The other day we went to Sears and while we were there we went shopping for toys. I’ll be posting a very big post that has to do with that on Tuesday so come back for the photos. Anyway, while we were there Eva found this My First Craftsman Rough and Tough Toolbox. She carried it around the store, she loves things with handles. And we ended up getting it for her. So, today while we took pictures of Eva by the tree she decided to play with the tools. She does her Auntie Tara proud.

The big deal for today was our trip to see Santa. I think we enjoy going to restaurants to meet Santa because they are just more relaxed. I’d hate to have to stand in line at the mall for Santa. The Santa’s village at the mall is certainly an amazing site but I like the more casual atmosphere of a smaller venue.

We Went to LA Roberts to meet Santa this year because we knew who was going to be there as Santa. It was my Brother-In-Law’s father Howard. Howard has an amazing Santa suit and he is great with the kids. One thing that he has but other Santas don’t is a carved staff, one he carved himself. Howard is a man of many talents.

At LA Roberts they had a very nice setup. Santa would go from table to table and talk with the families and his elf helper gave kids presents. And we didn’t have to pay for any of that. Eva got a very nice stuffed bear. She was so cute holding it.

Also today we got our tree decorated. Allison and I did this while Eva slept, I think next year she will help us put the ornaments on. Eva did help Memere out with her ornaments so she did get a chance to put a few of my old ones up on Memere’s tree. I think the one last thing that we need to do around the house is get Eva’s tree up and decorate that, she can help with that.

It has been rather busy around here. Allison and I do not yet have any Christmas cards to send out. We did take a few photos of Eva by the tree this evening but I’m not sure if we are going to use them. I will have to go through them.

Right now and for the past 2 1/2 hours I’ve been working on the annual Christmas letter with my parents. Dad and I used Google Documents to collaborate on the letter this year. I love Google docs and how you can easily work together on a project. This is our first foray into that area and I hope that we work more on it for future Christmas Letters. What has taken so long it picking out and formatting the photos. I actually picked all the images with my Dad and then formatted them to look like Polaroids lining the left side and bottom of the page. I think it came out pretty sharp. I took the written letter from Google documents and then cut and paste it into a text field in Photoshop. Using Photoshop I easily set up the exact layout that I wanted. While Photoshop is not really a word processing program it can be set up to mimic one for small things in a pinch.

This photo was not photoshopped.

With the deadline for BenSpark’s Big Box of Awesome looming I can tell you that the awesome is still coming. I discovered a few more people sneaking around my Big Box of Awesome and look at what they found.

Jennifer over at The Dirty Shirt is giving away one of my Photo-A-Day Calendars.

Connie over at Brain Foggles took a look inside my Big Box of Awesome!, She cheated by doing some snooping. But I forgive her.

David Brim is going to Lead The Field with the motivational tape set that he found in BenSpark’s Big Box of Awesome!