Our Visits with Santa Claus

If anything, Utah is great for focus on family. Albertsons advertised that Santa would be available for pictures Saturday morning, for free! We packed up our two sweet kiddos and braved the winter snow to see Santa.

He's been asking for years now if he could have a puppy, however, its only been until just recently that Rique understood the power of Santa and took his request to the big guy in red.

Rique hopped up on his lap and answered that, yes, he had been a good boy this year and that he would please like a puppy this year for Christmas. (We tried telling him that Santa only brings toys, but in the movie, Fred Claus, Santa brings a puppy.)Santa looked at him doubtful and asked if he was ready for a puppy, "You know they turn into dogs."

Stumped, but still excited for all the Christmas fanfare, Enrique smiled, accepted his candy cane and took this classic picture with his baby sister Aurora.

Later that day, we found ourselves at the grocery store Macy's and found Santa with his wife this time. So we did the whole thing again, but this time Rique was ready. After Rique told him what he wanted, Santa paused and looked up at me, Rique quickly came up with an explanation to Santa as to why he needs a puppy before he could get shot down a second time. Mrs. Claus commented on what a good talker he was.

Rique's explanation to Santa was: I need a puppy to turn into a dog because there are cats that come and poop in my sand box and I need a dog to bark at them so they won't do that anymore.

With that kind of logic, how could Santa say no.

Merry Christmas