Happy Holidays!

Ok, it's finally my last post and I'm all caught up on pictures! Phew!! I feel like I've been running a marathon to keep up with all of the pictures I've had over the months. So, we had a busy and productive weekend last weekend with last-minute preparations for Christmas (which I cannot believe is 4 days away!). On Saturday we went to JC Penney's for family holiday pictures as well as Jayden's 2 year photo shoot and an early 9 month photo shoot for Jaxson (he's just shy of 9 months old...wow!!). It was all dandy during the family pictures, but before long Jayden was bored and uncooperative... all he wanted to do was play with the plastic candy canes and curl up on the floor with his blanky and sleep. He did end up giving some good ones of him laying with his blanky although it wasn't what I had envisioned for his pictures. Jaxson was a little better, but he's busy and he's a very fast crawler so we couldn't keep him in one place long enough to get a lot of good shots. We did get a couple though. I also made our Christmas card with the pictures we got. :)

Then on Sunday we did our Christmas shopping and decided to go and get Santa pictures. I didn't realize that Santa closes early (6:00pm) on Sundays and we got there at 5:00. When we got there at 5, the lady told us it was about an hour wait and that even if we were the next in line at 6:00 that there was no guarantee that we would get in to see Santa. How big of a bummer would it have been to get the kids all dressed and excited to see Santa, to be the next in line only to be told to come back another day...after waiting for an hour? We decided to brave it anyway since we had the kids dressed and were already there. Last year they told us it would be a 2 hour wait and we got to see Santa in less time so I was hoping we'd have the same luck. The wait was literally so intense and the whole time we were thinking we weren't going to make it. 3 minutes left and we were the 3rd family in line to see Santa. People rushed through to get their pictures and we got to the front of the line... and then the lady told us: "You will be the last ones to see Santa". PHEW! We got so lucky, but I felt so bad for the families with their kids behind us who were told they "might" get to see Santa only to go home without a visit (Aaron convinced Santa to take pictures with the family behind us, which he did). By this point, Jayden was cranky and only wanted Daddy and to run around like a crazy toddler (note to self: don't ever give your child a handful of gummy bears while waiting for Santa again. It makes for an even crazier and uncooperative child...). I quickly plopped Jayden down into Santa's lap while Aaron handed Jaxson to him. Jax did GREAT! He was very curious as to who this Santa person was. And as for Jayden...well, the picture speaks for itself. Oh well, we thought it was funny and will serve as good embarrassment for future girlfriends. Haha!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and only the best for a New Year! 2009 has been a interesting but exciting and chaotic year for us. We are looking forward to ringing in 2010 and hoping that it has more wonderful things in store for us as we hope it will for you. Season's Greetings from our family to yours for a wonderful holiday season. God Bless!