ho! ho! ho!

after work today, c and i had planned on making a big dent in our christmas shopping. what we failed to take into consideration was: #1) we have a 21-month-old, and, #2) c is 24 weeks pregnant with the duo, which, by all calculations, puts her bigger than she was full term with the chicken.

by the time we got to the mall, parked and walked/waddled into the mall, c was pretty winded. so, as she went to a.e., chicken and i walked down to see how long the line was to see santa. to my surprise, there was not a single kid in line. so, i took that opportunity to meander on up to the jolly fellow, talk to chicken about santa and 'ho! ho! ho!' him up to the child, plop the child down in front of santa (just knowing he will lose. his. mind.), and watch in amazement as the chicken walked up to the bell-ringing santa and started smiling and dancing. whoa! so i picked chicken up, put him in santa's lap, scooted out of the way and the photographer stared snapping pictures as chicken and santa jingled bells together and i blew our harmonica. we had a serious three-man-band going on, i tell ya!

we got a few really sweet shots- but we chose only one :-)

as for the rest of our shopping, we went to dinner and to one other store, gassed up the car and came home. our christmas shopping dent will have to wait.