A Visit from Santa!

Yesterday (Saturday) was an exciting day. The Mom's club December activity was for Santa to visit! We all gathered at a friends house for crafts and cookie decorating...and then Santa came! Carter had such a good time!

Here he is making a craft...

 ...and wearing it! Reindeer antlers!

 Santa is HERE! (Notice who is first in line and excited to see him!)

 Santa is getting settled in...along with his shadow!

 Carter fanagled the first visit with Santa. Here he is telling Santa what he wants - Legos!

 sharing a giggle!

It was a really fun day! Thanks for hosting Jessica!

Holiday projects!

Here's a few holiday projects I've been working on!

This first one is an advent calendar. Sadly, I bought the chipboard box for this in Montreal - which means it's been gathering dust for 3 Christmases! Yikes! I pulled it out to make, inspired by some of the holiday projects over at Wescrap. I wasn't sure where it would find a home since we already have a homemade Advent calendar and of course a chocolate one for Carter. Lucky, as fate would have it, the perfect gift opportunity came up. One of Carter's friends has a severe peanut allergy and his mom was sad that he couldn't have a traditional chocolate one from the store. I gifted this one to Bernard, so he can have his calendar and eat it too - they'll fill it with peanut-free chocolate!

 This one is not new - it's the one I made last year. Full of holiday photos! Thought I'd share though...

 Another challenge was to make simple handmade Christmas cards. I didn't make my cards this year. It was just too much. I whipped up a few to exchange though...

 Lastly, I made this pretty snowflake. Love it! Just have to put a hanger on it and find a place to display it!

Christmas pics continued...

Here's Carter decorating his letter to Santa with stickers. (It's the same letter he mailed a few posts below). He's been asking daily if Santa has read it yet. LOL!

 Our tree...

 Carter with his jingle bell from the Polar Express - his most wanted gift from Santa last year...

 Decorated for the holidays! I have to get a better photo of the stocking on the right. It was handmade for Carter by my aunt and it's sooo pretty! Steve, Berkeley and I get the "boring" ones from Target!

Side note: The snowman basket on top of the mantle is one of Carter's favorite things. My mom made it. It's a soft fabric basket. Carter calls it the snowman easter basket. LOL!

...and one more!

Here is our "official" Santa pic for 2010.

Sunday...

On the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, we went downtown and did some shopping and saw Santa at Macy's in Union Square. Carter is REALLY primed for Santa this year, so he was pumped to go see him. We wrote his letter and mailed it as we went into the store. He is asking for Construction Legos and a Woody tshirt from Santa this year. It was hard to narrow down the Lego sets. The kid is OBSESSED with Legos.

 The view from Macy's...

 Waiting in the line to see Santa

 The people behind us took a group pic for us!

 Finally it was our turn! Carter going up to say hello...

 CHHHHHEEEESE!

 Telling Santa what he wants...

 Afterwards we went out and watched the ice skaters.

 The windows of Macy's...

It was a really fun day!

Recap time!

I am super behind on uploading photos...so the next few post are photo heavy!

Here are some pics from Thanksgiving Day. It was a really nice and relaxing day for us. We decided to chill out and celebrate ourselves. We picked up some steak and lobster tails and had a feast! Yum!

It was a really nice day out, so in the morning we decided to join our friends Jenny and Reese for a walk up at Milagra Ridge. Both kids walked the entire 2.5km loop! I was impressed! Here are a few pics of Reese and Carter together.

 We took a break halfway and the kids had fun throwing stuff over the hill...

 What a monkey!

 Here is our Thanksigiving table. Carter was SO proud to get a wine glass. He got it filled with Martinelli's sparkling apple juice and thought he was the coolest!

Dessert was Trader Joes' Pumpkin Cheesecake - OMG, it was goooood!

The next day was Black Friday - and my bday. It was another pretty chill day. I had planned to go shopping, but we didn't do much. A few little trips and relaxing at home. It totally SUCKS to have your birthday land on Thanksgiving weekend - everyone forgets. We did however go to Red Robin for dinner (Carter chose!). It was a good day.

It's December - another winner!

Well, I promised that I'd give away a RAK (random act of kindness) to help celebrate my birthday this month. It's December (yikes!), so time to give away that RAK...

I wrote down all the names from comments and put them in a bowl. Everyone got one entry for each comment they made this month. You also got an entry for commenting on my Patch articles - keep me working people! LOL.

The winner has a choice between 6 handmade cards - for random occasions, or some fun scrapbook supplies to make your own cards with!

and the winner is...

LESLIE!
Congrats Leslie! Let me know which prize you prefer...I think I might already know ;)