Traditions New and Old

We had a great weekend that began on Friday evening with Brian and I doing a bit of Christmas shopping. We have a tradition that we started shortly after we got married where we spend a December evening in University Park Village in Fort Worth shopping for Christmas gifts, then dining at Blue Mesa. My mom and Tammy watched the babies for us, and we got a few gifts checked off our list and enjoyed some yummy Mexican food, margaritas, and the following conversation:

Me: I have no idea what to get the babies for Christmas.
Brian: We already got them the gift of life!
Me: No.
Brian: Remote control cars!
Me: No.
Brian: Remote control boats!
Me: No.
Brian: But Todd and I can play with them!

So obviously we are having a bit of a dilemma about what to get the babies for Christmas. They are of course too young to know what's going on, so I guess I'm not sure if we should just go with toys, or something they really need, or something more sentimental? Hmmm....I am still thinking on that one.

On Saturday morning, we got Charlotte and Jensen up and dressed and we headed to Fort Worth where my Moms of Multiples group was having a breakfast with Santa. This is such a great idea...they held it at the church where we have our meetings and one of the members had her dad dress up as Santa (talk about a good sport!) and they have him in a room by himself so your kids can meet Santa without being gawked at by tons of people. So no mall crowds, no long lines, and no paying for pictures!

Charlotte and Jensen seemed to find Santa a little underwhelming. To be fair, they had just woken up from their naps and I don't even know if they really had time to figure out what was going on before we plopped them in Santa's lap. Fortunately there were no tears (but I'm guessing that will come next year!). Here are a few pics of Charlotte and Jensen's meeting with the big guy:

The only tiny smile we got out of Charlotte. (But doesn't she look sweet in her little Christmas dress? I had a few people ask me if I made it...ha! Obviously they don't know me very well!)

And one of the only smiles from Mr. Jensen...of course they aren't both smiling in the same picture. Hmmmm...maybe this calls for some more of my mad photo editing skills! Or not.

About this time, Jensen discovered that Santa's beard was soft...

...delightfully soft! And way more fun than looking at the camera! So the picture-taking came to an end.

When we returned home from meeting Santa, the babies napped while Brian and I decorated the outside of the house. And when the babies woke up, the decorating stopped and the following conversation took place:

Brian: Okay, we're finished!
Me: Well, we can see how it looks tonight, then if it doesn't look that great, we can add more decorations.
Brian: OR, we could just remember the true meaning of Christmas. And it isn't Christmas lights!

And I realized that (even though I understand that he was just trying to get out of doing more work) he had a valid point. And quite frankly, I don't really want to devote more than one nap time to decorating the outside of our house. So you might say that we are taking a "less is more" approach to our outside decorations to match our inside decorations!

We took the babies on another outing on Saturday afternoon, this time to a toy store that just opened nearby. They have tons of stuff and lots of great brands, and we managed to get Christmas gifts for Piper and Knox before the crowds became too much for our double stroller to comfortably handle.

On Sunday, Cristi and I had plans to try out another new church, but I talked her into going with me to a Christmas cookie exchange at Lisa's house instead (yes, I am a bad influence!). The idea is that everyone brings homemade cookies along with the recipe. Then, when you leave the party, you take with you samplings of everyone's cookies along with the recipes so that you can make them yourself. In the old days, I would have baked up a storm in an attempt to have the most coveted cookies at the party. These days, time is of the essence and (after briefly considering bringing cookies of the Slice and Bake variety) I googled "easy Christmas cookie recipes" and ultimately decided on one that required only four ingredients and no baking. Then, I went ahead and became a complete Christmas-cookie-exchange slacker by forgetting to bring the recipe with me to the party. Oops. But it was a really fun party, and a yummy way to end a weekend full of Christmas fun!