Breakfast with Santa

One of our greatest blessings from open adoption is gaining a new family. When we adopted Max, we joke and say we adopted Jordan (his birthmom) and about 26 others. They are all a terrific family and we are truly blessed!With family comes Christmas traditions. Now one of our favorite Christmas traditions is breakfast with Santa at Papa Jake's and Grandma Jeannie's house.

See, Papa Jake and Grandma Jeannie are good friends with the REAL Santa. On a Sunday morning in December they invite him to their home with breakfast with the grandkids (and all of us adoring parents get to hang out too).

The kids eagerly await the arrival of Santa.Santa reads them a story and hands out gifts.He sits with each child and listens to their Christmas wishes.Sam asked Santa for an iPhone 4S (this was news to me!) so they were having a conversation about it.I don't think it was looking good for Sam. (Thanks Santa!)

Then Grandma Jeannie leads the kids in singing Happy Birthday to Jesus.Next all the kids head over to the table to eat a delicious breakfast, complete with hot cocoa. Yum!

We are truly blessed and thankful for this family and this great Christmas tradition!
Cheers!
Christy

Excuses...excuses...

Oh dear neglected blog and its readers, if there are any... I'm sorry that I took advantage of the fact that you'd be here when I got to it... sometime during the holiday season.

I didn't think I'd forget about it this long but we've been busy. (Excuse #1) Busy making the memories, the food, and the crafts that I normally blog about. Like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas baking, etc...Want to see? I wish I could show you. A tragic thing happened to my external hard drive and I LOST about 25,000 photos. No kidding! I have a great friend working on the recovery but, not a guarantee (Excuse #2).
I can show you the last couple of weeks though...

The tree is up with many of our decorations. Max loves to pose with his "cheese" smile every time he sees the camera. Here is Sam's preferred pose:And this is the one he gives me when I plea:Oh... and Max has discovered something sweet that he LOVES!
Our kids have been crazy busy with school, dentist appts, girl scouts, church, and now basketball and gymnastics start in January. Whew! (Excuse #3). I'm also teaching an art class in Sam's class and that takes up a lot of time, but so rewarding! (Excuse #4) You'd think I'd have time to pack to go to Minnesota for Christmas but... that may have to wait until the night before if I keep blogging. (Excuse #5).

Speaking of Minnesota... our Elf on the Shelf, Snowy, is back and Madeleine wrote him a note to ask him if he'll come with us.
(Psst...he said Yes.)

Hoping to get on again before soon, but with all these "great" excuses, there are no guarantees!
Cheers!
Christy