Santa Photo(s)

We couldn't let December pass by without doing the annual photo with Santa. This year we decided to head back to Meadow Mews because the Santa there is so lovely. He remembers Noah every single year, and always asks how his year has been and asks if he has been well.

We lined up for ages a couple of days ago and when we got to the front of the line Santa straight away said 'hi boys, and of course Noah! I was wondering when he was going to come and visit me!'. He then stood up out of his chair and spent lots of time talking to him and rubbing his arms.

The lady then went to take a photo and was determined to get a photo with Noah actually looking at the camera. She got her assistant to ring some bells and I said very nicely 'he won't actually look which is fine, it's just nice that he's awake for the photo', but she was like 'oh no - I got him looking a couple of years ago and I will again now!' (it was pure fluke, as Noah won't turn his head for anything!).

She then kept jingling the bells, calling out to him and decided that she needed something behind his neck to push his head around. That didn't work very well, so she then decided to just move around to the side he was looking at to get him looking. It was really nice that she made such an effort, but in the meantime she didn't really care at all what the other three boys were doing, so we have a photo with Noah and Jay looking, and Harri and Kobe looking in a totally different direction! It makes me laugh, but it's a nice photo to have to know that people cared so much about having Noah look good in the photo.

After seeing Becky's gorgeous Christmas photos of Ben from years past, I had to pull our old ones out to see how much the boys had changed.

2008

2006

(check out how chubby Jay was here! I think it was the only time in his life he had a bit of fat on him!)

Oh how nice it would be to still be able to lift Noah like this!

Noah's 1st Christmas.

1999 - Jalen all by his lonesome!