Fall, Part II

Andrew got to take a carriage ride around Gainesville's square WITH Santa and told Santa everything he wanted for Christmas and what he thought everyone should get. He told Santa he wanted a truck, Daddy wanted a watch, Mommy wanted a purse, Grandpa wanted a camera and Grandma wanted a new car. He wouldn't sit in Santa's lap, but really, what kid does want to sit in a stranger's lap, especially a stranger that dresses and looks like THAT?!?!

Andrew was SO excited about his Christmas program. He has been singing all kinds of Christmas carols since mid-November. His favorite has been: Red and Green are Christmas Colors la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, which is sang to the tune of Deck the Halls. He gets a little overzealous at the end and starts singing Red and Green are Christmas Colors la, la, la, la, la, dooka dooka do da dooka doooooooo! But like I said, he's been so excited about this program. He's been telling us that he is going to sing for mommy and daddy. The day of the program we told him we would see him that afternoon to pick him up for the program and then he would sing to us. We picked him up as planned, and took him to the theatre. Here lies the problem: We didn't tell him we would be dropping him BACK off with his teachers, so he thought we would be right there with him (Amazing how the toddler brain works). So during the ENTIRE Christmas program he kept crying MAMA, MAMA, I want my MAMA!!!! At one point, his class had to go up to the front of the stage and hang ornaments on a tree/stroller. He sat down behind the stroller--hidden! At the end of the show, we met him in the lobby. He told us he did a great job! Christmas cards were fun this year. Seeing as how I am out of work due to student teaching, we couldn't go to a fancy photog and have pictures made. So, I got out the camera, dressed up the tree a bit and had Cody do some fancy lighting work with our lamps. We got several great shots of our boy--even though he was incredibly tired. This is my favorite shot...he did this completely unprompted, but I feel like it is a bit home alone-esque!

Christmas finally came. We had an elf on the shelf which Andrew did not like. Guess he didn't like the idea of a creepy little elf watching him and reporting his various behaviors back to Santa. We got the elf, opened up the packaging, read the book to Andrew and before we finished the book, Andrew had the elf completely repackaged and ready to ship back to Santa! Andrew was so excited to get the cookies ready for Santa and made the milk all by himself. He decided Santa would not like plain old milk...he would want chocolate milk.

Christmas morning was awesome with the boy! Andrew could not believe Santa came to visit him and left him all kinds of wonderful toys! He was a good boy all day and for the following week he thought Santa would come to visit him!