I apparently love Santa.

I am almost done Christmas shopping. I have a few presents to buy, wrap and mail for my family in Illinois and a couple of Santa gifts and stocking stuffers to get the girls, but otherwise, I'm pretty much done. And, I would like to thank the internets for being such a fabulous place to purchase gifts.  I hate shopping and I have had to do very little of it in actual stores this year.  :)

 Oh, and I need to tell you my GENIUS idea this year.  Instead of dragging up the wrapping paper and box of bows, tape, gift tags, etc.every time I need to wrap something, I got smart.  I set up a wrapping station in my basement.  I put up the card table, set up all the wrapping essentials, and as presents are purchased or arrive in the mail to be wrapped, I just bring them straight downstairs and wrap presents while I'm downstairs doing laundry.  GENIUS! I tells ya!!!  I don't have to wait for the girls to go to bed or stare at the mess of wrapping things because I don't want to haul it up and down stairs all the time!  Best idea ever.

 I am reading a fabulous book called Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship by Jon Meacham. It's about the friendship of FDR and Churchill (duh) and it is well written and has my complete attention (which is hard to do when I am growing a human in my belly). I am sad that I won't be hitting my goal of reading 100 books this year.  I'm only at 68. But, like I said, when I'm pregnant, I just can not concentrate on books long.  I have started and put down numerous books that I just can't get into that I guarantee, once this baby has evacuated the premises, I will be able to try to read again and be fine.  It's so annoying how pregnancy just saps the brain cells from your head.

 This weekend, we are taking the girls to Sea World.  We have one in San Antonio, and the girls have been begging to go, but I did not want to pay good money to go when I'm pregnant and slow as molasses and need frequent breaks to sit and try to breath and whine about how slow and waddle-y I am.  But, I found a coupon for military members for a free day pass, so we printed it out and are taking the girls on Saturday. They don't know yet.  :)  For zero dollars, I don't mind being slow and waddle-y.  Plus, Julia is in love with The Polar Express (which, we have the movie but not the book...so unlike me!  So, she's getting the book for Christmas :) and they have a Polar Express 4-D show at Sea World we're going to go see.  She's going to be beyond excited. Then, once this baby is out and the weather is warm, we'll buy passes for next year.  They have a fabulous water park that everyone keeps ranting and raving about, so I definitely want to be able to take the girls this summer when we can.

 While looking around my holiday decorated home, I realize that I super like Santas. I have a lot of him.  Not just any Santas, mind you, but unique one.  This is my ultimate favorite Santa:

 He's the one on the upper left.  I bought him when we lived in DeKalb and I named him Fat Santa.  Every year, I make the girls come and ooh and ahh over how beautiful he is and make my annual speech about how they can not touch him because he is breakable and if he breaks I will cry like a baby.  Last year, I bought Elisabeth the Santa in the lower right corner.  He is a plastic Fat Santa that she can touch and put on the tree (because she loves my Fat Santa so much, she has asked for him when I die...which is not the first time she's tried calling dibs on things of mine after I croak).  She put him right next to my ornament, which I found cute.

Oh, and my lovely friend Kim bought me this cookie jar last year:

Omg, I love him.  He is still sold at Target and when we go, Julia says, "Oh, look, there's your Happy Santa!".

Well, I have deemed it a baking kind of day. I have a list of Christmas cookies that "need" to be made and I have totally been slacking on it this year.  I mean, it's December 7th and I just made my first batch last night! I know!  I am a slacker.

Colorado visitors.

The weather here lately has been to-die-for lovely.  Highs in the upper 60s and low 70s.  Some rain, but mostly sunny and awesome.  It's hard to remember we're in December because it's just not cold. We have needed jackets, and in the mornings when it's in the low 50s, Elisabeth does need a coat to walk to the bus stop, but otherwise it's just nice, fall weather. Plus, flowers are still blooming and thriving here!

 But, it is Christmas time, which is what we saw when our friends Kim and Chris came to visit us Thanksgiving week.  This is the tree in front of the Alamo:

 and true to Texas form, there are only ornaments of all things Texas--the state shape, the lone star, cowboy boots, etc. Not even one ornament on it that doesn't scream "WE ARE TEXANS!".

Elisabeth was so excited to have Kayleigh stay with us.  It was funny, because the minute Kayleigh walked in the door, those two went invisible.  They played and hung out and half the time we forgot they were even in the house.

 Since it was their first time visiting San Antonio (and Texas, for that matter), we had to take them to see The Alamo.

 Because it was not almost 100 degrees, we explored more of the gardens around The Alamo, which was gorgeous.  Evan, the girls, and I got to see things we hadn't on our first trip.

 Someone tell me what this plant/tree/fruit is:

 Cause i have no idea!!

We also walked to a little shopping district called La Villita National Historic District.  Honestly, it wasn't much to look at.  Yes, there were some small, weird shops, but nothing where I feel like we need to go and visit again.  We did happen to find an old church in the district though.  I insisted on going in to take pictures.

Called "The Little Church", it was built in 1879.

Then we walked down The Riverwalk back to our car.  The Riverwalk is something that everyone who has ever visited San Antonio has told us "you have to go to The Riverwalk!", but, honestly, we don't see what the big deal is. We've walked down the part where there's restaurants and where it leads to the mall, but...it kind of sucks.  I'm not going to go visit a million restaurants in one day and I'm certainly not going to go to the mall all the time (omg, I hate malls).  But, when Kim and Chris were here, we found a different part of The Riverwalk we hadn't seen and I liked it much, much more.  No restaurants and swarms of tourists.  No mall and stupid shops.  It was quiet and very pretty.

These are tree roots!  How creepy/cool are they?:

I told Evan maybe we should walk more of The Riverwalk (past all the commercial parts) and we might find what all the hype is about, because that small part we walked was pleasant.

Kim and Chris were here for Thanksgiving.  Since we'd already had a traditional Thanksgiving when my parents came to visit, we all decided to just have a Chinese take-out feast.  We had a big order.

It was awesome.  It was relaxed and yummy and the clean up was super simple.  I would not be opposed to more Thanksgivings like that one.

Don't worry, I totally still made a pie...a pumpkin pecan pie.  It was yummy.

All too soon, Kim, Chris and Kayleigh had to go back to Colorado.  The girls were sad, but we've already made plans for more visits (including us going to visit them in Colorado in June!).

I love haivng friends that are family.