Christmas parties

Our neighborhood office is really good at throwing parties for the residents. We wish they were as enthusiastic about helping us out regarding living arrangements as they are about throwing parties, but oh well. They threw a wonderful holiday party early in December complete with horse drawn carriage rides. Mina really loves animals so she was thrilled to see the horses stroll on by. She was also thrilled to see the fire trucks pass by. In fact, she kept trying to run into the street after them. Dru had to continually run after her to bring her back to the sidewalk. We got to ride in one of the carriages and it was pretty neat. Mina actually sat still for the ride. Then we made our way inside to the kid craft room and Mina made a Santa Claus slap bracelet. She really loved it and didn't ever try to take it off. She actually kept giving Santa kisses. We drank hot chocolate, ate hot dogs and cookies and chatted with a few friends. Santa Claus was there for children to visit and have pictures taken with, but the line was ridiculously long. Luckily the next weekend was the ward party and Santa would be making an appearance there as well. It was really cold and windy so we ended up not staying for very long, but we enjoyed our time there.

The next weekend we got up early to attend our ward's Christmas party. It started at 8:30 in the morning. Mina sleeps until 9 or later most days, so we had to wake her up to go. We all went in our pajamas. We started the party off by decorating sugar cookies. Mina just wanted to eat the decorations, but Dru helped her to get the idea of what to do. Her cookies turned out pretty cute. We then made some paper snowflakes, ate breakfast and then waited in line to see Santa. The night before we had gone to Bass Pro Shop where they were doing free pictures with Santa. We thought Mina was going to enjoy it, but she proved us wrong. She had been so obsessed with Santa the weeks prior, so we just thought she'd like seeing the "real thing." We sat her on his lap and she was okay until the photographer told us to get out of the picture and then she freaked out. So, at the ward party, she sat on the steps of the stage waiting her turn and she looked as if she was going to be okay sitting on this Santa's lap. But, as soon as her turn came and we walked her up there, she started screaming! She didn't even want to look at him. Oh well. She got a bag of goodies and as soon as she calmed down, she lay down in the middle of the floor to enjoy a Hershey kiss. What a goofball. We had a lot of fun despite the Santa experience.