Breakfast with Santa

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
This past Sunday was my SJMOMS (South Jersey Mothers of Multiples) club's Holiday Breakfast.  It's an awesome affair in a hotel ballroom with over 200 people in attendance.  This year Mother Goose was there to tell stories to the kids, there was a magician that performed a magic show and did balloon art, a professional photographer, crafts, good bags, breakfast and if you saw the title of this post.... the man in the red suit himself! 
This is our 3rd year attending and we take my parents & Jim's parents to join in the fun.  (Last year I even ran the entire event).  The kids had a ton of fun and so did the grandparents.  And I really love watching the interactions between them.  It really is such a nice gift to spend this time together as a family. 

Me, Summer, Jim & Cole

With Jim's Parents (Mom-mom & Pop-pop)

With my Dad (Grandpa)

Enter Santa...
Previous encounters with Santa have not gone so well.  In fact, I believe I had to be in a few of the pictures to keep my little ones in the shot.  This year we've been talking about him and practicing what to say to him (this worked in gearing up for our Disney trip, so I keep using this method).  We've been talking about Santa for probably at least a month.  Our elf Pepper Minstix arrived shortly before Thanksgiving and brought us a few new Christmas videos and a behavior chart.  The chart has a block for each day until Christmas and Summer and Cole both are working to earn a sticker per day from when Pepper arrived until when Santa comes to show how hard we are working.  So far they are doing great and we have only lost a total of 3 stickers.  The week leading up the event, we started practicing what we should say to Santa.  We would practice telling that we were trying to be really good and that Summer was working really hard on being nice to her friends at school and was doing pretty well, but could probably try a little bit harder.  And then we would practice a few items from each of their Christmas lists.  We had made Christmas lists with pictures of the items that they were asking for cut and pasted onto one sheet, which they really seem to like.  I also told them that when it was there turn, they could sit on Santa's lap but that they didn't have to.  They could choose to stand next to him and look at Mommy so I could take a nice picture.

We were first up this  year to see Santa and they were so excited.  Cole decided that he would sit on his lap and Summer decided to stand next to him.  We made sure to tell him how hard we were trying to be good.  And I asked Santa to tell Summer how important it was to be extra nice to our friends... and she told him she would be.  Cole asked Santa for more choo choos, a truck that talks, cars and the Toy Story landfill.  Summer asked for a Leappad and clothes & shoes for her babydoll.  I think Santa can handle that if they keep earning all of their stickers for good behavior.  Especially after donating all their stuffed animals to kids in need like such little grown ups.