a story

When Ryan and I showed up at our local grocery store this weekend, we had no idea that we would run into Santa there.  Ryan immediately told him that he wasn't the real Santa but just one of Santa's helpers.  Santa told him to come and sit on his lap and give a good pull on his beard to see if it was real.  Ryan grabbed onto it with two hands and I encouraged him to be really careful and not pull too hard. Ryan seemed impressed that it was real and then wanted to take a peek under his hat to see if his hair was real.  Santa didn't mind so he took off his hat and showed Ryan his hair and then put his hat on Ryan's head, which Ryan quickly yanked off.  Santa asked what he wanted for Christmas and when Ryan told him Skylanders, Santa looked at me for help.  I said, "You know Santa it's that new video game that you are making." Santa then told Ryan a story about how Rudolph got his red nose which was from playing with the cleaners that were under his workbench and he got some on his nose which turned it red.  Really Santa?  As we were standing there saying our good byes and making our promises to be good I looked down at Ryan and saw something all over in his hair.  It didn't take but a second to figure it out that it was dandruff flakes from the dear sweet unhygienic Santa who tried to put his hat on Ryan.  The good news is though that Ryan insists that he was the real Santa because his beard and hair were real.

 Sunday at church the boys and all the youth in church sang a song for us.  The boys looked so handsome all dressed up and not one complained about going up to sing so I was very impressed.  They sang the song  "The World Needs Love" so it was a very sweet way to start our day.  As soon as we got home from church our annual candy exchange day was starting.  We used to get together each year to actually make the candy but as the family grew and we made more and more candies it was just too much, so that is how the candy exchange came to be.  Everybody brought their candies and cookies.  Mom made her fudge, peanut brittle and caramel corn.  Nicole made her toffee bars, chocolate peanut butter balls, chocolate covered peanut butter ritz, and rocky road.  I made crock pot candy, ten dozen sugar cookies, and another recipe that failed, Summer made her cherry dipped cookies and peppermint bark.  Brooke made her chocolate covered pretzels.  It's just a huge sugar fest!

After we ate an assortment of yummy food but no bread (since the person assigned the bread forgot) most of us sat around to decorate the sugar cookies. Matt gets the award for the best cookie decorator. Ryan and him worked as a team to decorate some of the best looking cookies ever! It's no secret that we get our love for food from my mom, she can't resist any leftover frosting to be thrown away.

We then played our new dancing game on the Kinect where Brooke rules as the dancing champion in the family, she knows how to bust some moves.  After that most of us loaded up and headed to the theater to watch the movie Chipwrecked.  It was a fun way to end our very full day!