PreChristmas

Yes, I am actually so far behind on posting that these are from before Christmas, but such is life. Better late than never.

This is Julia "helping" me decorate the tree. What you can't tell from a still photo is that her idea of helping me decorate is removing the ornaments from the tree. And this helpfulness doesn't stop at the tree, Julia loves to help by removing anything from wherever it happens to be set up or put away and placing it on the floor. We're working on that.

These two photos were taken at the Welcome Center on Kennedy Ave. We went there with my immediate family and my brother's nephew to see their displays of A Christmas Story. They had a zillion trees set up, and even this big platform with a slide where you could see Santa, just like in the movie. Turns out though, when we got there, that Santa wasn't in that day.

Since Santa wasn't there and poor Tyler was totally looking forward to seeing him, we drove all the way out to Bass Pro Shop (Brian & Tiffany live out there), because they were supposed to have a nice display, too.

This was the only picture I ended up getting. Kristen took Jules up, and I stood back to take the photo, but when she went hysterical I traded Kristen the camera for the monkey baby that had such a grip on me, I swear I could have let go and she wouldn't have fallen to the ground. I was going to just stick her on his lap and take the picture anyway, crying or not, it would be a funny picture, but I literally couldn't get her off of me. Oh, well. There's always next year.

Just inside the door at Bass Pro they had a gigantic tree that was decorated with real animals. Small ones made sense, but I was impressed to see an entire bear standing inside of it on one side.

We got cozy by the fire before braving the cold again.

We went out to eat one Sunday before Christmas, my whole family, and took some group pictures for Christmas cards. (John was working the day we saw Santa) I couldn't believe how cute Julia smiled.

Kristen is always trying to teach Julia to text. If you get a message that says something like this...

fniuoea sfhdiufhgt nisueomxri feuiwbhifeui

you'll know who it's from!