Santa! I Know Him!

It's just not the Christmas season without watching Elf at least once, am I right??  Too bad all of our DVDs, Christmas ones included, are in a pod somewhere being stored away! Guess I'll just have to watch everything on TV this year.

Last year I found out that you can make a reservation to meet Santa at our local mall.  Being 9 months old the girls really cared less about meeting the Big Guy but we had to do it since it was their first Christmas!  You can see last year's photos here!  So this year I decided to do the same thing and we went the day before Thanksgiving, figuring there wouldn't be much of a crowd.  I made the reservation and we showed up about 15mins early.  They let a few reservations go ahead of us because we were early, which was fine, and then the internet crashed.  So we waited a little longer, pushing the girls around in the stroller to keep them happy, and then one of Santa's elves told us that the internet was up and running and it was our turn!  We got the girls out of the stroller, fixed their clothes, sat them on Santa's lap, and was told the internet wasn't working again....ugh!  So Santa let them down and they ran around his workshop while we waited for the internet to come back.  We were going to put them back in the stroller but they both firmly told us "No!" so we just walked after them.  Santa was really nice about it and kept giving the girls high-fives and talking to us.  Finally, Santa's elf said the internet was working again and that he was ready, so we sat the girls on Santa's lap.  They sat there for about 30 seconds while the elf got the camera ready (insert eye roll here because he was NOT ready like he said he was!) and then Noelle lost it.  She has been working on a molar coming through, she didn't nap super well, and the elf was taking his sweet time!  So most of the photos have her crying in them but not because she was afraid of Santa, she had just lost her patience with the whole ordeal.

We got the pictures taken, girls back in the stroller, calmed Noelle down, and we went to review the pictures only to find that the people before us had their pictures merged with ours.  So we could still get our pictures but we would also have someone else's pictures in with ours.  The elves offered a retake so I took them up on it thinking maybe Noelle would cooperate for a few seconds before getting upset....I was wrong.  She cried, Natalie was indifferent, and we finally chose our picture to print and left as fast as possible!

Due to an internet glitch I was able to get all of the pictures so here you go!

 

This one might be my favorite, one crying and one cheesin!

 

This is the one I had printed because at least all three of them were looking at the camera.

 

Santa was a trooper and didn't seem to mind that Noelle was crying her head off.  Thanks Santa!

Misc. November

Just wanted to share some miscellaneous November pictures!

 

Noelle's newest entertainment is to put on shoes and walk around saying "cheese!"

 

Riley-dog

 

I asked them to sit for a picture...

 

Getting them to sit for a picture is like playing Whack-a-mole.  I get one to sit and the other pops up!

 

One of their newest favorite things to do is to dress up in their superhero capes and masks.

 

Pasta face!

 

Natalie loves her a good roll!

 

It also keeps her occupied for awhile in restaurants!

 

So fly

 

An unprompted hug that I caught on camera!  Usually I have to ask them to give each other a hug which is followed by their favorite word, "no!"  And why do they look so big in this picture?!?

It's so hard to believe that November is almost over which means we're in the last month of the year!

A Very Late Weekend Recap and Happy Halloween!

Ok so I started this post several weeks ago and then life got in the way.  Long story short, after much debate we decided to put our house on the market and look for a new home with a bigger yard for the girls and Riley.  We of course decided to do this mid-October, spent two weeks putting things in storage, fixing a few things, and staging the house to go on the market Nov. 10th.  And this was right in the middle of report card time for me, one kid was sick, conferences were coming up, my birthday was 10 days later, we had the open house, Thanksgiving, and Ben was sick too.  So we've been busy the past month with the house and trying to get everyone well and blogging fell to the way-side.  So just do me a favor and pretend it's right after Halloween, okay? :)  I'll be spending Thanksgiving weekend doing all my blog posts to get all caught up!

Happy Halloween everybody!  You know the drill by now, life is busy and chaotic and I always post stuff belatedly so here you go!

I kicked off the Halloween weekend by dressing up with my coworkers as Harry Potter!  Our PTA is doing a HP theme this year and we all LOVE Harry Potter so we dressed up as him and had so much fun waving our wands at all of the kiddos.

 

The pumpkins we created for the PTA Fall Festival...Harry Potter, Hedwig, and the Golden Snitch!

 

Me and my intern, Danielle

The girls and I kicked off the Halloween weekend with my school's PTA Fall Festival.  The PTA puts on a free festival for the kids with games, prizes, bake sale, a painted pumpkin raffle (pumpkins are created by staff members), and a trunk or treat set up out front in the bus loop.  Ben politely declined so that he could have some video game time :)

Saturday was spent cleaning and picking up around the house before heading off to a Superhero birthday party for our friend Charlie!  Natalie & Noelle enjoyed running around the backyard and swinging on the swingset.  We left the party a little early because it was past nap time and we had two cranky kids so we headed home and as soon as we got home Natalie threw up.  Sure enough she had a fever so the rest of the evening was spent trying to make her comfortable and keeping Noelle away from her...not the easiest thing to do!

I was supposed to work in the Totzone at church on Sunday but ended up cancelling to take care of our sick pumpkin.  Ben's aunt & uncle were in town fro TX so Noelle and I managed to sneak away for a bit to see them while Natalie stayed home with Ben.  Natalie was still sick Monday so she ended up not being able to go trick-or-treating for the first time which made me so so sad :(  She ended up being sick for a whole week!  Praise God that Noelle did not catch it, whatever it was.  Ben also managed to be diagnosed with bronchitis at the same time.  It was crazy!

Noelle and I went trick-or-treating to a few houses in the neighborhood.  I pulled her in the wagon, which she LOVED, and she quickly realized that taking candy from strangers was really fun, haha!  It only took her one house to realize these people were giving her things to put in her pumpkin and since the houses we went to knew her sister was home sick, they gave her double to take home and share, which really meant double for Ben and me!

We stayed out about an hour and when we got home, Noelle did not want to get out of the wagon.  We tried to take her pumpkin so she could climb out and she was NOT having it.  She threw a fit when we said it was time to go in so I guess it is safe to say she enjoyed trick-or-treating!  Once we got her inside we let her check out the candy and she chose fruit snacks to eat before bed.  Thankfully we were able to sneak her in without waking up her sister.

 

Having fun trick-or-treating!

 

The look you give when Daddy says it times to go in.

 

"Cheeeeese"

I felt so bad that I didn't get any pictures of Natalie in her costume that after she was feeling better I dressed them both up again and got some pictures for our yearly album.  I didn't want Natalie to wonder why she didn't have any Halloween  pictures some day!

 

They think saying cheese means get as close to the camera as possible.

 

How you feel when your sister has your pumpkin

 

Still won't give the pumpkin back

 

Success!

 

Happy (very belated) Halloween!