so big...

...yet so little.

santa claus is coming to town

ever since mason saw an inflatable santa in lowe's before thanksgiving, he's been intrigued. he'll see santa somewhere and ask "who's that?!" then reply to himself "santa claus!," usually followed by a "ho, ho, ho!"

we knew we definitely needed a santa do-over after last year's encounter, but we haven't had time to visit him before today. all day long, we practiced what mason would do... walk up to santa and say "hi santa!" and then sit on his lap, look towards mommy and say "cheese!" 

mason is not particularly compliant when it comes to smiling for the camera (you might have noticed!), so we worked on it before church, after church, after nap, and on the way to see santa. i figured practice makes perfect! while that motto doesn't always ring true, it worked pretty well today.

we headed to market street to meet santa 

things didn't look too promising 

as we quickly learned what happens 

when you wait until 6 days before 

christmas to take photos with santa. 

what a line!

 mason was a champ and waited patiently

and did just as we practiced!! 

 successful visit and a delicious candy 

cane treat for a VERY good boy

cuteness in their bones

talk about an adorable gene pool... 

these cousins are cute all the way to their bones

giggles and grins

there's a whole lot of silliness around here now that daddy's home....

baby tanner

i finally got to meet my nephew tanner (aka baby tanner as mason likes to call him) this weekend! he is as cute as ever and such a sweet boy. the pictures hardly do him justice...

if looks could talk this one would say 

"auntie kammy, my mommy 

does NOT take this many pictures of me!"

he's as smitten with his mama as she is with him

gotta love baby toes...

lucky for me, aunt kant and uncle g's house is still under construction, so tanner and korey are hanging out in texas for a few weeks. we're planning to sneak in several more visits before they return to the cold north.

christmas '92 revisited

one of the best parts of family reunions is looking through old photos. and making fun of them. we found this doozy on the bookshelf at aunt 'nelle's house:

seriously. look at it. from bowl haircuts to stylish christmas sweaters 

to killer bangs had by all, it doesn't get much better than this.

we laughed so hard at ourselves, we decided it needed to be redone. 

18 years later. complete with the christmas sweater.

awesome. i might add that evan weighed a lot less at age 6!

happy birthday papa!

you only turn 90 once, so the whole nasse clan gathered to celebrate papa's birthday in san antonio this past weekend. relatives from near (in texas) and far (louisiana, new york & alaska) joined in the festivities. 

from the gumbo on friday to the fish fry on saturday (with fresh alaskan halibut!), there was good food, old stories, and family togetherness for all. happy birthday papa!