Jackson's Holiday Party

Okay, this first picture was snapped on my phone (actually, all these were, I guess, my phone or Mike's) because it is so funny. Madie's preschool had these cute little snowmen out in the hallway where the top circle was filled in with the face of the child. All of the faces were either cute smiles or blank stares, except for one of the teachers, who made a silly face that Madie had noticed on our way into the classroom (this was before she had her picture out there). When I went to pick her up, I stood there looking and looking for Madie's picture. Where was it? Where could it be? There aren't that many on the board, so why can't I....Oh...

|

 |

  |

   |

    |

     |

      |

I see. I just couldn't recognize my daughter's face. This whole thing is so Madie to me. All the rest of them also had big puffy white cotton balls all over them. I can just picture how this whole thing went down:

Teacher: "Madie, don't you want to take a fun picture for your snowman?" 

Madie: Looks away.

Teacher: "Here, smile!"

Madie: Turns with THE FACE.

~~~~~Later~~~~~

Teacher: "Okay! Let's decorate!"

Madie: "I wanna do the glue."

Teacher: "Okay, go for it! And look, we've got buttons, and cotton and, this is just so cool!"

Madie: Loads on the glue, sticks on a ball. "I'm done."

On Thursday we went to Mike's work for a family Christmas party. It was so fun! Well, there was kind of a lame comic magician, but the music was fun, and Santa came, and there was ice cream and cookies and presents and Christmas mice drawings on the wall--so fun!

Watching the magician...kind of pathetic.

Madie really wanted to sit on Santa's lap, which surprised me. She's so shy about things like this, but I had showed her a picture of a friend's daughter (that's you, Kristen!) at the mall with Santa and she was sure she wanted to do the same thing. But then when her name was called and I took her up she just stared at him and made no move to get on his lap or hug him or anything.

Santa?! He was really friendly.

He did say, "Would you like to sit on my lap?" and she nodded. It was so cute.

Mrs. Clause was handing out the presents. Madie was so happy afterward and just kept talking about her present from Santa!

What's this?!

A Dora doll?! YESSS! 

And she came with a soft fleecy blanket! Oh, and dream come true!

There was also a great clown doing face painting. Madie really wanted to do that--as did every other kid in the place. We stood in line forever and were one of the last, but that was okay. I actually didn't mind waiting, we got to chat with some of the other mother-kid duos there while Mike cared for Finnegan. Then they came and joined us and Mike took picture while Madie sat so still as she painted these pretty flowers on her wrist.