Santa!

 We made our Santa visit on the first day of Christmas break, since I had a little girl who kept asking, "When will we see Santa?!?!" She had a full list ready for him, filled with toys that are mostly too expensive (like a Barbie Dream House). We've had a lot of conversations about what exactly Mom, Dad, and Santa can afford, and we're hoping she's not too disappointed on Christmas morning.
We arrived about 10 minutes before Santa's house opened for the day, and it worked: a short line and the kids were able to wait patiently.

We tried to prepare Jon all morning, to avoid the screamfest from last year. We told him that Santa would ask him what he wanted for Christmas, so he practiced saying over and over, "I want trains presents."
 
When we got inside, Lauren sat right down on Santa's lap. He was great, taking a lot of time to talk with the kids and making them feel special. Lauren actually seemed to forget everything she wanted for Christmas, though, and I had to remind her she asked for Barbie stuff. Jon didn't want to go near him, and clung to me for dear life. But when Santa asked him what he wanted, he remembered his line and said it clearly. This was the best picture we could get all together.
After our Santa visit, we went to ride on the carousel. Jon was already operating at maximum capacity (meaning Santa pretty much stressed him out) so he had a small breakdown over the fact that he had to wait 3 minutes for the carousel ride. But he recovered and had fun once we were on it.

And that pretty much wraps up our morning with Santa! Otherwise we have been fairly low key, wrapping presents...

making Christmas cookies with friends...

...and watching Christmas movies. It has been wonderful to have mellow mornings, where we don't have to all be ready and out the door for school at 8am every day. Off to snuggle some more with my little ones! :)