Santa Claus is coming to town!

…and Hannah is not impressed.

Well, it took 5 years but I finally got my screaming Santa picture! Mike thinks it’s beyond weird that I’m excited about this. But every family needs a classic screaming Santa picture, right?!

Our neighborhood put together an amazing backdrop and Santa felt right at home in our little winter wonderland.

We arrived in the nick of time (no pun intended) before the rest of neighborhood descended and the line became incredibly long.

Landon was one again calm and a little serious with Santa, happy to see him but perhaps a bit intimidated. He had also just danced his heart out at his school program, so was a little dazed and tired.

Hannah was not having any of it. Not a lick.

Omg I just noticed Santa is giving L.J. bunny ears! Classic!

We had another opportunity to visit Santa two weeks later. Turns out Santa loves pancakes and was visiting our local IHOP for breakfast!

This special breakfast was just for kids at our school; they must have been very good little boys and girls this year to get such a special visit from Santa!

I was flying solo that morning (no reindeer involved), so it was the perfect opportunity to eat up some of the day. The kids were quite excited about pancakes!

They each chose a snowman pancake with fluffy whipped cream and a bacon scarf. Let’s just say that the actual breakfast didn’t quite match the marketing photos in it’s presentation – but they were still delicious. The kids scarfed them! And made an enormous mess.

I tried another Santa picture with Hannah. Perhaps if I’m holding her, she’ll realize how nice and friendly he is, I thought. Nope. Still terrified.

She did give him a tentative high five and a fist bump, so perhaps a little progress was made. And yes, her shirt does say “Elf Sized” :)

After he got a bit of breakfast in his belly, Landon wanted to say Hi to Santa and tell him the names of all the Thomas trains he wanted for Christmas.

We wrapped up our trip with a generous tip to compensate the waitress for the amount of whipped cream removal required at Hannah’s seat and then made a quick trip to Wally World next door for a new shirt for Hannah. Her “Elf Sized” shirt fell victim to a decidedly not elf-sized amount of apple juice and pancakes. $3.88 for an owl sweatshirt she now loves was worth not going home before continuing our errands!

Afterwards we went to Sprouts – a favorite errand for both kids – and then spent a beautiful but very chilly morning at the “Dinosaur Playground”. Both kids napped well that afternoon!