sadie meets santa

After 2 failed attempts, Sadie finally met Santa on Tuesday, December 23rd, after waiting in line for....wait for it....2 1/2 hours!  Crazy right?  When I started looking for places to go see Santa, I found that he was no longer at several of the malls.  We went shopping a few weeks ago at The Grove and I saw that they had an amazing Santa House.  So, I decided to get in line.  That's when a mall employee came up to me to let me know that Santa was about to take an hour break, and based on where I was in line, it would likely be a wait of more than 2 hours.  How does anyone expect a child to wait in line that long? 

I tried one more time and again was told the wait would be over 2 hours.  So, I decided I would leave work early on the 23rd and my mom and I were going to try one last time.  I didn't want to miss this special milestone.  I never in a million years would have imagined that I would wait in line for hours to see Santa, but I did.  After the first hour, I just couldn't get out of line.  I had already committed to an hour, I was going to see it through.  Thankfully I had dressed Sadie in warm clothes and had a blanket for her.  My mom and I, however, did not dress for the freaky cold L.A. weather we were having.  We froze our booties off! 

Shockingly, it was mostly worth it.  Sadie was a trooper.  She didn't fuss or cry.  She just hung out in the stroller for most of the wait.  At one point, they started to make it snow so I took Sadie out of the stroller to see and we got a couple of cute pictures.

When we finally got to the front of the line, they had a red velvet rope and Sadie started trying to climb over it. 

Then, the moment of truth.  Santa was great.  He was really sweet with Sadie and we didn't feel rushed at all when it was FINALLY our turn.   When we first went in, Sadie started dancing to the holiday music that was playing.  Then she walked over to Santa and gave him "five."  Then when he asked if she wanted to sit on his lap, she turned to me.  So, here is our picture with Santa.

When we were done I asked if she wanted to give Santa a kiss and she puckered her lips.  It was so cute.  I asked if she wanted to blow Santa a kiss, so she did.  When we went to pay we found out that they videotaped the entire interaction so of course we had to buy the dvd.  I mean, it was her first time meeting Santa!  I can't figure out how to copy the movie to post here, but I'll keep trying.