Four Sleeps till Christmas!

It's taken me a while to sit down and gather together what we have been doing lately. There has been a lot of 'doing' lately, mostly of a Christmas nature. After the Christmas tree was decorated we had the pleasure of attending a Christmas party at the Zoo for all the families at our pre-school. EV was very excited about it and I admit Dada and I were looking forward to an evening at the Zoo too.

We started off by having a picnic meal with everyone at the rotunda. Then made our way round to visit our favourite animals. One of the best things about visiting in the evening is that the animals are frisky, especially the lions. Usually the lions are all dozing when we visit, but we got to see them chasing each other.

Probably one of our favourite places to visit is the seals and the penguin enclosure. The penguins were sleeping under a dinghy, but the seals gave us a wee swim by. EV had to refer to the map at many occasions. It was a beautiful and warm summery evening, we were very lucky.

Santa's Grotto.

Ev had her first visit with Santa this year. I hadn't bothered before because I knew she would freak out at seeing him, but this year she was into it enough to grasp what was happening, so Nee Nee and I took EV to Santa's Enchanted Forest. Nee Nee and I were reminiscing about when we were both children and we went to the grotto at Farmers (an old department store in Auckland). We were pretty excited for EV.

Ev was totally mesmerized by the little dioramas. So much so that she had to take some photos herself. I believe she said "Quick Mum wheres my camera? I just have to photograph this"

Here are a few of EV's shots. 

 Then at the end of the enchanted forest was a velvet roped queue to see Santa.

Santa asked EV how old she was, was she 2? EV held up 3 fingers and said "I'm this many". Then he asked her if she had been good and what did she want for Christmas. "hoowa hoop" said EV and Santa said no one had asked for one of those. Then he gave her a decoration for the tree and we left feeling very happy. Nee Nee and I loved the setting so much we got EV to pose for another photo on the way out.

I think she looks a little bit overwhelmed. But I think she's getting the hang of this Christmas nonsense.

FYI here's a copy of the official Santa portrait.

 I need to give credit to Nee Nee for some of the photos here. Thanks Nee Nee. x