Santa Claus came to town

Today we helped run a Christmas party for Purdue Village. One of the highlights was Santa stopping by for some photo-opps with the kids. To provide some context, neither of our kids felt particularly well, both woke up really early this morning, and neither of them had naps during the day. But, like the little troopers they are, they made it through and fell asleep on the walk home. 

Here's Ezra and Annika sitting on Santa's lap. You can kind of notice how excited Annika is to be there. Why is it that Santa scares the wits out of kids, but they'll gladly sit on the Easter Bunny's lap? Shouldn't more people be scared of the Easter Bunny?--I'd be willing to guess at least 60% of adults are scared of the Easter Bunny. Poor Santa...

This picture is pretty much priceless. I love Annika's look. She was really not impressed with Santa, but he still tried to make an effort and look happy. Of course, around the point this photo was taken, Annika was so tired she wouldn't let her mom or dad put her down for a second. 
Here Ezra looks like he's trying to find the right moment to tell Santa he wants the gigantic remote-control dinosaur he's asked for for months. As far as we know, Santa has decided against getting Ezra a 3-foot mechanical dinosaur that makes his sister cry even more than Santa does. However, Santa has consented to giving Ezra Geotrax as a compromise. We think (hope?) he'll be happy with that.

Santa's elf is not nearly as scary. This is our neighbor Josh, who was a really good sport for wearing this all night. Nice tights, Josh! 

Once nearly everyone had left, we had some time to ourselves. Ezra and Mom are making yet another gingerbread house, while Dad tries to make Annika happy. Note that Ezra looks like a zombie in this picture. He was really, really ready for bed right about now. 

Here's the family plus Ezra's best pal Dylan.