"I Meet A New Santa Everyday"

Last week we saw Santa three nights in a row at three different parties. Thursday night was a work party for David, Friday was a party at our church, and Saturday was a Starlight Christmas party. On Sunday while we were chatting in our usual place, Natalie told me "Mom, I meet a new Santa everyday." I was a little worried about what she might think. We talked about it and she decided they are all 'worker santa's' and they help Santa (kind of like his elves). The REAL Santa is the one who lives at the North Pole and is coming to our house Christmas Eve.



This is so Natalie. I love how she talks.
Stephen is excited to see Santa and talks about him ALL the time, but he won't sit on his lap. This night when Santa asked him what he wanted he pointed to the little bags nearby and said, "that...want that candy!" He wouldn't tell Santa anything else but candy...easy to please.

The theme of Friday night was a Cowboy Christmas...we do live in Texas after all. So, I thought it would be fun for the kids to dress up. Life is more fun that way!


Natalie loved dressing this boy up as Santa!
I love this cheesy grin...with his hat (straight from GKTW) he looks more like a farmer than a cowboy.
They had someone taking pictures with Santa, so I didn't capture any. Stephen was happy though because Santa was giving away more candy!


Starlight Party...they loved frosting these cookies, but there was too much food coloring and their teeth turned green.
Stephen loved eating them.
Natalie loved making it and licking hers...notice the frosting on her chin. Check out her cute hair too, she is so creative and spunky with things.

I LOVE this picture of them doing 'cheers.' This is one of their favorite things, they do it with cups, bowls, napkins...anything really. Having the real cups is EVEN better. When Natalie drank out of this cup she exclaimed, "Oh Daddy, I've been wanting to use this kind of cup my entire life!"


You can't get into the Christmas season without the tree and lights.
Waiting patiently!
Waiting crazily...

Santa demonstrations followed...we were having technical difficulties with the lights, so this waiting thing needed an enternainment crew.


I love this video, cracks me up. I missed the beginning where Stephen was sitting on Natalie's lap.


This is one of my favorite shots. They were so intent on holding the ladder. At one point Stephen let go and Natalie quickly told him to hold on as if her Daddy's life depended on it. After that Stephen started talking about Daddy "fall down" and doing demonstrations for us. I love two year old humor.
I love this shot too, just my two little spunky squirts being goofy together.
I caught one of his crazy faces as he was playing in the tree bag.

The top of the tree wouldn't light, so we postponed decorating, and somehow it kept not happening all week.

But at least the tree served as a backdrop for cute pictures. I can't resist taking pics when my kids are dressed up. They are too cute...well besides Stephen's shoes!
Here's Natalie showing off her nail job. When we did our fingernails this week, I told Natalie I was going to surprise her with something special. So, we had all red and french tipped green on all the BIG digits just for Christmas. As Natalie was waiting she kept asking what the surprise was going to be. At one point, she put her hand on her heart and exclaimed, "Oh, I know you're going to do snowflakes, perfect, I wanted snowflakes all over since I have been wanting it to snow!" So, of course I did snowflakes and I didn't even tell her that wasn't part of my original plan:)
Stephen is fascinated by this Nativity snow globe, which is exciting since I got him a Mickey Mouse one for Christmas from Disney World. He's going to love it. He is in love with Mickey since our trip.


FINALLY decorating the tree!

I love how they are so cute together.


Sorting ornaments together.


Showing Natalie my Nutcracker ornament that I got when I was 16 and David took me to the Nutcracker!

I love showing my kids all the special ornaments and remembering where and when they came from, it is so very special. There was a little paper angel that caught my eye because I wrote on the back that Natalie ended up in ICU that night and she had only gotten out of the hospital the night before...I think they only let her out because she had a special dance recital that day. That special whirlwind day all came rushing back. Wow, Christmas trees are special. Sometimes I love the beautiful, fancy ones; but I would never replace the special family tree EVER!

Another funny thing is how interested Natalie was in all the angels, she wanted to hang up each one and handled them very delicately. When Stephen commented that one angel was a "bad guy" she said, "oh...no,no,no (in her sweet, patient voice) she's an angel and she is special because she is with Heavenly Father."


This little girl makes me laugh. Check out what she did when her Daddy teased her for being chicken...he wanted to lift her high to put an ornament on a bare spot up top.

I saved some very special ornaments for last. I got these special ones for Natalie and wrote her a little note about how they reminded me of her Princess Ball and telling her congratulations for ending chemo, they were all special reminders of her.
Look at her face!
She especially loves this one. Her little voice was so cute as she opened it, I don't think she even remembered them from last year since they were only on the tree after Christmas was over...maybe they got lost in the excitement of all the things Santa brought:)
Hanging up Scooby Doo with Daddy. Can I say how much he enjoyed being up on the ladder with his Daddy!
When we handed him the star, he started to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in a soft, shy voice...precious.