Cookie exchange party

Greyson and I attended a cookie exchange party on Saturday morning thrown by his babysitter Danielle's mom... its a tradition that is on its fourth year or so. It was so much fun... it takes a lot for me to go to events by myself, but I am glad I did. Greyson had so much fun... and so did I. I baked the required 120 cookies for the exchange. I found a Lemon Crisp cookies recipe that was super easy: ( multiply accordingly...it makes 4 dozen cookies)
One box of lemon cake mix
one egg
one stick of butter ( 1/2 cup) melted
one cup of rice crispies
mix the above together
form into 1"balls
bake at 350 degrees for 9-11 minutes.... so easy!!!

So once we made it to the party... we had to drive thru a monsoon to get there... Greyson took in his surroundings and then really started to have fun. He made a gingerbread house, made a mouse ornament... had 6 silver dollar pancakes and juice... and then the big surprise SANTA ARRIVED!!!
We all know that Santa and Grey aren't best buds... so I was really wondering how it would go with them being in such close proximity of each other. Well, it was amazing!!!! Santa had his bag full of toys for all the girls and boys, each with a kids name on it, so Santa called them up all by name. That was so exciting for Grey, not to mention his name was called second, which was so lucky cause there was about 30 kids. So Santa calls Greysons name and he pops up, grabs my hand and we walked up to Santa, Grey walked right to Santa's lap, got up and just stared at Santa. He said Hi, told Santa he wants a choo choo for xmas and then said bye and thank you for his gift. It was a MIRACLE. I was in shock, so I only got two pictures of them together, but Greys look in his eyes towards the miracle of Santa is worth only two pictures.

After the Santa fun Greyson was super excited and hyper, he found a couple kids that he really liked and played so nicely with them. Once it was time for the mommies to start gathering their cookies, I told Greyson to get in line for the "pin the nose on Frosty" game and that I would be back with cookies. So I go through the three tables of cookies.... it was amazing, and then head back to the "Frosty" game and I find Greyson in the exact same spot. The poor little guy was standing to the right of the game, waiting patiently for his turn and yet, the line was to the left and about 6 kids deep at that point. Sweet boy... I put him in the right line and then watched in "awe" as he stood in line so nicely, smiling and laughing at the kids ahead of him. Once, it was his turn he followed the ladys directions and tried to put Frosty's nose back on... when he was done he was so proud of himself and so was I. I happened to be on the phone with Daddy at that time so Geoff got to hear the excitement in Grey's voice.

It was such a fun morning... I hope we get invited back next year!!!

making his mini gingerbread house
so into it, the craft director for this table kept commenting to me how serious he was taking it, most of the kids left there house half-done with candy on the table... as you can see from the left over candy to the right of Grey.... oh, but not Greyson. He wanted to finish it completely and perfectly!!! I am thinking he has a little of my craftiness

Santa arrived and Greyson was peering at him from the couch (safe zone)

time for some xmas carols... could Grey get any farther away from Santa?? He sat so cute, with his hands on his lap while everyone sang

Greyson's turn with Santa... completely mystified by Santa

Santa leaning in to hear that Grey wants a choo choo for xmas

All done with Santa... on with the gift

he was so excited cause it was a 'Cars' coloring board with matching 'Cars' markers

finally his turn for "Pin the nose on Frosty"