Tis the Season...

Matt and Addison have both been sick since last Friday. Yucky runny noses, congestion, coughing, etc. I think Ryan is starting to come down with it too, but so far I feel ok. I’m sure I’ll get it after everyone else is better.

Last year at this time, Matt and I took a week-long visit to Rome. My mom stayed with Addie part of the time, and she took her to a little Christmas carnival thingy that our local shopping center did. They had train rides, face painting, a little petting zoo, and Santa. Here is a picture of her at the petting zoo last year.

Addison was not thrilled with Santa at the mall last year, although both my mother and I took her different times, trying to get pictures. Here is the result:

I had to sit with her

The blankie had to sit with her, and there are tiny tears.

Now, whenever I ask her about going to see Santa at the mall, she immediately gets very serious and says “No, no no. No ma’am, no ma’am. No no no.” She likes to look at Santa, and she points him out in books and in the neighbor’s yard, but she does NOT want to go see him at the mall.

This year, she wasn’t feeling too hot, so I thought the Christmas carnival might be a welcome distraction. All day I’d been telling her that we were going to see Santa and she could sit on his lap. She didn’t tell me no this time, so I made it sound very fun, and kept telling her over and over, so that when the time came, she would just go sit on his lap. We got to the shopping center, and got on the little train around the parking lot. We went to the petting zoo again, and got a snowman painted on her hand, and then we went to stand in line for Santa. I kept repeating “There’s Santa, we’re going to sit on his lap, up in the sleigh”. She didn’t seem too interested. We were next in line and she watched the kids in front of her talk to Santa for awhile.

As soon as they climbed down and I took one step forward, she threw a fit. She clung to me and cried and said “NO NO NO!” , and buried her head on my shoulder. Matt was laughing and went up to hold Santa’s hands, to show Addison that he wasn’t so scary. She was not fooled. Matt snapped one picture of me holding her behind Santa – we got one tiny glimpse of her face.

They also gave us a Polaroid of me standing in front of the sleigh with Santa in the background.

She was still very upset about it. Part of me felt like a mean mom who just wanted the photo to put in the scrapbook (what scrapbook?) but mostly I just thought it was hilarious. Poor Addison.

Oh, here are some of pictures of her and Ryan “helping” Matt put up our Christmas lights a couple of weeks ago:

It was cold out, but Ryan was snuggly and as happy as he could be.

She was a LOT of help, let me tell you.

This Sunday, our ABF class at church gave us a surprise baby shower! Matt and I joined the class at the end of August, so I was close to the end of my pregnancy. They usually do some sort of baby shower for their class members, but since we were brand new and didn’t know anyone and were still just checking things out, we certainly didn’t expect a shower or anything. Well, they took us into their fold right off the bat – we had meals brought to us every other day for at least a month after Ryan was born, plus several members brought us baby gifts, and usually a gift for Addison as well. But this Sunday, they decided to do the official baby shower – they had everyone bring a pack of diapers instead of clothes or toys, and there was a big cake too. Unfortunately, Matt was home sick with Addie, but I was very surprised and happy. I feel like they have welcomed us with open arms and we are SO thankful that we found this wonderful group of people within the wonderful church.