PAMOM Holiday Party

Saturday morning we had our PAMOM holiday party for the families, complete with Santa, bounce houses and more. I had volunteered to work the first shift so John brought the kids up a little late so I didn't miss out on any of the fun (and John didn't have to tote them around by himself! Although he did venture without the stroller which was huge for him, he hasn't done that before!). Our first stop was the bounce houses. They had 2 set up, one for the smaller kids and one for the bigger kids. It was great. We put the kids in the smaller one and they went wild. Abby really got into it running around, falling, jumping and laughing all over. She would even come over to the netting and play with John and I. Jake was very focused and didn't come over to say hi at all. He jumped in the middle watching all the other kids. I tried to get some good shots, but 1) it's tough when all your subjects are jumping, 2) for some reason, I couldn't not get a pic of Jake. Every time I tried, someone would step in front of him. I finally got a few shots, not the best, but a few anyway.

After jumping for a while, we got the kids out and went to see Santa. They did really good in line and then we had a few screamers in line ahead of us. I was worried the kids would start crying when we got to Santa since the other kids cried, but they didn't. Thank goodness. I was a little nervous though. When we got to Santa, Jake went on his lap right away and Abby held on to my neck for her life. She had a death grip on me and wasn't letting go. John helped peel her away and they both did really good. No smiles, but no tears either. That's a winner in my book.

(This was the first time Abby left her pigtails in! I put them in at home before I left for the party and when John brought the kids up, they were still in! She also left them in all day!)

Since we had to stand in line a bit, we let them jump some more to get the wiggles out before heading to the balloon animal line. That was a long, slow line, but we finally made it. Abby got a flower and Jake a sword. Within 10 seconds (literally), Abby had her flower disassembled. She still had fun though with her balloon.

Well, it was noon now and time to load the kids up. We got everyone in the car and headed for McDonald's for lunch. I wasn't thinking about going out to eat so I didn't bring sippys or anything, but I figured McD's was the place to try new things with the kids so we grabbed a booth and slid them in. No high chairs and no sippys (drank straight from their cups with a straw). They did much better than I imagined! I figured we'd have kids running under the booth and all over the place, but they sat there and ate. Very impressed!