santa claus is coming to town

'Twas the day before Christmas and all through the town all the people were shopping with no parking spaces to be found.

But my mom and I decided to brave the crowds and take the kids for pictures with Santa.

First, we drove over to the east side of Houston to a store called Bass Pro Shop which had advertised free photos with Santa.  However, when we got there, we were informed that all the Santa passes had been handed out to the customers who lined up before the store even opened.

I had made the rookie mistake of telling Katelyn who we were going to see before we even left the house so there was really no negotiating out of it.  My mom even offered to buy her ice cream to which Kate replied, "No.  Ice cream will give me a brain freeze and my mom said we were going to Santa's workshop."

So we drove over to the south side of Houston to the mall where we waited in line for over an hour for a one minute visit with Santa and a twenty dollar 5X7 photo.

But it was totally worth it.  Kate asked Santa for a flute and Sam loved him.  He cried and reached out for Santa when it was time to leave.  Also, we got this adorable picture.

I think Santa was pretty impressed that Sam had a nice black eye.  Last Sunday, he was attempting to walk at church and took a tumble face first into a chair.  Santa told me that I should tell people he was outnumbered in a fight with the neighborhood kids.

Later that evening, we traveled over to Dee Dee's for our traditional German buterglaze and reivelkucken (which I don't think any of us know how to spell) and some presents and family fun.

Katelyn went around the room shoving M&Ms into the mouths of unsuspecting people.

Finally, we made it home and started preparing for Santa's arrival.  Kate was so excited to put out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.  When it was time for bed, she didn't complain at all.  She was so worried about Santa flying over our house that she didn't even open her eyes when we tucked her in and kissed her goodnight.

It was a good thing too because Dave and I had a lot of things to do to help Santa.  To get into the Christmas spirit, we did our elf chores while watching one of my favorite Christmas movies, Truman Capote's Christmas Memories.

We finished our work just before midnight and collapsed on the couch.  Being one of Santa's helpers is hard work!  We're so excited for tomorrow morning though.

order restored

My mom just returned from a week and a half long trip to Utah.  Katelyn missed her grandma.  We were more than ready for her to come home on Monday.  In fact, we camped out at their house.  Her flight got in at one in the morning so we just spent the night and waited for "Ama" to come home.

Tuesday was quite the celebration day.

Katelyn worked on Grandpa's 2000 piece puzzle.  Now I'm just crossing my fingers that she didn't lose any pieces.  Grandpa takes his puzzles very seriously.

We went to Target for some adventures.  Kate found a bag of Cheetos in my mom's purse and helped herself.

My mom bought Kate a brand new swimsuit for the summer so, of course, she had to test it out by playing in the hose in the backyard.  We each sat around the pool in a lawn chair with our pants rolled up and our feet in the water.

"Order is restored!" I announced because everything felt back to normal with Ama finally home.

When Dave came home, the four of us when to the park for an impromptu photography session.  Mom and Dave took millions of pictures and Kate always loves the playground.

That night, Dave went to Cici's with some friends so we kept Kate up until Grandpa got home from work and had ourselves quite the party.

When we finally made it home that night, Kate couldn't even keep her eyes open.  She was one exhausted baby.

Finally, order has been restored.

q&a

Question - What is the only good thing about Daylight Savings Time?

Answer - More time to spend at the park.

tko

Do you ever have one of those weeks that just knocks you over?  You know, a TKO.  I had one of those weeks.  Actually, February kind of just felt like one of those months.  I'm not going to spend this blog post complaining about it though.  I'm trying to complain less.  You know, the whole Year of Megan thing.  Also, the past two weeks have been wonderful and amazing and miraculous all at the same time.  They just happened to knock me out.

So this morning, I slept until noon.  It was blissful.  Dave is a kind, kind man like that.  I woke up to the sounds of Katelyn laughing hysterically and enjoying to the maximum her father's day off.  We sat around for a while trying to figure out what to do with our afternoon.  We had planned to clean out the garage.  We only have one car and it seems unacceptable that we can't even fit our one lone car into the garage.

I don't know.  Maybe that's what we should have done.  But there was just something that sounded so appealing about buying a Spongebob kite and spending a day at the park.

So that's just what we did.

pool side snacks

Katelyn and I have spent such massive amounts of time at the pool this summer that tan lines crisscross our back and streaks of golden blonde color our hair.  We have a pool bag packed and ready to go at all times and Kate is daily getting into the closet to bring me swim diapers and sunscreen in hopes of a dip in the pool. We meet Lauren and the kids she watches several times a week.  We love to sit at the table under the shade and eat lunch poolside.

I have the pool time prep down to a science.  What once seemed like a tedious process of slathering sunscreen and squeezing into swim suits is now a simple task done in record time.  One of the more difficult things is actually figuring out what to eat for lunch.  It's much easier to pack ready made food like crackers and cookies but that is rarely a diet friendly option.  I saw these cucumber turkey sandwiches on Facebook and tried them last week.  They were delicious.

I partially peeled a cucumber and cut it in half.  I shook my head as I scooped out the seeds because, in my opinion, they are the best part, but I needed room for the turkey and cheese.  Instead of using high calorie, high fat cheese, I used a wedge of spreadable Laughing Cow cheese.  I would recommend drying the cucumbers off with a paper towel to help the cheese stick.  Next I put a few slices of deli sliced turkey over the cheese.  I packed some strawberries and that was that.  Lunch was ready in under five minutes.

At the pool, Kate took one bite of each strawberry and left them sitting on the table in a row.  What's up with that?

a vacation pictorial part five

Today we visited the sporting goods store Scheel's.  This store was so big that it had a ferris wheel inside.  The babies were too little to ride so they stayed behind with Grandma and Grandpa.

Some people were less than happy about the ferris wheel.

It was fun except I got really freaked out at the top and then angry when Dave started rocking the car.  I had horrible visions of the cables breaking and the two of us plummeting to the ground right in front of Kate.

It turned out okay though.

There was an aquarium that went up above our heads.  Katelyn loved it!

There was also a giant playscape in the children's area.  Kate had never been down a covered slide like this and she thought it was great.  She is such a daredevil.

We all had fun at the toy gun range.

After Scheel's Katelyn went home with Dave and the rest of the family while I went out for dinner with Kellie.  This time we remembered to take a picture.  Going out to dinner with Kellie reminded me of old times when we would sit in Wendy's and Chickfila for hours talking and refilling our Diet Cokes.  I unsuccessfully begged her to move to Houston to live next door to me and left feeling so nostalgic.

Later that evening Jack and Jessica came over for pizza!  At first Kate was shy around Jack but she immediately wanted to feed Jess pieces of soggy prechewed pizza.  Eventually she and Jack became good friends and she kept running around giving him hugs.  She was up way past her bedtime and got loopier as the hour went on.