Santa

Yesterday we took the kids to see Santa (yes, I know it's early but this way we don't fight crowds as Joshua refuses to ever stand in any line, but that's another story). They had planned out exactly what they were going to ask him for and were just so excited to go see him. When we got there they went running up to the edge of the area, waved to him, and were just jumping up and down with eagerness. But when I tried to actually walk them up there I all of a sudden had one kid attached to each leg so that I couldn't move, and only Jaden was confident enough to go right up to Santa and sit on his lap. Jaden quickly explained to Santa that he wanted a hotwheels track and very specifically described just which one it was that he wanted. This seemed to warm Colten up a little bit and he finally moved closer to Santa (still standing just out of arms reach) to announce that he wants the Lego batman video game. Ashtyn was still glued to me at this point just taking peaks at Santa and little smiles. She finally had me tell Santa that she wants a Cinderella dress for Christmas as she just smiled and nodded.
Joshua prodded Colten into asking his question to Santa that he's been preparing all week, "Where are your reindeer?" I was amazed at what a great answer he got. Santa patiently explained that all but two of the reindeer were up at the north pole getting lots of food, extra rest, and some training so that they would have the stamina to fly him around the world on Christmas eve. But he said that two of his reindeer had flown him down that day to the mall-Prancer and Vixen and were waiting for him to finish to fly him back home to the north pole. He told Colten to listen really carefully as he walked through the mall as Prancer especially likes to run around on the roof and sometimes you can hear his hoofs on the mall of the roof. Colten listened closely with big eyes as he kept looking furtively up at the ceiling and then back at Santa. Then Santa pulled out Prancers harness bells and offered to let Ashtyn hold them, this finally convinced her to come close enough to Santa to take a picture with him (notice the bells in the picture, and that we had been talking to Santa for a good 10 minutes by this point).As we then walked back through the mall the kids all kept saying that they thought they heard Prancer running around on the roof (I think Ashtyn's boots were clomping in just the right way to sound like reindeer hoofs). And as we drove home they were all craning their necks to see if they might catch a glimpse of reindeer antlers on the roof of the mall. Jaden thinks he saw some for just a second. It was a fun trip to see Santa. . .