Christmas Catch-Up: Everything BEFORE Christmas Day

My goal this week is to get caught up with the blog so I can make a fresh start next week...so expect a random hodgepodge of stuff.

I took Amelia to see Santa at Bass Pro. This was also Amelia's last day of school, and when I picked her up, her teacher had given all the kids elf hats, and Amelia wanted to wear hers for her photo. :-)

While she didn't see all that pumped about seeing him through most of the season, she was really excited while we were standing in line. She seems to warm up to him a little more each year. (For the record, I HATED sitting on Santa's lap. I think there might be two photos of me with Santa.)

Another fun Christmas-y thing we did was take Amelia ice skating the Saturday before Christmas. This might have been one of my favorite things we did this season, even if my arm was super sore for three days from holding Amelia up. :-) The lighting kept us from getting really great photos, but here are a few.

That last photo makes me laugh. While we were there, Amelia made a new friend (actually two, because we also skated some with this girl's sister). At one point, the little girl was skating with her dad and grabbed Amelia's hand...Darryl asked me if if this was my new man/family. The photo does make me laugh because we do look like a cozy family of four, don't we??? I don't even know their names, but the little girls were SO sweet and we had fun skating with them.

Amelia also had fun the Sunday afternoon before Christmas when we invited her next-door neighbor friend over to decorate sugar cookies. I will not be surprised if Amelia's senior yearbook quote is "You can never have too many sprinkles."

I'm pretty sure that in this house's last days -- however many years from now that might be -- there will still be some remaining sprinkles in some floor crevice from the Christmas Cookie Decorating of 2012.

On Christmas Eve, we had our friends Rebecca and Damian over for dinner, and then we went to the bonfires in Grammercy. I had no idea this is a big tradition, but it was pretty cool. And loud.

And here are Rebecca, Amelia, and I being goofy on the way home.

When we got home, we got all ready for Santa to visit. We had already sent our letter via Princess the Elf, but we were sure to scatter reindeer food and leave some heavily sprinkled cookies for Santa.

This was such a fun Christmas season. Sure, it was busy, but we made lots of fun memories.

And yes, I'll be back with a Christmas wrap-up as I tell you about Christmas Day and Christmas in Florida!