steppin' out saturday - breakfast with santa!!

while we were at dave's company party friday, we took ian to spend the night with grammy & grampy.  his cousins annie & ellie were there too, so it was a big party.  the next morning, his other cousins christian, jason & gavin joined them for breakfast with santa at grammy & grampy's church.  there was sausage & pancakes and then santa arrived.  ian still refused to socialize with santa- he wouldn't even let me put him down...  his cousin annie however walked right up to santa and climbed into his lap without a second thought.  silly kids.

 this is as close to santa as ian was getting.  notice my nephew jason, (who won't even look at santa) in his mother's arms next to us

seriously, stop taking me to see that bearded guy!

 i refuse to pose for any photos, mother!

 stories!

on ian:  top- carters, overalls- vintage (they were mine), shoes- reebok

on me: dress- modcloth, tights & boots- target.

getting into the christmas spirit

we've been hustling and bustling at the mchousehold with all of the christmas to dos!  we finished shopping in early december and now our gifts just await wrapping paper so they can go under our tree that just went up on sunday!  in the meantime we are ready for dave's office party and breakfast with santa this weekend!  i will have pictures of our decorated house (and our new house in general very soon), but first: christmas cards & a visit with santa!!

last year it took us about 100 shots to get this family gem:

look at that sweet boy.

the years before that were pretty easy...

2007. 2008. 2009.

taking christmas card photos with an almost 2 year old who can't sit still even for a millisecond... impossible.  this year there weren't nearly as many takes b\c there was nothing to take a picture of... but we got a really cute candid photo of dave & myself...  too bad we couldn't photoshop baby in...

aren't we sweet?

almost every photo we took that ended up having ian in it captured him either screaming, trying to get away, or moving so much that he's just a little blur...

but we did come up with these 2 gems...  

so

so, i sent these pictures to my friend mel for her opinion on what i should choose...  and she turned it into this magic...

i really need to learn photoshop....

on the santa front- things were also different this year with an almost 2 year old...  walk with me down memory lane?

we weren't sure how ian would react to santa- we knew with him there would probably be no in between- it would be either love or hate.  saturday night we had dinner at chick fil a and the santa cow made an appearance- ian was in love- he was waving at him, giving high fives, mooing...  so we thought the santa thing might go okay...

 

giant cow costume santa = cool.  real guy as santa = not so cool

not so much...  poor ian.  dave & i were in hysterics...  the things we do to our kids.  oh well, better luck next year.  of course, he does nothing now but walk around the house saying "ho ho ho."

do you do christmas cards?

do you take your little one to see santa?  was their reaction as you expected?

linking up here:

and..

harper's happenings santa photo link-up