Santa Encounters

I have many random photos on my camera and I'm going to organize this post according to the pictures I recently took.

I hope this first picture doesn't make me look like a bad mother/babysitter, but I recently had Addy and Benjamin over at our house and I let them watch a little Sesame Street. I gave them a snack and a drink and I just thought that all three of them sucking on their sippy cups was an amusing sight. I hope Aubree and Melinda don't think poorly of me plopping their kids down on my couch to watch TV! I promise I don't do this much! :)

We've attended a number of Christmas parties lately, giving Emma and Becca a number of opportunities to sit on Santa's lap. Let me just say that Emma hates it! She doesn't throw a tantrum or anything (although Becca truly freaks out at the sight of Santa!... there's a great picture of her in a page done by Jess which you can see here), but she makes the saddest and most concerned faces and tells me afterwards that Santa is too scary. Poor thing... but she was happy to get a candy cane from him. In fact, when I ask her what she wants for Christmas she just tells me "candy canes!". So innocent and so easy to please... what a joy! :) At the Christmas party we had with friends, Craig and Aubree made us all dress up in the ugliest Christmas clothes we could put together. I'm bummed that we never got a picture of us all in our frightening Savers Christmas attire. Just use your imagination... it was lovely. :) And so great that we were required to run around in public doing a video scavenger hunt. How embarrassing! But so fun!

Emma's Grandma and cousin, Adam, both have a birthday on the same day (on a side note- Emma and her Uncle Peter also share a birthday... weird!). Anyway, b-day time is coming up for Carol and Adam in a couple of days, but for an early birthday outing we went to see A Winnie the Pooh Christmas Tail play at the Valley Youth Theater in downtown Phoenix. It was a lot of fun and Adam and Emma both really loved it, especially since we were all Winnie the Pooh characters on Halloween. After the play we ate lunch at Sam's Cafe and I had the best enchiladas! I also enjoyed sharing in the birthday ice cream. :) While on our outing I tried to get a good picture of the kids in their Christmas attire, but Emma was being rather silly... but they're cute anyway.

I never posted about Becca's follow up appointment to check her weight. At 8 months, she weighed in at 14 lbs 8 oz, which is still quite small, but she gained 1 1/4 lb in a month and that pleased the pediatrician... she said to just continue what I'm doing and she should catch up just fine. Phew! I've been nervous about the whole thing... I'm glad that little Rebecca is eating and growing well - thank goodness for formula! I just can't believe how expensive it is. The Similac stuff is like 25 dollars for the larger sized container, which doesn't even last a week. Goodness sakes! I'm glad she'll only be needing the formula for another 4 months and then we can switch her over to cow's milk - much cheaper! Outside of formula, Becca has been getting acquainted with a large variety of foods - yogurt, bread, bananas, raspberries, strawberries, mashed potatoes, and many other soft foods (she still doesn't have any teeth!). Becca loves eating!!