Going to see St. Nicholas

About a week before Christmas we got 6 inches of snow. As is the way in the South, everything got cancelled and rescheduled (to be fair - there was an inch of ice on top of all the snow and the roads were dangerous). "Everything" included church and Sunday School. So instead of another day at home we ventured out to see St. Nick. We debated if this was wise... although we do St. Nick we try hard to make the real focus about Christ and his coming. We heard about this one local guy and thought we would try it...

Anyway- St. Nicholas was awesome. He told the kids to sing his favorite song as soon as they came down the stairs- not to open presents or run to their stockings until they sang his favorite song... any guesses??? What do you think his favorite song is???

It's.... Happy Birthday, he told the kids to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus before they did anything else. And, to remember Jesus was more important than St. Nicholas (himself).

Awesome, Santa. Thanks for the help. Really, Ethan keeps talking about how you love Jesus and so does he. But one more favor to ask...

Now next year- can you PLEASE let us take our own picture of you with our camera- it really is unfair that we can only PURCHASE the high priced photo from the (grumpy) photographer. $17 for one 5X7 is really not a deal.

And, one more thing, what happened to the free candy canes you gave out when I was a kid. Is the disappearance of this classic sticky goodness a result of the bad economy or child - hood obesity?? Either way, please bring that back too!

So- there are no shots of our kids with the jolly old guy. But, don't think you would have gotten a great shot anyway- Livy did not want anything to do with him (but has talked about him a lot since).

So here are our cute kids waiting...

Waiting... we got there early and were the first in line.

Playing on the malls "rides".... just waiting.
No we didn't insert a quarter- but they still "rode" them and had fun!

Isaac has started this new thing with refusing to take off his coat. Odd, I know.