Downtown St. Pete to see santa

The boys wrote letters to Santa. 

And they took them to his mailbox. 

 We walked around to see the sites before meeting up with our friends the Stevens.

 We love spotting nativities.

 Tyler was happy in the stroller so he didn't get out to mail his letter.

 But when he did get out, I decided he HAD to go mail his letter. Maybe he should have stayed put:) He had fun running around with the boys. This cry was short lived.

 In contrast, the line was really long, at least an hour. That's why we go with our friends. The kids can run around and we can catch up with them. It's a tradition since they moved south and we moved north. We both lived in St. Pete when our Dylans had their 2nd birthdays. And their 3rd birthdays I think.

 I have to tell you. My plan was to plop Tyler down and run. Luckily Steven had another camera b/c this Santa grabbed my hip and pulled me onto his lap! I was startled and tried to stand back up but he said "We want happy pictures." I was laughing, but Tyler still wasn't what I'd call happy.

Classic. Santa does know best, but I have to have my crying baby picture. I took Tyler and the other boys told Santa what they wanted. Dylan asked for more ornaments for our tree. So now we look bad! We did make some ornaments, like we do every year. This year's ornaments were the cinnamon kind.

Santa!

 They really told Santa what they wanted this year.  Dylan wanted a dinosaur and legos.  Isaac wanted toys and everything.  Santa must have known (or it was sheer luck) that Dylan's grandma got him a dinosaur.  Dylan asked where it was after opening presents on Christmas morning.  Santa may or may not get a kid everything he asks for. 

 Then they mailed their letters.  They wrote them on the back of a menu b/c we forgot the other ones they wrote. 

 We found Jolyn and her family and friends there:) 

 It was cold, they had already gone glide skating and had been there a long time. 

 Her kids were cold and ready to go. 

 We could have gone to a midnight showing of a movie!  j/k  I had to go home to pack for my trip to Colorado for Martin's wedding, etc.  I did stay up past 5am.  I love gaving good friends and fun Christmassy things to do:)

Dear Santa

It's Isaac's 1st Christmas, so he needs his Santa picture. I really liked the peppermint trees this year. Santa was so nice. Not creepy at all. He seemed like the nicest man ever. There was one family visiting with him when we got there. Dylan could see how nice Santa was, but had no intention of sitting on his lap. On the way there, he said "I just want to say hi to Santa. I don't want to sit on his lap." And that's just what he did. He gave Santa a high five. Santa gave him and Isaac each a little Christmas rubber ducky. I love that! Much better than a mini candy cane. I respected Dylan's wishes especially since the cost of pictures has doubled since the Easter bunny. Isaac wasn't so lucky. Look closer, did you see he kicked his shoe off when he was kicking and screaming? It was instant. If you buy some pictures, you can take a picture with your own camera. That's all I needed. Just this snapshot for the memory. I hope he'll forget all about it. He has done this scaredy screaming for a couple of other men.

I gave the picture I bought to my Grandma because she has a picture of all of her grandkids on Santa's lap hanging on her tree each year. ___________________________________________

Dylan wrote santa instead. He thought I said Santa was going to GET HIM or something at first and was worried when I asked what he wanted Santa to get him. Then he said that he did want presents. He wants scary toys and bad guys. He plays with Jake and Brent's wrestling figures, so I'm pretty sure that's what he wants. He and the other Dylan mailed their letters together.

Last year one of Santa's elves wrote Dylan back. I hope he does this year too!