christmas miracle

madelyn has been really, really excited to go to the mall this weekend for a picture with santa. she has been unwavering in her decision about what she was going to ask him to bring her, "a candy cane as big as a giraffe". she has been telling daddy and me that she is going to sit on santa's lap and take a picture.

she did have a momentary melt down when we first got into the line about not wanting to be there but i took her with me to get a coffee and she changed her tune. once we had my coffee she was ready to get back to daddy and mason in the line for santa. she even kept mason entertained the whole time we waited. she kept zipping and unzipping the window in his shade to play peek-a-boo, which he loved! i think he was a good distraction for her too.

i wanted to capture her excitement just in case she froze up when it was finally her turn to sit on santa's lap. so here is my 'interview' with her on the way to the mall (well, to get bagels before the mall).



while madelyn and i went to get coffee, the lady in front of matt and mason said to her baby, "he is quite a bit older than you are," before asking matt how old mason was; she then told him that her daughter was 8 months old! she then turned back around and didn't interact with us any more.

when we were about third or fourth in line someone came back for us to sign a waiver about santa being streamed live on the internet. i wish that i had known that ahead of time! i quickly tried to call my parents and matt's parents with the address so that they could see our photo session. nana was the only one home and she really enjoyed being able to see it. madelyn held my hand and we went up to santa where she told him her name and then got up on his lap for her picture. after the picture she answered his questions and told him that she wanted a candy cane - he said, "anything else?" nope. just the candy cane. she even went back to give him a high-five. i wonder if a real beard makes a difference in the 'scary' factor?
so the miracle is that we had a painless experience where both kids looked at the camera and mostly smiled for a cute santa picture. i was ready for the worst and our kids gave us their best! love.