Visiting Santa

Last Saturday, the 20th, we decided to go visit Santa since he was at the mall, I had the kids' Christmas outfits already (fell in love with them last year, so I bought them a year ahead of time!) and since it's before Thanksgiving, I figured it wouldnt be crowded. So we went to the mall. I knew already that Katelyn would be the screamer. She's old enough to get scared, and she's always been a little scared anyways...she's so little, and loud noises would bother her, so we used to call her Chicken Little! lol I thought Madison would do wonderfully and I figured Andrew had a 50/50 shot of being okay. He is just getting into that stranger anxiety phase, so it's anyone's guess. Well, Madison went and sat first; she was super excited. Then Gordon put Andrew down in Santa's lap. Then I went to put Katelyn...and they do what they call "drop and click". That is, drop your kid in his lap and they'll take the pic as fast as they can bf kid starts screaming! well, that wasnt quick enough! I put her down with her back facing him, so she wouldnt realize he was there, but she saw him and SCREAMED right away! I told them even beforehand to just take the pic, even if they were crying. After they took the pic, i rescued the babies off Santa's lap (or maybe I rescued Santa?) and let Madison have time to talk to Santa. She was SO cute, reading her little Christmas list (that we had written together; I wrote the words and drew the picture of what she was telling me, so she'd remember what it was when talking to the big guy!). She had a great time and was SO amused!

Well, that was over and we were leaving. Madison wanted to look at the picture, so i gave her one to look at. Then she tells me Santa's eyes were closed. Well, dang it! She was RIGHT! No way that's going to work!!! They let the people ahead of us use their own camera, so after riding the carousel, we went home, got my camera, and went back to the mall (bc getting them all dressed up another day, hoping it wouldnt be busy again, was just too much work!)...meanwhile, the kids got to take a 20-30 min nap...we drove slow on purpose! When we got back, we woke them up, they went to take a pic w santa again, but this time i got to take pics of them individually w/ my camera and got to take pics of my big girl...my only non screaming child...alone with Santa. she was so cute. Even when the babies were crying (again) she put her arm on Andrew to try to console him. What a sweetheart!

Afterwards, we went to have lunch in the foodcourt and my mom met us there. We had lunch, then the kids and I went with my mom to do some shopping. All in all a fun day. The babies might argue otherwise!

I'm sure there is some website of bad Santa photos...this picture SO belongs there!!! I was thinking Santa blinked in the picture, but upon further review, I think he's just closing his eyes thinking, "oh, dear God, more screaming babies!!!" lol :) We did go back and retake the pic. It's basically the same. Screaming babies, Happy Madison, but Santa did have his eyes open that time.

Now I just need to get the kids' Christmas pics done...I'm way behind this year! We always get them done the first week of November!!!