Santa

We went to Opryland to see Santa this weekend, since it didn't work out to go to with either of our parents this year.  We went pretty late, around 7pm, hoping that most other children would be in bed.  We must have been right because we were the only ones in line!  We have been telling Patrick who Santa is, but he is still terrified of strangers, so he reached for me the whole time.

As soon as we walked into the little play area, Patrick saw the train and starting chanting choo choo over and over again.  He was so excited to ride the train!

Unfortunately pregnant people were not allowed to ride the train, so Michael got to ride with Patrick since he is under 2. Michael let Patrick choose where he wanted to ride and he ran right to the caboose and climbed in!  As soon as the train started Patrick got a huge smile on his face!

Patrick said momma a couple of times as they came by.  So every time they drove by me the other little boy kept saying "there's your momma."  So funny that the other little boy is waving to me in the picture.  Patrick looks upset in this picture, but he was actually having a blast!

As soon as the train stopped Patrick burst into tears.  He was having so much fun he didn't want the train ride to end! After the train we went to test out the cars. Patrick was still eyeing the train and wasn't that interested in the cars.

Afterwards we went to see the nativity scene outside.  It was really pretty!

We tried to go eat at the Rainforest cafe, but it was closed so we went to Chuey's instead.   Here's a little story, just to give you an idea of how rambunctious sweet little Patrick is...  

We sit down at the table at Chuey's and Patrick is bouncing up and down and grabbing everything in site.  The waiter (a young male) refers to Patrick the whole time as "Taz" which I assume means the tasmanian devil.  Patrick was definitely bouncing up and down, but not being rowdy or disrupting other people.  I then order Patrick a lemonade.  The waiter looks at Patrick and then back and me and says, "are you sure you want to order him a lemonade this late?  That has a lot of sugar in it.  How about a juice instead?"  I kind of laugh and say okay.  Michael chimes in and says "how about a cranberry juice?"  The waiter says "okay, ill water it down a lot." Michael and I kind of laughed after he left the table.  It was about 8:00pm, which is late for most kids, but Patrick doesn't normally go to bed until 9:00 or 9:30.  I am pretty sure the waiter thought we were terrible parents for having our young child out eating late and ordering juice. Just so everyone else out there doesn't think we are terrible parents, Patrick only gets juice about once a week.  He also has a lot of energy!  If we try to put him to sleep before 9:00 he ends up waking up in the middle of the night.  Patrick has never been a good sleeper and the doctor said it is rare, but some kids just don't require a lot of sleep!  We have definitely determined that Patrick falls into that category!  Patrick definitely has lots of energy, but I wouldn't have it any other way!  I wish I had been on my toes enough to think of a nickname for the waiter too, maybe he would have thought twice about referring to Patrick as the tasmanian devil the whole time :)