Christmas Celebrations

Well I didn't quite make my goal of catching everything up last week, so I decided to lump together some of our Christmas celebrations into one big post.  (New Year's Resolution #274: Take more picutres of my rapidly growing girl so that we have more pictures to post!)

First, we decided to take advantage of Indianapolis' 12 Free Days of Christmas, and took Mia to the Indiana State Museum to ride the Polar Express train.  We actually had a big group of friends going, but Cooper starting running a fever that morning, and baby Miles decided he'd rather party all night than let his poor Mommy sleep.  So we ended up with our BFFs Savannah and Joe (affectionately referred to as Joe-Joe by Mia), and still had a great time.  Savannah and Joe were pros, as this was their second year to ride the train.  After waiting in a very short line, I quickly found out that Mia Jane is not so into riding on moving objects.  I had to ride in the train car with her, holding her in my lap.  After one ride, she announced, "All done Mommy!"  Fortunately, she loved just watching the other kids and was eager to wait while Savannah and Joe rode a few more times.  I had never been to the State Museum, so we took the kids to a couple more exhibits before heading home.  We (the mommies) all wanted to explore the Titanic exhibit, but you had to pay an additional fee, and we were pretty sure we'd have more luck without our kiddos, so we decided to try that one again later.  It was a fun (and free!) morning, and I hope we can go again next year.

We tried to get all 4 kiddos (including Joe's baby brother Will) together on Santa's sleigh for a picture. It was really a good idea in theory... 

Mia: "My nose itches, Mommy!"  Savannah: "I can't look at the camera Aunt Sarah.  That would be too easy!"

Joe: Savannah, you look down on the count of 3 with me.  Mia, you look straight at the camera and smile.  That'll frustrate them some more!

The result of telling them to say, "Elmo!" instead of cheese.

One thing (among many) that I love about Christmas is getting to spend time with those you don't see as much of throughout the year.  I know it makes the month of December crazy busy, especially when you've got a little one whose schedule you keeping messing up, but I was willing to forsake schedule to spend the evening with our dear friends the Smiths.  Travis and I are the godparents to their daughter Gabby, and since Emily went back to teach this fall (and because both our lives are hectic in general) we haven't seen much of them at all.  We had a great time watching the girls play, celebrating Gabby's (4th!) birthday a little late, and catching up with our friends.  Gabby was so good with Mia, which is impressive considering their age difference.  I was the oldest on both sides of my family, so I remember well having to play with all my much younger cousins.  It ain't so easy, let me tell you.  Lots of, "They're little, they don't understand, you are bigger so you need to share."  But Gabby was so patient, loving, and maternal.  I still can't believe she is four!

Playing dress up.  I think we need to get a hat like this.

So sweet.

Gabby is all smiles for the camera.

Cheese!

Our girls together

Last for this huge post, every year our church hosts a breakfast with St. Nick.  Travis and I have been working at them for the last several years, and last year I brought Mia even though she was still a bit young for the event.  This year, I was so excited because she's starting to understand more and more about Christmas, and we've watched The Polar Express about a dozen times, so we know who Santa is.  The morning starts out with breakfast, followed by crafts, games, and activities, and completed with a visit with St. Nick himself.  Unfortunately, Daddy was unable to join us for breakfast, so Papaw and Grandma Paschall came with Mommy and Mia. 

Mia was very excited to see Santa from the outset.  She waved and pointed and kept saying, "Santa!  Ho ho ho!"  I was optimistic that she'd do better this year as we had pretty good luck with Santa at the mall:

Note: My husband does not endorse the scanning of professional pictures and forbid me to post this anywhere.  However, you can't actually buy a digital image from the mall, so I feel justified in only posting it here.

 But as you can see, the actual visit with St. Nick didn't go too well.  Oh well, I guess there's next year, right?

"MOMMY"

Here's a few more pictures from the morning.  After our failed visit with Santa, we ran into our friend Savannah, and then did a few crafts with Grandma.

BFFs

Making Christmas ornaments with Grandma Paschall

We love our Papaw and Grandma!