A Day at Northpark

Today I took the kids for our annual trip to Northpark Mall to see the Real Santa! He is so wonderful and we've gone every year since Aidan's first Christmas. This outing is SUCH an ordeal but I can't help myself because Northpark is such a great place to be around the holidays. Usually I make Daniel come but since he was in D.C. all week on business, I decided to take his sister Lindsay who came to stay with us for a few days (she'll be living with us for a month or two while she looks for a job in DFW). I think if I'd gone without her, I'd have had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the mall. Here's how seeing Santa works at Northpark: they start passing out numbered tickets at 9am. The number you get is the order you see Santa after storytime. We didn't get there until 9:30 so we were #98. Storytime is at 10:30 (but you have to get there really early to find a spot to sit). When it was over at 11, we had an early lunch with our friends from Mom's Club. Since this mall doesn't have a big play area for kids (grr!), we went to a puppet show at 12 and another one at 12:30, then we played at the fountain and then a pond area with turtles and ducks. We then stopped to look at some SPCA pets to kill some more time, then we FINALLY got to see Santa at 2:00...just minutes before his half-hour break, thank goodness! After that we had to order our picture, so all in all we spent a good five hours at the mall. I'll post the Santa picture in a separate post ;) Aidan and Avery were troopers the whole day although Avery is everywhere and not good at sitting still. Lindsay was a lifesaver along with my friend Jennifer and her daughter Erika who are so good with Avery! I am so glad to get this tradition over with...until next year!

Santa at storytime:

Looking at the fountain:

Erika and Aidan throwing in some money:

The crowd at the second puppet show:

Watching the ducks:

Playing on a brick flowerpot thing that has been around since I was a kid!

Me with my hero, Aunt Lindsay!