We took the girls to visit Santa twice this month, to see if a different venue would improve the toddler attitudes toward the jolly bearded man. First we went to Cabela’s, where we had a super cute triple photo last year with everyone sitting fine on a random, bearded stranger’s lap, at least enough for a picture. This year? Baby RAGE. Emerie was the only one of the three that tolerated it enough for a photo, without screaming her head off. Harper and Reagan took the whole scene very personally; Harper was screaming before I even handed her off to the guy. If I even leaned in while holding her, she screamed and wailed even more. Reagan wasn’t a fan either. They forgave us afterwards when we looked at the fish and let them run free a bit. Luckily four adults versus three toddlers is pretty manageable. By the end of the outing, everyone was back to the rage and ready for dinner. But overall, the photo turned out pretty great.

Needless to say, some of the best holiday photos are ones with less-than-cooperative children in them and mine are no exception. I wish the photographer had captured it about two seconds earlier; by the time the photo was snapped Harper already slid off the lap and was trying desperately to escape the jolly red man.

The second Santa try was on my Friday off at the Midtown Mall Santa. As soon as we entered the lobby doors and Santa came in to view, Harper was already unsettled and upset. Apparently she and Santa are not going to be friends for a good while. We watched our twin friends do their photos before us, having about as much success with their toddlers as I knew we would have. But their angry photo turned out amazing too! And as expected, Reagan cries because Harper was freaking out and Emerie just looked at the view whilst on Santa’s lap, calm, collected, without any emotion either way. And here’s what we captured for the memory box this year!

It will be fun to see how they react next year and if the screaming collection will be added to or not. So mean, I can’t help it…

We also had our first adventure to Get Air’s toddler area. The girls were a little shy at first but after a few preferred to play in the trampoline part than anywhere else. They tolerated the foam block but did not love it.

We jumped with them a little in the main area; that brought a good bout of giggles and no one had a total meltdown when we left. Overall success! We will have to go again and hit them by storm with some of our twin buddies. And they gave us a triplet discount, bless them!

And yes, this mom went a little crazy on the matchy matchy clothes for Christmas, much more than last year. It’s not my fault, there were some super cute clothes that warranted all three wearing together. So sorry, not sorry!

❤