Ho,Ho,Wahhhhhh!!!!!

Last night we had Doug's work Christmas party. Instead of trying to cram all the people into the too small, too crowded bowling ally like last year, we went over to the Air Force base to a hanger. Huge, slightly drafty, kinda loud (but not as loud as last year) and ...great. Mary loved the bouncer that was set up in the far corner. She didn't care that it was packed with kids bigger than her. She didn't care that most of the time, she was getting bumped, jostled, pushed. She had a blast. I think she would still be in there if given the choice. Strangely enough, I didn't get one pic of her in it. Oh well.

I was able to pry Mary away from the bouncer with a small bribe of "decorate your own cookie"

She had a fun time smearing on the frosting and then covering it with as many m&m's as she could find. Of course, she put a "red hot" on there and didn't know what it was until she ate it. Oops, I guess I should have been paying more attention rather than taking pictures. She was a bit hesitant of eating m&m's after that until I verified that it was indeed chocolate and NOT spicy cinnamon.

Adam loved that there was plenty of room for him to walk around and explore.The "escape artist". Since the chairs were too wide for his seat belt and there were no high chairs, dinner was, um, challenging. Adam was too busy looking around and trying to socialize to eat.

Santa came for a visit and this past month, Mary has been saying that she would sit on Santa's lap and not be scared. Ha! The minute she saw him, she started to whine and cling. Oh boy. Of course, the first thing Adam did was yank off Santa's glasses. I was able to get a pic of him putting them back on and you can see how squirmy Adam is. By the time we finished pictures, Mary was crying, Adam was crying and Doug had a huge patch of drool/snot/tears on his sleeve. Ahh, gotta love the holidays.

Santa is so generous. He always gives a present to each of the kids. The presents are wrapped and divided up by age and sex. So when you walk up to Santa, the line elf calls to present elf, "girl age 3, boy age 1". Seems simple enough. Last year, Mary received a stuffed dinosaur that roars. Hmm, not exactly what I would immediately think of when I hear "girl", but she's kinda a tomboy and didn't have one, so great. This year, Adam received a small stuffed teddy bear (good) and Mary received a hot wheels motorcycle (huh?). Once again, I think the elf who's labeling these presents had a bit too much egg nog. I will say that we stood in line with one of Doug's co-workers. He has 2 girls ages 6 and 9. The 6 yr old received a Polly Pocket doll. She saw what Mary got and handed her the doll and said Mary could have it. What??? It was so sweet. I hope that one day, our daughter is as thoughtful and considerate. Here's "Blinky" playing with her new doll. For those of you that don't know, Polly Pocket has a million teeny, tiny accessories that just beg for Adam to eat on and choke. We made a deal with Mary last night. She could play with Polly after Adam went to bed, but then she would have to say bye-bye to all the tiny pieces and just keep the doll. She was wonderful about it. Mary had a new haircut yesterday morning. She kept telling me it was getting too long and getting in her face. Oh, I love this look on her and it certainly makes it easy to take care of. Merry Christmas!