not at all shy

We were out running errands this morning, but part of the time I decided to let Rachel do what she wanted to do for a little while. As we walked into a department store at the mall a worker said hello to us. Rachel looked at him and said, without any prompting from me, "Hi, I'm Rachel!" He said, "Hi, I'm George, how are you today?" It was so funny, and I couldn't believe how NOT shy she was!

We walked through the store and she saw all of the Christmas things on display and went crazy. We went out into the mall and she played at the indoor playground a bit. Then we went to the Disney Store because she asked to go to "The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!" (That's what she calls the store because it has Mickey ears on the outside around the store front). We just looked around and she was in heaven, playing with all of her favorite stuffed animals, touching all of the beautiful, sparkly princess dresses, and dancing with the princess dolls.

As we were leaving there we saw Santa down below on the first floor of the mall (we were upstairs). He was leaving his little area and he came up the escalator right by us. Rachel was SO excited and just kept walking over toward him, staring. He waved at her and then as she continued to walk toward him in awe, he opened up his arms and she went right into them and gave him a huge hug. He said, "Ho Ho Ho!" She continued to watch him (as he walked into Starbucks--he was on a break, I guess!). She wanted to know what he was doing. I said he was thirsty and was getting a drink. As we walked away she said, "I LOVED seeing Santa, Mommy!" I don't know where she gets her boldness (certainly not from me, and not really from her Daddy, either!), but it sure is sweet!