Pictures with Santa

Our "Picture Day with Santa" started off rough. Mommy's brain is a little fried on most days...really. Unless I get up before the boys to take my shower and get myself organized, I might as well just stay in my jammies and eat bon bons. On Tuesday night, I told Jackson that we would be getting up in the morning and going to get our pictures taken with Santa! His school hired a photographer to come in and all proceeds go to the school! I thought "I'd rather give my money to HH than to the mall Santa, so sure! Why not?!" Mom and I went out and got the boys matching outfits--the ONLY thing we could find that came in a 3 mo. and a 3T.

So Wednesday morning, we get up...late. I'm already running behind. I called Mom to come over and we would take the boys to Santa, and then go have lunch. We get the boys in the car, in the blistering cold wind, order form in hand, and go up to the school. We get there (a block later) and notice that there are no cars in the parking lot...strange....we get to the room where they are shooting and there are no people and no lights...strange....so we sit down and decide to wait about 10 minutes. It was at THIS point I decided to READ the order form; at the top, it states (in bold and underlined): Prepaid orders are required for Santa. SHIT......

At this point, Jackson is so excited to see Santa, that when I tell him that he's not here and that he went back to the North Pole for lunch, he starts crying. So, Memaw tells him that he is going to be back in a little bit, but he'll be at the MALL this time, and we are going to go have lunch and then see Santa! All is right with the world again...although, we hear " I wanna see Santa!" the entire car ride to the mall.

Once at Santa, we are super excited b/c we are the first in line. The bad part: (insert cheese infomercial voice here) Santa has teamed up with Shutterfly this year and your grand total for a picture of Santa on a disc is $32. Holy freakin cow! BUT, as an added bonus, you get $20 toward your purchase at Shutterfly, but it expires on the 31st, so use it FAST!

And even though Jackson's upper lip is SUPER chapped and red, and even though Everson looks like the Michelin man in his sweater suit, we took the damn picture. And then Mommy needed a nap...seriously...and maybe a few shots of Vodka....Merry freaking Christmas....


We're going to try and have a jolly ol' day at Breakfast with Santa at Boeing on Saturday and hopefully make better memories then!

But it gets better...why? Because we got to go to Build a Bear and make a Holiday Moose!! We got a $5.00 off coupon from Santa (wow!! apparently he teamed up with Build a Bear too--he's quite the entrepreneur, don't you think?!) and of course, they mention B-a-B and it happens to be on our walk out of the mall....

So Jackson gets a Moose. And it's cute. And it's antlers light up with Christmas lights. And he stuffs it, and they add a song (Jingle Bell Rock) for $1.00 more...and we go to check out...and Memaw find a hole in the Moose that is not supposed to be there. SOOOOO, we start the process all over again! I'm telling ya, our day was FABULOUS!!

I can't even remember the rest of the day.....it's all a tiresome blur....