Cookies with (and for) Santa

We had a really fun day yesterday, considering we are all still really sad about Oreo. 

 I just adore her little face.  

Norah told me that her cat ran away, and she wished he would come home.  

I reminded her that he had died.  

Norah:  Can we get a new cat mommy?

Me:  Maybe someday.

Norah:  Sunday!  Okay!

Me: No, Norah, SOMEDAY.

Norah:  Okay, how about while I'm taking my nap?

I got the girls out the door early, ready to go see Santa at Pump it Up, this is a tradition for us, we've done the last few years.  I love it because there is no mall line or mall price, they let me take as many pictures as I want and give the kids a cookie to boot!  Who wouldn't love that?

 Pockets!!  She keeps telling me that she's grown up now.  Sadly, I think it's sort of true.  Then two seconds later she wants to pretend to be my baby.  I'm okay with that.  

 In fact, I think I forgot to mention this little moment we had the other day.  I was sitting on the couch, typing away on my laptop when she sat down next to me.  She gave me the sweetest look and out of nowhere I started singing her this song I use to sing to her when she was a baby, I made it up and it goes something like this:   

Mommy loves her little baby, mommy loves her little girl.  She loves her in the morning, loves her in the evening, loves her in the afternoon, she loves her all the time, because she's the best one.  

Anyhow, I sang that to her and her eyes got all big and she froze, then she crawled right into my lap and curled up like a little baby and asked me to sing it to her over and over and over again.  I just about died with the sweetness of that moment.  

 The girls did great with Santa, each giving their lists to him.  

Norah: A mommy doll, a pig, and a horse.  This morning she added a ship, which sort of worked out because one of her gifts is a big boat bath toy.  At the last minute she tried to add a robot to the list but I quickly told her that her list was long enough, let's not go adding to it now.  : )

Ava: My Little Pony Castle, board games to play with her sister, and she just added a Rudolf the red nose reindeer costume, wait, is that even a thing??!  I told her I was pretty sure Santa wouldn't know where to get one of those and she said the elves would make it of course.  I told her I doubted they had enough time with all the kids they have to get presents for, she should of mentioned it sooner, plus, you shouldn't expect to get everything on your list.  : )  

 Why do they have to make it complicated?  : )

 Next we made sugar cookies for Santa, I swear nothing is messier or takes longer but we love doing it.  

 Norah's just pretending to not be into it, she was though.

 Ava was all about eating the dough, just like her mama.  I am a total cookie dough addict.  I often think the phrase "I am making cookies" should, for me, be replaced with "I am going to eat cookie dough and a lot of it"

 Silly girl.

 She is so sweet, even when she's not really asleep.

 They lost interest pretty quickly last year, but not this time, they were in it until the end, several hours later.

 See how Norah has her hand on the vitamins?  She kept trying to open the cap on it.  It would click and click, Ava says, "Norah, you aren't going to be able to open that" (we had just had a big talk about child proof caps and Ava had tried her best to open it herself) and Norah looks up and says "Oh yes I will!!"  haha  She is determined, in most everything she does.  

I adore this age.  They are just so fun right now!

Sweet baby girls with their sweets!