Santa Cause for Concern

Visiting Santa did not go well this year. The proof:

Brady wouldn't even sit next to poor Santa who, by the way, is our neighbor's uncle. He lost his wife a few years ago and the holidays weren't the same afterward, so he decided to bring some joy to the kids as Santa. All kids except mine. Sigh. Please note how Brady is prepared to clothesline Old St. Nick if he comes any closer. Ella, arms thrown up in terror, screamed the entire time. I knew better than to have high hopes, so after 5 attempted "good shots," I told the Elf photographer to give up. Oh, well. Memories!

Even though sitting on Santa's lap (or standing at a respectable distance from him) didn't go as well as we would have liked, the kids enjoyed themselves at the mall itself. When I'm tempted to take them to Disney World, I'm going to repeat this mantra: "Toy store, merry-go-round, and train." Brady rode the above backhoe through a toy store and was in heaven. We then hit up the merry-go-round and Doris, the 103-year-old woman running the thing, was so smitten with Brady's "angelic blue eyes" that she gave us a ride-all-day pass for the low price of $2.50. We went around and around and around. And around. And then I felt nauseous so the fun was over. Or so we thought. Enter: the Christmas train. You would have thought it was Thomas the Train himself; Brady was so excited. He and Lani rode together like big boys and girls; Ella watched and blabbered the entire time.

Put me on that train!

As a result of my sleep deprivation, I don't remember if I already posted about this, but here goes: Brady is Rainman. This kid is ridiculous with numbers. It's not necessarily the counting; he goes from 1 - 9 before repeating 3 about six times. It's the fact that he immediately recognizes a certain number of something is missing. For example, he has a bin of about 30 Matchbox cars that he has named or otherwise identifies by some physical trait, like a lightning bolt on the door. The other day, he pulled out the bin and within 2 seconds was like, "Hector is missing." I didn't think twice about it, we started playing, and a few minutes later, I spotted Hector halfway under the couch. It was WEIRD! He's done it at my parents' with their pool balls, too. As soon as all of the balls are out of the pockets and on the table, Brady knows exactly which ones are missing. I'm thinking he'll be useful in Vegas.

On the opposite end of the intelligence spectrum, Brady has begun speaking gibberish on purpose. He chooses a letter and then begins all of his words with said letter. That made describing a rash quite interesting: he told me all day on Tuesday that he was "bitchy." Of course he meant itchy, but it was entertaining nonetheless. I didn't make a big to-do over it, save my initial laughter, and he hasn't repeated it since. I'm sure he'll break it out at an inopportune time in the near future. I'm thinking church would be a great time to yell out: "I'M BITCHY!"

Hiding under pillows: "Where is Brady?!"

My goal was to play photographer and shoot Brady and Ella for our Christmas card this year. My original thought was to do a 1920s theme with fun clothes and props, but based on the only decent (AKA: no one was crying) shots I got, I quickly scrapped the throw-back idea:

So, I threw them both in some cute clothes this morning and crossed my fingers that I would finally get our Christmas card shot. I got nice individual pictures, but putting the kiddies together proved itself impossible. Oh well. To compensate, I included an older photo of the two of them...and immediately regretted it after I ordered the cards. Again, oh well. If you're fortunate enough to receive my adorable kids in your mailbox (at this rate, in February), you'll have to let me know what you think.

These aren't the Christmas card shots, but I still thought they were cute.

This last picture is nothing more than evidence that I'm color blind. I swear those pants were red when I put them on her. Then again, the wine I drank before dressing her was also red. Hmm...