Weekend of 12/1 - 12/2

This past weekend was a busy one. Saturday morning was Breakfast with Santa at Sam's school at 8:30. I thought it would be a great opportunity to see Santa without having to wait in long lines at the mall. As soon as Sam saw Santa he said "no, no, no!" We didn't pressure him to sit on Santa's lap but instead tried to use Claire to show him that Santa was an okay guy. That backfired b/c as soon as we put Claire on Santa's lap she started crying. I was ready to give up altogether but Santa was able to get Sam to come talk to him and eventually even got him to sit on his knee. We quickly put Claire back on his lap for a picture and were able to get a fairly decent while she wasn't crying. As Sam was getting off of Santa's lap he finally told him that he wanted "Thomas" for Christmas. Santa was very surprised that a 2 1/2 year old little boy would want Thomas the train! Ha Ha!

After Breakfast with Santa we headed to Austin for the rest of the weekend for our friend's Ted and Leigh's wedding. They are friends of ours from CO but were getting married in Austin since that is where Leigh is from. We were able to see lots of our old friends which was so fun. The kids did pretty well on the way to Austin although Sam did throw some minor tantrums in the car.

The hotel we stayed in had a big fountain in the lobby and when Sam saw it he said "go swimming." I told him we couldn't go swimming in it but we could look at it. He was amazed by that fountain all weekend.

Bill and Sam didn't actually get to see the wedding. Sam doesn't really understand whispering yet and was being very loud so Bill had to take him out of the sanctuary. He had much more fun running around outside.

At the reception Sam was constantly on the go. He was so excited to dance and even found a couple of little friends to dance with. When he wasn't dancing he was running around in the lobby area of the reception hall. His pants were a little too big for him so while he was running he would have to hold onto his pants so that they wouldn't fall down. At one point I was trying to get something to drink and I looked over at him and he was laying on the floor with his pants around his ankles. This happened several times and I gave up on not laughing at him.

Claire did incredibly well at the wedding and reception. She loved watching Sam run around and would move her little legs as fast as they could go (while I was holding her) as if she were trying to run with him. We finally let her down to walk (while holding onto someone's fingers) and she would move as fast as she could to try to get to Sam. In another couple of months I think she is going to be toddling after him.

We were sure that Sam would fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow that night but it took awhile for him to wind down. Bill ended up sleeping with him all night. I was about 11 before Sam fell asleep so when he woke up around 7 on Sunday morning we knew that he would be exhausted before the day was done.

After eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant and hanging out with some friends we went and met our friends Matthew and Wendy Caffrey and their kids for lunch. They are also friends from CO and now live in Austin. Their daughter Lauren and Sam are the same age and spent a lot of time together when we all lived in CO.

We got on the road around 1:00 to head back to Dallas. Sam eventually fell asleep which he never does in the car and Claire took about a 45 minute nap as well. Last night after dinner we gave the kids a bath together and put them both to bed at 7:00. We didn't hear a peep from them. Sam ended up sleeping for 13 hours. He had so much fun but completely exhausted himself.

Today we just stayed home all day and recovered from the weekend. We had lots of fun seeing all of our old friends but it was nice to be home again.