa nice. scary", "santa lollipop, santa knuckles". So I guess it wasn't as traumatic as we thought.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Time

I love my snowman

Our Countdown to Christmas house (or as we call it, the Christmas counter downer)

Ade received a letter from Santa

It is Christmas time. And that means, a whole of Christmas Cheer here. We kicked off the season by getting Adriana Elmo's Christmas Countdown, which we all have seen too many times to count. The day after Thanksgiving we put up all our Christmas decorations and Adriana had the best time. She carried every ornament over to the tree for daddy to put up. She was very proud when we were done. She loves the Christmas tree. We sit by it every day and look at all the ornaments. We are still working on NOT pulling them off the tree.

We have also introduced Adriana to Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph. Christmas Classics. (can you see a TV theme running through this.....this is what happens when 2 TV junkies have a child) She loves them. She thinks snowmen are very cool so Frosty is the best. In the car she screams for the "snowman song mommy snowman song!" daily.

She is starting to get what it is all about, well the Santa, snowman and present part of it anyway. The rest will come later. And no xmas would be complete without the Elf on the Shelf. Our elf is named Furley and Adriana loves to find him in the morning. (if you don't have one, it is an Elf, Santa's helper, that watches over the house, goes to the North Pole nightly to report to Santa and comes back each morning but always in a different spot of the house. Sometimes our Elf forgets that he already sat somewhere and comes back to that exact same spot....luckily, Adriana isn't old enough to call us out on it) I am not sure who loves it more though, Rob or Adriana. ;)

So far, Adriana's favorite things about Christmas seem to be Santa, snowmen and the Baby Jesus. So really, I think we have it covered. She loves the baby Jesus out of our Nativity set.

We are loving this time with her. She is so much fun and her ability to grasp the things she does amazes me every day. I am a tad bit biased, but I think she is a pretty smart kid.

And more xmas fun to come....zoo lights, visiting Santa, making cookies for Santa, til we finally get to the big day!