PJ's with Santa

One of the events associated with JLC's Holiday Market is PJ's with Santa. Its a great family event complete with a Little Gym crawl area, cookies and milk, Christmas movies playing, a reading corner, and lots of arts and crafts for the kids. But the big draw was the awesome Santa (special hair do and all). Last year we decided not to get Gus's picture taken with Santa because he was only a few weeks old, so I was nothing but curious to see his reaction this year. We stood in line for nearly 30 minutes with our friends Amy and Benjamin and watched many toddlers freak out in front of us. My biggest fear was that Gus would pull Santa's beard - well he didn't cry or pull Santa's beard. He gave Santa a few weary glances, but then true to form Gus's smiles came out and it was a great photo op. It was a great way to really get in the Christmas spirit!

Not sure about this whole Santa thing...

Seconds later - loving it!

First Haircut (and the curls remain :)

Being the fairly traditional folks that we are, we wanted to wait until Gus turned one to get his hair cut for the first time. So the day after Thanksgiving we took advantage of being in Greenville and headed to Jellybeans Salon for kids where the first haircut is only a $0.01. Its cheap and a great first haircut experience, complete with a certificate and a balloon. Gus did great and was so happy the whole time - we were so proud of him.

I'm driving this car

This a classic Gus expression - love it!

Don't I look handsome?


This haircut is mommy approved

Gus's 1st Balloon

Thanksgiving and everything in between...

My blogging time was trumped for the past 2 weeks by Junior League of Columbia's Holiday Market. Last year I joined JLC and this year I chaired the Special Entertainment Committee for Holiday Market, which is the League's largest fundraiser and funds our annual community projects. It was a lot of work, but it was a great experience and I met a lot of awesome people in the process - I'm really going to miss being on the Holiday Market next year when we are in Greenville, but hopefully I'll find an equally great placement with JLG.

We spent Thanksgiving in Greenville with BJ's family and kicked off the day with an 8k Turkey Trot benefiting Trees for Greenville. It was a great race course and I finised in 48:35 - a personal best and a big accomplishment for me. I've really gotten into running over the past few months and am determined to complete a 1/2 marathon before I turn 30 (another one for the bucket list!)

Here are a few pictures from the race - don't I look thrilled :)

We've officially entered the toddler years with Gus and the struggle (and sometimes battle) over food is usually won by the little man. Its very difficult for me to accept cheese and crackers as dinner for him because I'm so nutrition conscious, but I'm working on it and I will not cave on feeding him junk - so I like to think that we are in a period of suspended compromise right now, which may include a few peas and carrots, but also a lot of cheese and crackers. Thanksgiving was no exception to this. We thought for sure he would chow down on turkey, cranberry sauce and all the trimmings, but he wanted nothing - so I blended yogurt and cranberry sauce and gave him a dinner roll and he was happy and I was less stressed. He looks like he's happily eating all the food on his tray, but in true Gus form he tried and spit out most of it :(

He was happy because of all of his cousins, not due to the turkey his mommy cooked for 5 hours