Santa...I know him!!

This past weekend we got to meet Santa not once, but twice! 

On Saturday we took Lilly to the mall, waited in line for 2 hours, got Lilly's picture taken with Santa, and then over paid for 3 crappy quality pictures that probably cost 10 cents to print.  BUT because we are full of holiday joy-we had a BLAST!  And really seeing Lilly's face as she sat on Santa's lap was priceless!   I have been reading her Tommy dePaola's My First Christmas book and in it he has lovely illustrations of Santa.  I really think she recognized him from the book.  She reacted much like she does when she sees Elmo-it was great!

    "SANTA!!!!!  I know him!"

Lilly LOVED Santa.  She didn't want me to take her off his lap.  Maybe I should be concerned that my child is overly friendly with strangers.  I swear she is the friendliest kid I know.  When we took her off his lap so other kiddos could have a turn, she just kept craning her neck back to see him.  Hopefully she keeps that same love for him in the years to come!  Here are a few other pictures of our time spent in line and of course one with Lilly and the Big Guy.  

  Mimi spoiled Lilly with an Elmo balloon which is now floating around my house...but she loves seeing it every morning when we go down stairs!

Family pic...Lilly and I have the same expression!

Lilly on the Naughty/Nice o'meter-It's like she's saying: "I don't know what it will be...."

Nice!!!  Of Course!!

The 'official' Santa photo...Lilly definitely has an excited face!

And we ended the trip to the mall with a stop at the Disney store...Lilly was in heaven!

*Looking back on these shots I am thinking to myself-no wonder she has a cold now-it was a germy weekend!*

On Sunday we went to Freddies in Bel Air with the Smith's, McGrains and Johns, for breakfast with Santa.  Lilly was still on her Santa kick!  While we were eating she kept peering at Santa over Tommy's shoulder.  I was really upset because while I brought my camera with me, I left the SD card in the laptop.  MAJOR fail!  Luckily I was able to steal some pictures from my father in law.  Here are some shots.  Unfortunately Santa was sitting in the sunlight so some of them are really bright.  I was planning on editing them before posting but the time just got away from me. 

With the McGrain girls..see all she wanted to do was look at Santa!

Going back to see Santa again!

Love.

All of the cousins!

What a wonderful Santa-filled holiday weekend!  Looking forward to this weekend-no plans other than to do some Christmas cleaning and get started on the baking (I am going to try my hand at some candy this year!) and Lilly's friends Sydney and Clara are coming over on Sunday for brunch.  I am looking forward to catching up with their mommies Lesley and Laura who I used to work with at UMBC-funny thing now is that none of us work there any more.  I am glad we are able to get our girls together who were all born in the same year! 

Hope everyone is enjoying the hustle and bustle!  9 days!!!