Wish List for Santa

This year, it seems like everyone is skipping Thanksgiving and going straight to Christmas.  I guess we are guilty of that on the blog as well because we've been doing Christmas posts already!  But, it seems like in years past that Thanksgiving weekend was the kick-off to Christmas...decorations in the store, starting the holiday shopping, Christmas music on the radio.  But this year, most of those holiday markers were already here on November 1st.

Like a lot of you, we got the Toys-R-Us catalog in the mail as well as the Target toy catalog.  I typically glance through the catalogs and then recycle them the same day.  This year was different, though.  The boys saw the catalogs and Tyler (the 4 year old) started flipping through the pages and pointing out things he wanted for Christmas.  Which made Ryan (the 2 year old) start doing the same thing.  Tyler pretty much points to everything and he's not really specific.  He likes the expensive electronics but in reality knows nothing about them.  He's played on a couple of DS's, but not for more than just a couple minutes, as we haven't gotten any of those expensive things for him because the two boys are still so destructive at this point.  Ryan would be happy with anything, but he consistently points to the trains...he's in love with anything Thomas!

This past weekend, I had a lot of cake orders, so my husband got the kids out of the house for me so I could concentrate and knock them out without staying up all night.  So where does a man take his two boys for an evening of fun?  Bass Pro Shops, of course!  The one in Cincinnati is really cool and has a huge fish tank in the center of the store that the kids just love.  Anyway, they have a Christmas setup there.  I've never been, but Steve took them last year and they've had a blast both times.  I think he mentioned coloring, shooting, decorations, etc.  And of course, Santa!  They do one free photo with Santa (and you can order more photos there if you like or online later), so of course the boys had to have their photo done.  After standing in line for a while, this is Ryan on Santa's lap.

It's hard to tell in the scanned version, but he is less than thrilled.  Steve said he wasn't scared, but that his expression didn't change the entire time and he didn't ask Santa for anything.  Tyler also decided to be stubborn and didn't want to get his photo taken.  So, they went to look at a couple things that Steve wanted.  He just got a cross bow this year and needed a few things for it, so they went to the hunting section.

Well, in true Tyler fashion, after walking away from Santa, he suddenly wanted to go visit with Santa.  So after Steve picked out the stuff he needed, they headed back down and stood in line again.  This time, he marched right up to Santa and sat on his lap.

Can you see that grin on his face?  Priceless.  Anyway, after the photo, Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas.  Tyler's response?  "A gun with a bullet and a scope."  Santa laughed and said that he had come to the right store for that and he told Steve that it was the best request yet this year.  Gotta love my boys :)