::santa claus came to town::

It was a cold, windy, snowy, night...

...when Santa came for his "pre" Christmas visit. The kids got to sit on his lap and tell him what they wanted him to bring for Christmas.

He asked if they'd been good and gave them a candycane.

Chloe anxiously waiting to tell him about how she wants a princess castle and a hair salon kit

Portie telling Santa how he wants a Buzz and how

Dadduh wants a V (Cadillac)

(Portie cried afterwards because he didn't get his Buzz. He thought Santa was going to give out toys that night-poor boy. He's still kinda new to this whole Santa thing)

Coop was just plain scared. There was no sittin' on Santa's lap for this guy

Here we all are! It was kind of a mad rush when it was our turn 'cause there was a long line of people behind us and the temp was in the single digits AND the wind was blowing AND it was snowing AND Cooper was crying. But what would a Santa picture be without at least one of us crying??

We had donuts and hot chocolate afterwards inside Grandpa's house. He passed away this past March. We missed him last night. He wasn't in the house when we went in to warm up. He wasn't in his chair talking to us, the house wasn't 85 degrees when we walked in, he wasn't telling us about the books he'd been reading, he wasn't talking about all the crazy people standing out in the cold. It just wasn't the same.

::o(nother) christmas tree::

After we did our tree, we decided to go help Grandma and Papa Kitty with theirs. Grandma just had surgery (no, she doesn't have heart disease, that's just the category this info is found under) on her heart, and we wanted to help them get their tree up and house decorated for Christmas. Plus the kids LOVE to "duckorate."

Grandma's tree is a lot more fun than ours. It has colored lights, and Grandma lets them hang the ornaments wherever they want!

...this is the Portie section.

Here's a little history on Grandma's tree...

It's always a real one, really colorful, doesn't match or look cohesive at all. That last one sounds kind of bad, but it's really not. Her tree has ornaments on it that Billy and I made when we were little. She's got ones from family that were made and sent as Christmas presents, some we made as YW projects, and new this year, Barbie ornaments (thanks to Chloe :) )

I remember walking through Foley's (back before it was Macy's) and looking at all the Christmas tree displays with her when I was little, and she'd talk about how much she'd like to have a whole new set or ornaments, but she's never done it. She just can't bear not to hang the baby's first Christmas from 1980 and 1982 on her tree.

Then we made a...



...it was a little rickety, but kinda cute. Some of the candy got eaten, some got broken, some even got spit on, but most of it ended up on the train, and it was fun.

Grandma Kitty's feeling great. She was glad we came down (and so were we). We worried that we might have stayed too long and made things a little crazy for someone who just had surgery a few days ago, but she swears we didn't. Either way, we're glad we got all their Christmas stuff out and were able to help.

PS Coopie was there too-you can't really tell from the pictures, but he was!! He was sleeping for some of the visit, climbing the stairs, falling off the bottom steps, eating, and squacking at the kitties. Somehow, I didn't get him in any pictures!! :( guilt-guilt-guilt :(