Christmas Update

Thanks so much for all of your great comments and suggestions about making the holidays more manageable. I was able to address and get out our Christmas cards. This was important because they were also doing double duty as birth announcements. I won't be so neurotic about it next year when we're not announcing Nora's arrival.

We made the journey to Bass Pro Shop yesterday. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach when I saw a parade of girls in tights heading out the exit. I'm an optimistic person so I walked in hoping that the line wouldn't be too long. We got to the area where Santa was and it was a VERY long line. They were passing out cards for us to line up in another 30 minutes. Joel was not a fan of the Santa excursion to begin with and so he was less than excited to wait in line but was sweet and deferred to me. I proposed that we wait in the restaurant and grab a drink and an appetizer and then get back in line. We headed to the restaurant and grabbed a table at the bar for quicker service. I was still on the fence about the whole thing. The sea of toddlers (ie germs) made me nervous. So, we sat down and were contemplating what to do. The menu didn't really appeal to me and as we were chatting a five year old started coughing right behind us. (I add this because Joel is convinced this is what made me want to leave). It seemed like such an ordeal to get this photo taken in which she was probably going to be asleep or grumpy anyway so we left. In hindsight, we should have gone later- around 8 pm or so- as the toddlers would (hopefully) all be home in bed. So, our Santa excursion was a bust but we did take some cute photos at home. (Joel accidentally cut off my head while trying to make Nora smile - definitely consistent with the whole ordeal but Nora looks very cute).