Christmas in Minnesota

We celebrated Christmas a little early at home this year since Mom was hoping to work a day shift on Wednesday and get a good night's rest for the travelling on Thursday.

Claire had a very princess-y Christmas. She got a table and chairs set, a blanket, and a dining set. Most of her presents were also wrapped in princess paper.

Claire opened a few gifts and then just wanted to play...

This present is almost as big as Gabe!

Finally, we just let Claire spend time feeding her baby and put the unopened gifts aside.

Christmas Shopping

Claire and Mom spent a lot of quality time together shopping for Christmas gifts.

Once she had her coat on, she grabbed her purse and was ready to go. This girl is going to be a handful for a mom that never wears makeup or carries a purse. All she wanted to do was run around the stores and pull things off the shelves. She is quite the little shopper but doesn't realize yet that Mommy doesn't have enough money to buy everything she wants to get.

Claire wasn't so sure about Santa. The night we went to see him, they were also allowing pets to come see Santa. Claire was definitely more interested in the pets than the guy with the beard. She kept saying "Dog" and running up to animals to pet them. Luckily all the pets were pretty tolerant of her but she was quickly redirected once we realized this was going to be a problem. She acts the same way at PetSmart!

We were the last humans to see Santa so the lady at the photo booth gave each kid a balloon. Claire was very excited about this since she normally only gets to see balloons from a distance.