julie takes pictures: Visit with Santa

We had a family day and took the girls over to The Somerset Collection mall in Troy to see Santa. We've done this every year since Chloe was born in 2010 and so far (knock on wood) both girls have always done really well sitting on Santa's lap.

This morning we got there around 10:45 and were able to see Santa right away. They now give you a jump drive with your photos on it so we had to wait about 2 minutes after the family before us finished before we could go see Santa because they had to transfer the photos. Oh my word, you would not believe the reaction. It was like a toddler version of The Beetles Come to America. I could hardly keep Megan back from him. Of course this Santa is super friendly so he was waving to the girls and Megan was blowing him kisses. Mind you, this is all from the side stage in the waiting area.

Even Chloe who is really shy these days was excited to see him. Yesterday we mentioned that we were going to see Santa today and practicing with Chloe what she was going to say to him. The two main questions were "Have you been good this year?" and "What do you want for Christmas?" Well, Chloe assured us that she had been very good "today" (we told her that didn't count - Christmas was only once a year and Santa wants to be sure she's been good all year). When we asked about the Christmas list she said, "Well, I don't really need any toys. I'm good. I'll just play with the toys in my toybox." LOL. I swear, we did not coach her on that! She finally decided that she wanted a kitchen and to go to FL to see Grandpa and Grandma. (This is very good news because the second wish is already in the works.)

Here are the photos. They turned out pretty well but they don't quite capture the love and excitement the girls had for him. I think having the lady taking pictures kind of threw them off (I have no idea why, I take their pictures all the time, but they calmed down a lot when the picture taking started.)