Saturday, December 29, 2012

The Merriest of Christmas Eves

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On Christopher's last day of school, he told his teacher he was looking forward to one thing - Seeing Santa at the Children's Museum.  And Eric and I were like, Uh.....   We hadn't planned a trip to the Children's Museum.  Honestly, I thought we weren't going to make it to see Santa this year, since I wasn't able to take them without Eric's help, and he was disinclined to deal with the crowds.  Understandable, of course, but I still wanted to go.  Apparently, so did Chris.  But that was Friday when he requested it, and we had stuff planned the whole weekend....until Christmas Eve morning.  So we went.


I checked the Children's Museum chart and Santa was making appearances from 11-2, after which he had to head to the North Pole.  The museum opened at 10, so we headed there as early as we could, which meant we left the house at 10.  Still we waited in line for Santa.  Actually, Eric parked my wheelchair in the line, and I sat there, kind of inching, while the kids got to play.  


I had a couple of sweetboys stop by a couple times to help me with the wait.  


But Daddy took these pictures of the boys making cookies.  


Looks like in the coming years, I'm going to have some natural chefs to help me out with my Cookie Baking.


They even work pretty well together! 


They went for a giant game of Connect Four...also while I was waiting in line.  


Meanwhile, back in line...after half an hour, the line had condensed, Santa was waiting, we only waited about 15 more minutes once it started moving.  I'd gotten us a good spot in line.  And the boys were pretty patient, they loved playing I Spy with all the stuff on display.


Check this out.  No one is flipping out and crying (Sam!).  Last year, Sam flopped on the floor like a fish.  We weren't going to to pay for pictures, but they were offering a special Christmas deal on snowglobes.  So we ended up getting one of those - I know....suckers.  But my pictures turned out better than theirs.
Christopher was completely thrilled to see Santa, he was telling him that he wanted "Doc McStuffings thing and a blue a car".   At first Sam didn't care.


But then he decided that talking to Santa wasn't so bad.  Daddy helped prompt him to tell him what he wanted, "Fruit snacks".  



Now both boys weren't smiling at quite the same time, but I'll take Sam's smirk over the big flop of last year. 
Merry Christmas!  


After meeting Santa, Christopher said the other 1 thing he wanted to do (which I thought would be dinosaurs) was go "ice fishing".  So Both boys went Fishing! 



Chris AND Sam both caught some whoppers! 


I made them stop just a moment for some tree posing.  
They get so tired of me taking pictures of them, but with Cuteness like this how can I resist?!


Last stop at the Museum, the required picture by Bumblebee, who was all dressed up for a snowball fight.  



After the museum, we were starving, and for some reason I was craving Chinese, and the boys wanted french fries.  So we compromised and went to Applebee's.  I'm sure you're thinking, HOW is that like Chinese?  Well, they have these wonton taco things, that have some cabbage in them, they're pretty yummy. Plus who can resist their Oriental Chicken Salad. I sure can't.  Even the boys went to town on chicken fingers and fries.  Sam was so far gone, that he had a monster meltdown before eating, and it took us a while to get him to put some food in his face, sometimes he's like that.  Once he starts eating, he perks up and his mood will completely change.  I'm sad to say, he totally gets it from me.  There's a finite window of when we're hungry, and you just have to feed us, or deal with the wrath.  Sam's is worse than mine....I think.  



Since it was  Special Occasion - Christmas Eve, we decided to split a Triple Chocolate Meltdown.  
Best chocolate dessert ever. 
And these are My Children, because they agree!  



We went home and took naps.  Eric went to church early to direct the bell choir for the 5 oclock service.  When he got home we had a really exciting dinner of leftover pizza, before heading to church ourselves.  The boys behaved pretty well.  Christopher was so good, we let him light a candle.  Sam was not ready.  He's way to wiggly, as evidence by the blurriness of my picture of him.  Little wiggler was So not ready.  But he spent a crucial bit of the service playing with little Lars sitting in front of us.  Lars is almost 2, and Sam started hiding behind the pew, popping up and yelling, Happy Birthday!  Which Lars thought was hysterical, I had never seen the boys laugh so hard.  Granted it may have been distracting from the Prayers that were going on at the time, given that Christmas is a big Birthday party for Jesus, it kind of seemed appropriate in a silly distracting way.  But it made us all smile.   The music for the Service was Wonderful, my heart overflowed.  I had thought going to church for Christmas would be my 1 Thing to do that day, and I was perfectly ok with that, but as it turned out, I was given so much more, the museum, lunch, AND church with my boys.  It was a Wonderful day...plus my body held out.  During the service, Chris even sang along with me.  He now knows (or at least can read) the verses of Joy to the World, and some of Silent Night.  That was some big Joy for me, sitting between my sweetboys and singing together.  


When we came home, we let the boys open 1 present...just one.  They each chose gifts they had just received from Margaret, their favorite sitter, and a good friend from church.  They wanted to just keep playing rather than go to sleep.  


Daddy got the trains geared up before bed, and read The Polar Express, and the boys played with their trains for just a bit before bed.  Santa brings them a new car for their trains every year.  This year is the first year, no one tried to break or derail the trains.  Great Job!  


Just enjoying the trains go round.  
I love this pic.  


And then a reading of The Christmas Story and it's off to bed for my sweetboys.  


Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night! 

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