Believe in magic....

“Believe in love. Believe in magic. Hell, believe in Santa Clause. Believe in others. Believe in yourself. Believe in your dreams. If you don't, who will?” - Jon Bon Jovi

One of my favorite holiday traditions is the visit to the mall for the Santa photo op. Through the years (hit the link...it's worth the look), we've had some pretty fabulous ones....this year is no exception.

The not so long wait...it helps getting there at 10am ;)

checkin' for a fake

the baby messes with the santa

The Official Shot

LOVE Mia's fake smile and Lil looks like a gangsta baby!

Merry Christmas

Cookie Family

I've been wanting to post about these cookies for a couple of weeks...now that everyone has their cookies, I can! It all started when Daryl, Mia and I sat down to ice some gingerbread cookies. They started out like random gingerbread men...then Daryl made one with a UT shirt on...I made one of Daryl...in the end, every family member got a cookie of themselves for Christmas :)

Daryl posing with the cookie I'd iced in his image

Mia HAD to show off her cookie just like Daddy did
Mia quite intent on icing a cookie that she'd already sampled!

(from top left) Daryl with UT shirt and Blackberry in hand, Me with camera, Mia with kitty cat

(from bottom left) Pawpaw with is Ron Paul shirt on, Nana with her glass of red wine, Joe in suit and holding his blackberry, Melissa with a book in hand (I added a set of knitting needles and scarf later), Gwen with messy hands from painting :) (I'd also made one of Memaw, but it didn't make the photo shoot)

Mike the fisherman, Tia Mae who's pregnant, and Ita with her beloved dog, Max even our sweet Ms. Andrea from Casa T got a cookie with an Om symbol on her shirt, a paintbrush and painting

Daryl's First Christmas Gift of the Season

For his birthday, Daryl got a RC airplane and his dad got the engine and all the innards needed for actual flight. Well, they flew it on Thanksgiving, and if you can remember from the post, it only lasted about 6 seconds. I heard flying a higher end RC helicopter may actually help learn how to work the controls and stuff....soooooo I may have won wife of the year with this gift. He opened it on Sunday night after Mia went to bed....I couldn't help it. I'd bought it Saturday. So, I did wait an actual 24 hrs :)

I LOVE how happy he looks in these pictures. He actually RTFM'd! He flew it around...Niles was mildly concerned, but Daryl was having the time of his life! Then he let me have a try. It was fun, but I felt out of control and insane. There's a LOT to think about while flying. All was good until I managed to make it fly toward ME! That just freaked me out! I dropped the control box and fell to the floor!

Tree Trimming & Cookie Baking

This year, Mia is a BIG help. She wants to be right in the middle of everything. She's enjoyed laying under the tree while I was putting all the lights up. Daryl topped it very nicely with our star...it's only fallen on me once. Mia was soooo cute trying to hang ornaments on the tree. Her first one, a red apple, she hung on the tippy tip of a light bulb. Then she moved on to attaching ornaments to the wires of the lights instead of the tree branches. Oh, and ALL the snowmen and to be together...like a centimeter apart! Mia's totally into my snow globe collection. She'll sit on the floor with one for a loooong time just turning it over and watching the snow slowing fall...the ones with a music box in the base are her favorites. She's only broken one...now they are up on the counter and will be moved down per her request...one at at time while supervised :)

Then we baked many many many sugar cookies in the shapes of snowflakes, candy canes and christmas trees. I'm waiting for a peaceful block of time this week to sit down with her and decorate away. She had her own little rolling pin, but I LOVED when she used mine that my mom gave to me....it's what she used while I was growing up...very sentimental.

p.s. anytime we do anything christmassy, Mia wants to wear her elf helper hat. I sometimes don my santa hat, but it's a little itchy

Visits with Santa...through the years

I'm 38 years old and I still cherish my pictures with Santa when I was young. It's a tradition that I wanted to keep going with Mia. She's had fabulous visits with him...even when she was in the womb :) She's snuggled, received a much coveted lollipop, and this year, Santa gave Mia a jingle bell necklace that she won't take off. She's coming up the stairs as I'm writing this...jingling all the way :)