whobody loved christmasapalooza?

We have lots of Christmas traditions, but one my favorites is Christmasapalooza!

I wrote about it last year in this blog post.

It is a tradition we began in 2006…and it is a wonderful Christmas party with some of our closest friends (and their kids…who, coincidentally are my kids' closest friends ;))

Funniest thing is, this group of friends consists of Jason's friends from high school! We are so lucky to all still be living close, and still hanging out…and most of all, the wives actually like each other (maybe even more than the boys do!). 

So…the party is a blast! It is 'for the kids'…so we bring snacks, have Papa Murphy's pizza, and, if we are lucky, SANTA even comes to visit! 

So.Much.Fun.

17 kids is a lot of kids to try to get in a picture.

We will take what we can get!!!

 While we were taking the group picture…guess who showed up???

The Man in Red.

You can see in the picture below how excited CRUZ was to see Santa…

*cruz*

Luckily, most of the other kids 
enjoyed having him here.

*parker*

*cooper & parker*

*checking out the treats*

*lola* 

*avery*

*lily*

*keaton*

*nash* 

*vaughn* 

*tyce*

*colton*

*hayden* 

*alaina*

*tate*

*and jack*

(jack liked santa as much as cruz and paislee did…but cruz and paislee never quite made it on his lap long enough for a picture) 

*paislee*
(i didn't actually GET a picture of her near Santa…but if I had, this is what she would have looked like.)

*cade* 

Of course, before Santa left, he needed to make sure everyone got their gifts!

We had SUCH a good night…
and the kids had so much fun.

The mom's favorite part was when we put a movie in…and actually got to talk!