december daily day 3: Santa in the Village

wow. so, it's been a week since i last posted! geesh louise.

can i redeem myself with a post full of crazy cute pictures of spidergirl!? i hope so. my, how i love her. :)

so, these pictures go back even further than the week i've been away. december 3rd was the day. we had planned to take both girls to visit santa in the village near their elementary school. something we all had been looking forward to all week.

but, nearly 15 minutes prior to me getting off work, ash was invited to hang out with her best friend and stay overnight. she took no time figuring out what to do......santa vs. a sleepover? well, duh. she chose the sleepover.

i'll admit, i was slightly annoyed, thinking this might be the last year, you know.....but whatever. i needed more practice at letting go of expectations anyway.

after we got her off, we headed off to the village with just spidergirl. we were pleased to arrive in enough time to head into Town Hall to oooh and ahhhh at the incredible Christmas village display and mark our place in line to see Santa....pretty close to the front of the line. we skip standing outside to countdown to tree lighting and seeing Santa arrive on the firetruck to get a better spot in line. she's not so good with waiting in long lines.....don't blame her at all.

she spent a looooong time making this picture for Santa's reindeer, Rudolph.

after Santa arrives into town, he makes his way to the upper level of Town Hall and takes a seat on a magically decorated stage with Mrs. Claus closeby. Santa's elves, help him remember names by writing out name stickers for the children to wear.

as they make their way to sit with Santa and tell him their wishes, they get to visit with Mrs. Claus. she hands each child a candy cane filled with M&Ms. spidergirl didn't really care much for the candy, she just wanted to be social and tell Mrs. Claus all about her picture. she recently got a report card home from school that said she was exceptionally bright and capable, but is a bit too social. LOL. she was definitely talking to anyone and everyone who would listen during this outing.

"hey mom, take a picture of my picture." *gigglegigglegiggle*

it's clear to see here that she was super proud of her "marker & oil crayon" coloring job.

oh gosh, I love Santa. he's magical.

she was busy telling him that all she wanted for Christmas was a big, huge, stuffed squirrel. we have not a clue where she'd ever get that idea from, LOL.

after visiting Santa in the village, we headed over to another little village celebration where she played games, collected candy canes, made a craft, ate some popcorn, watched an ice sculptor and laughed and giggled and loved on us the entire time. (and i found a new book that i adore and is now on my wishlist--so what if it's for kids!)

then we took her out for a little mexican dinner.

she really is an entirely different personality when ashlyn isn't around. and i have to admit, doug and i are more relaxed when we don't have to deal with the bickering and defensiveness between the two of them.

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i obviously have 11 more days of december daily to catch up on.

blog forecast: flooding of posts expected.) *LOL*

i love my readers.....thank you for stopping by!