The visit to see Santa

I had decided that we were probably not going to go see Santa this year because last year was such a catastrophe.  But my sister wanted to take Jayden because it was his first Christmas and she wanted me to take his photo.  Since I was going with her anyway we figured we'd take the twins.  I have to say I was dreading it a little.  The twins hadn't had a nap and I just kept replaying last year in my head.  I didn't bother dressing them up or doing Jaelee's hair, that's how excited I was.  For those of you who don't remember this is our picture with Santa last year:

Luckily we didn't have to wait in line very long and Jayse seemed to be doing ok.  We let Jayden go first thinking if Jayse saw Jayden sit on Santas lap than maybe he would be ok with it.  Then we let Jaelee go, again thinking if Jayse saw her than maybe he would be ok with it.  Jaelee did fine even smiled.  Then Jayse, he didn't even want to go near Santa.  So Greg again guided him over there, Santa put his arms around Jayse and snap we got a picture.

 Another awesome memory and great picture for the books....

Getting ready for Christmas

We finally went and got our tree this weekend. I had wanted to get it the weekend of Thanksgiving but Greg made me wait, saying the tree would just be crispy and dead by Christmas. Honestly, that would be fine with me. I love having the tree around for as long as possible. But we got so busy and I gave in so we waited to get the tree. It seems like there has been trees for sale on every block this year. Even the gas station by our house is selling trees.

We went out to dinner before getting our tree and poor little Jayse was so tired he didn't even want to eat - which is unusual for him. He feel asleep on the way to dinner and slept in the booth the whole time.

And Jaelee was just her crazy self....

We found a place selling trees where they were the farmers of the trees and the prices were awesome.  We got a 7 foot tree for $22 and it looks really nice.  The guy working there was very friendly, he took our picture for us and gave the twins candy canes.

 

While Greg was outside getting the tree on the stand the twins and I were getting the decorations out.  They loved sliding and wrestling around on the tree skirt.

 The twins tried to help decorate the tree but they were not helping much so I finished it...

On Saturday my best friend was in town with her husband and family.  They had rented a room in a hotel and invited us to go swimming at the pool.  The pool was heated and had a large pool and a kiddie pool.  The twins and I jumped at the chance and headed over there.  When we got there Jaelee got right into her swimming suit and Jayse refused to even take his shirt off.  But when we got to the pool he then was ready to get his swimming suit on.  While I was changing Jayse, Jaelee with her little floaties on her arms jumped right into the pool.  I couldn't believe it.  The older kids were doing it so she just did it.  Luckily Amy was right there and got her.  She continued to jump into the pool with Amy catching her and Jayse......well he went at his own pace.  He went to the kiddie pool and dipped a few toes in and pulled them out then dipped them in again.  Eventually he stood on this little ledge that was around the kiddie pool and walked around that for a bit.  Then he went down a step and walked around the water some more.  Then slowly he sat down and finally he was all the way in and was loving it.  The twins swam around in the kiddie pool for a while and Jaelee had to run over to the big pool every once in a while and jump in.  I lowered Jayse into the big pool a couple of times and he just screamed his head off.  When it was time to leave, the last one that wanted to get out of the water was Jayse but once I mentioned we were going to get food, he was out of there, LOL. 

 

 

 The next day Amy and her family came over to our house to make ginger bread houses & trains and decorate sugar cookies.  It was a lot of fun and we all ended up on sugar overload.