SANTA!!

Our nice friends invited us again to their annual Santa party and cookie exchange, which just happened to be on Ellen's birthday! She couldn't have been happier to have a visit from Santa and a table full of cookies all in her honor. :)

Last year, Santa was a hit and Ellen continued to talk about him and the party at Will's house all year long. I wondered if our friends would be crazy, err, nice enough to host again. Yes! (thank goodness!)

I think you can sense Ellen's excitement here. Mrs. Claus was so sweet to her - she said, "Oh! You've grown so much since last year!"

I think there were seriously like 35 kids at this party from bitty baby to about age 5. It was pandemonium (in the best, Christmas-cheer, sort of way). Very few tears, which was impressive. Ellen was ALL ABOUT IT.

I got her a game and was somewhat worried that she wouldn't be happy with Santa after she saw lots of other girls open dolls and Barbies. No issues, though, and she was a happy camper with Santa's choice. (Santa thought about bringing a jar of 500 pop beads, then thought better of it).

We went out for a little family dinner, just the 3 of us, and came home to a rousing game of Uno Moo. It was pretty much the best birthday ever.