Day 269

It was a big family fun day for the Hinderaker's!  We started the day at the Y - mommy and daddy both running and Temu in ChildWatch (Temu brought his teacher-friends some cookies to thank them for taking such good care of him while his parents are running).  Soon after we got home our friend, the UPS guy, brought a big box to the door.  You'll never guess what was inside!

Temu's very own fish from Papa Ivan! Temu loved looking at Papa's fish while in Wisconsin, so Papa Ivan had this one mounted for him.  Temu was very happy! His name is "Bubbles."

Then after a good nap we worked on our holiday family photo.  This year we're sending out Happy New Year's cards to celebrate all the exciting events of 2011 (and because December proved a more insane month than we had planned and pulling together a Christmas card with a well-thought-out Christmas letter just didn't happen).  It took a couple tries - there were many distractions like airplanes flying overhead, a large truck driving down a nearby road, and the neighbor's cat coming outside - but we got some great photos.  We'll save the "best" one for the card...which you'll get in the new year!

 This is a Temu classic...

                                                 

Next we stopped at the hospital to spread holiday cheer to some of daddy's co-workers, then onto the Italian deli for Daddy's Christmas presents, and then it was off to see Santa!  Temu's first encounter with Santa showed Temu's rarely-seen tentative side.  Since then we've pointed him out everywhere we've seen him, practiced his "sound" (when asked, "what does santa say?" Temu will respond with a funny "ho-ho-ho!"), and had happy conversations about the big guy.

Here are Santa's elves making sure that Temu was on Santa's good list - he was!  After they found his name, the phone at their desk magically rang with Santa on the other end, making sure Temu was on the good list, and then inviting him in to see him.  The cuteness was almost too much to bear.

Here's Mrs. Claus giving Temu an apple (funny, I recall getting a candy cane from Santa...)

 At first Temu was a little nervous, clinging to mama.  When asked to wave to Santa, he continued to hang on, his head on mama's shoulder, but then stuck his hand out to wave! Oh, the cuteness!

 Pretty quickly, though, Santa got a smile - brave boy!

 Then another trip on Santa's Train to see the pretty lights in Look Park.

You'd think that was enough to pack in one day...but we had one more stop.  Daddy's friends were meeting at a local pub with some of the new resident candidates, so we decided to make a cameo appearance.  Here's our friend, Nishan, offering Temu his first kiddie cocktail!