Christmas Cards and Santa pictures

Last year I had these goofy holiday ears to put on Ryan and Gizmo for our family Christmas photos. Ryan is actually wearing a Santa hat made for a dog - I didn't put the chin strap around him though. Ryan couldn't sit up on his own and in total I probably took 10 pictures. Each time he'd lean further and further towards Gizmo until he eventually leaned on her. This was the last picture and the one I ended up sending out. At that time, it was the closed Gizmo allowed Ryan to get to her.





Fast forward one year. The goofy ears have popped up again. These are at least made for a human, though as you will see the human wearing them isn't fond of them. After many previous years of being subject to holiday ears, I found Gizmo a jingle bell collar to wear instead. I'm sure she was grateful to wear that, but again as you'll see - not grateful to be getting her picture taken and/or not grateful to be so close to Ryan again.

Ryan is a one trick pony. His trick - clapping. Though not always willing to do so for strangers he claps when happy, excited, proud of himself, or when something amuses him. Here I guess he was happy I took the ears off.

These next two photos were taken the next day (thus a different outfit for Ryan). In this one, Gizmo is trying to eat Ryan. Yeah, right. She was yawning out of boredom probably. Honestly, I'm surprised Gizmo's breath didn't knock Ryan over. Instead he seems to be thinking, "My Gizmo, what big teeth you have."

How I ever got Thing 1 and Thing 2 to sit together in the rocking chair like this I'll never know. Gizmo still shows that same "I can't believe I'm doing this" expression that she shows in all photos involving her and Ryan. And Ryan would like nothing more than to remove the antlers. But of all 20 some odd pictures I took, this one below and the one of Ryan clapping with Gizmo did make the 2009 card cut.

Dean didn't want to miss out on going to see Santa with Ryan so we waited until today (Monday) to do so. Since he's off this week we figured today might be our best shot at beating the lines and we were right. We were third in line, we could take our own photos - plus they provided us a free 4x6 and Santa was very friendly and had a real beard! I had a suspicion that Ryan would cry, but small fry did great! So where was this Super Santa you ask, none other than Bass Pro Shop. There was an entire activity area surrounding Santa's cottage. You could drive radio controlled cars, color, write letters to Santa, watch the Polar Express train circle a track, even shoot Red Rifle or bows and arrows in certain spots. I must admit though, it was kind of strange to see other kids shooting at deer while we're waiting in line to see Santa. All in all a great time and we'll go back again!