Shoups R Us: All I want for Christmas

This weekend, my company hosted a children's holiday party. The tickets were a hot commodity around the company, so I was grateful to be able to score some for the Shoup family and a friend of mine. Everybody knows the holidays are about friends and family, with some good old fashioned balloon animals thrown in for good measure. What's that you say? There are no balloon animals in the nativity? That's only because nobody has tried to make a camel with two humps yet. They are still stuck on monkey in a tree.

A very extremely organized friend of mine scored a table large enough for the group of us. I showed up late for the party thinking it started half an hour later than it did. I know, nobody reading this blog is shocked that I showed up late. We could have wound up sitting on the floor for all my excellent planning! When you walked in, there were tons of festivities for the kids all over the place and there was no being strategic about which place you should visit first. Since Santa and Mrs. Claus had not arrived yet, we sat down and got K some snacks to eat.

She really did like the broccoli, I promise!

While we waited for Santa, we tried to take in some of the other activities. First on our list was the aforementioned balloon animal. The animals were really elaborate though and it took a long time! While we were patiently waiting, Santa arrived. We ditched the balloon animal guy quick and in a hurry! Santa vs a balloon animal and the balloon animal wins every time! The kids were all given personalized gifts (well, as personalized as age and gender would allow), so there was a plan in place for how to meet and greet with Santa. KIC showed no fear and was prepared to give her spiel again, to a sane Santa this time.

Nope, not excited at all!

For the love of God, take the picture already!

We left Santa and went to obtain our balloon animal and get our face painted. By this time, DH and I had the system down. One of us would wait in line with KIC and the other would be a placeholder in another line. It made for a lot of waiting. A lot of waiting. But KIC and the other kids with us were good sports about it, considering it was well past naptime for all three (yup, KIC still takes a nap. I know, I AM a lucky dog!). Everyone got a balloon animal (some got two) and everyone got their faces painted.

Before we left, I had the bright idea to stage some photo shoots with the props around the party location. We got photobombed a LOT by children hyped up on candy canes and snow cones. Seriously, it really was like Candyland up in that piece. We did get some good shots though.