Sands, seashells, and santa. (But not in that order.)

I'm generally not one to rant about the commercialism of the holiday season. I actually love all the commercialism. As far as I'm concerned,the more lights and decorations, the better. Go ahead, play that Christmas music in November. And I'm not gonna lie - I love the presents. I love shopping for presents, I love wrapping them, I love seeing them all around the Christmas tree, and, yes, I love to open them. I wish I were a better person, but I am who I am.

But, this last Sunday when commercialism quite literally stood between my camera and a super sweet Christmas memory, I was ready to kick commercialism in the teeth.

Except if I did that, then I'd be on the news, and I'd become another one of those stories that make people hate the holiday season. So I kept my feet to myself.

So here's what happened. We took Lily to see Santa. I really had no idea how she'd react. Last year, she was having none of that, but she's older and braver now. We've been reading stories about Santa lately, so she knows who he is.

At first, she looked at him skeptically, while I looked at the signs telling me I had to keep my camera behind this line. Fine. Fair enough. I can stay out of the way of your camera, and your flash, and your whatever.

Yes, I know Santa is there as a prop to make parents pay money for substandard photos. He-LLO - I'm a picture freak. Even with my camera in hand, I'm still their target audience. But you can't tell me that if they don't sell enough pictures, Santa won't have any money to feed his reindeer. And I'm completely okay with standing outside of their set-up. Really.

But then there was Santa's little helper. First of all, he wasn't even wearing his elf uniform. I wasn't really sure what his purpose was. Then I figured it out. His job was to stand in front of mom's camera.
Of the whole experience, what I really wanted to capture was Lily's first reaction to Santa. But I didn't.
I tried another angle. Oh, look, a cash register.
So we bought their stupid picture. And it's fine. It's lovely. Cheesey border and all. Stare at the camera shot. A touch out of focus, too, considering it's a photo I had to pay money for.
So what else could I do, really? Be happy with that and call it a day? Yeah, no.

The only redeeming part of visiting Santa for me was, well, Santa. He didn't care about their camera or my camera, and he sat and chatted with Lily. He told me he couldn't quite hear what she said she wanted, he said she has such a soft voice (sure, Santa, except when she doesn't). So I clarified for him that she wants a "pink one motorcycle."
After that we went to the beach. Our plan was just to go to Johns Pass and have some pizza, pretty much just because we haven't been by the water in so long. It was chilly, but not too bad. Kinda nice, actually.

All Lily wanted to do was go to the beach. So we did. She loves to play in the sand. It didn't seem to bother her at all that it was pretty windy.
I had a fix for that, anyway. She filled her bucket with sand and patted it down with purpose. I probably have thousands of pictures of her doing something. Looking intensely down at stickers, crayons, puzzles, sand, whatever.

We have photographic evidence that I was there, too. (And Khan. Or some stranger with a camera. Could go either way.) She allowed me to help her a little.

I don't know why I keep posting the stupidest pictures I have of myself.

Finally, she got bored with the sand when she was distracted by seashells.

And she was off to find more.

Daddy helped.

Then these blue rental chairs caught her eye. The beach is pretty uncrowded in December, so no one seemed to mind us using them for a moment.

Except Lily. She wanted that moment to go on and on, forever perhaps. I told her again it was time to go. She said "No, Mommy. I sleepy." Oh, child of mine. You're going to have to do better than that. I know you much too well to believe that.

Bad mommy blogger.

Yes, I know. I've not been very consistent lately, and I've fallen a bit behind. It's not for a shortage of photos or Lily cuteness, trust me. It's just me; I'm always falling behind in one area or another. Kind of like bills.

So, anyway, I can't go into the holiday season behind. I'll never catch up. So, here's me, getting caught up. First a video, followed by 4 random, untimely posts.

Five little cousins, sittin' in a row.

We don't live all that far apart, but it still isn't all that often that all five of these kids get together in one place at the same time.

Even less likely that they would all stop the running chaos that is toddlerhood for two seconds and be in the same frame of a camera's lens at the same time.
Joy, bless her heart, decided to sit them all down and do just that.

I was impressed enough by that and didn't want to push my luck by trying to get them all to look at the camera at the same time. This is pretty much the best of the bunch.

A black and white edit just for fun.

Another edit just for fun.

But they were all there, at Grandpa's, for his birthday. Here's Lily.

And Tirin.

Connor. And a gun.

Pearl. And a gun.

And Lia?

Here's Lia sans vampire teeth. I could take pictures of this girl all day because (a) she's gorgeous, and (b) she lets me. She's my photo star.

Bird Lady.

So Nana decided she just had to see and feed birds at Busch Gardens while she was visiting.

First up was Big Bird. Nana says he heckled her and made fun of her shoes. I dunno. Does this look like the face of a heckler to you?

We didn't actually get to see many other birds that day, we just ran out of time. But, the weather changed our beach day to a Busch Gardens day and Nana had a second chance. You might've thought the rain would've ruined our day. Not at all. No crowds AND we got to wear super cool rain gear.

So Nana got to feed her birds and she was happy.

I can't believe I'm posting this picture of my horse teeth. But, yeah, birds on Nana's head.

Again, Lily was quite wary of these little birds.

Busch Gardens also just opened a new attraction with kangaroos. I hadn't seen it yet because you have to be 5 or older to get in, and I just don't think Lily can pass for that, even if I had a fake ID for her.

So Nana and I went. Kangaroos are different up close and in person than I expected. But then again, everything I know about kangaroos came from this guy.

(You don't remember Hippety Hopper? From Looney Tunes? Really? He was the best.)

Anyway. here's a real kangaroo.

Funny looking critters.

But you can pet them and feed them! So Nana had fun with that.

And wallabies too.

And I tried to get a good picture of a hopping kangaroo. I was not successful. They give no warning when they are about to hop, and they're fast.

This was the best I could do. But, we can go back anytime. Even tomorrow, if we wanted to, so I'll have another try.

A style all her own.

A week ago or so, we went to Lily's parent-teacher conference. Don't laugh. I'm not overly worried that she doesn't know shapes as well as she knows colors, but it is nice to hear a little about the days we're not together.

Anyway - not for the first time - we got the comment, "She's very independent."

I said "Sure. It's kind of the nature of toddlers, right?" Then I just got a look, and "Well, let's just say she's nobody's pushover."

That's my girl.

Along with that independent/opinionated streak comes her own very unique sense of style. See below.

She loves pink. She loves dresses. She loves to wear pink dress and say "I twihl (twirl), mommy. My go in cih-cos, (circles) mommy. "
She does not like to twirl and go in circles in her pink dresses when I take the camera out.

Unless she's the photographer. Then she's happy.

She also likes to wear the tutu that's too big for her.

She doesn't mind its size. She just likes the poofiness, I think.

And she LOVES her "Cinderella" shoes even though they're too big.

I found this little fairy outfit for her at the outlet mall. It wasn't just that I thought it would be fun for dress up. I have scrapbook paper that will match this perfectly. (Yes. really). And I'm dying to use it, so naturally, she refused to try the outfit on every time I asked. Until one day when she decided she wanted to wear it. I got all excited, grabbed my camera, and tried to take some pictures.

Could she look at me even one time? For just one picture?

Nope. But she could look at herself in the mirror, which might be a cute picture if my mirror were even a little bit clean.

What does a fairy dress with wings need? A monkey jacket, of course.

Sigh.

And shades!

Well, I wouldn't have put this ensemble together, but I think she pulls it off.