All Aboard the Christmas Train!

Christmas Time is in full swing around here.  I'm working hard to keep from overdoing it when it comes to Christmas events.  If I'm not careful, I could have us all signed up for breakfast with Santa every day and a party in the North Pole every night!  This week we enjoyed a few fun Christmas events - one small, one medium, and one B.I.G. deal.

On Wednesday night we started what I hope will be a fun tradition.  A post-bath, post-p.j.'s neighborhood Christmas light tour!  After the girls were bathed and jammied (I made a new verb!), I told Sylvia that instead of reading a book, we were going to go look at Christmas lights in the car!  She was SUPER excited.  Luckily, the world's most amazing house is a hop, skip, and a jump away from our house, so we didn't have to go to far at all to make the magic happen.

Our buddy, Rudolph, had to join us, of course.

Thursday morning was St. Nick Day!  Sylvia tore into her stocking (and everyone else's) to find all the goodies that St. Nick knew we wanted/needed.

New toothbrush!

Micky mouse apple juice...."because I LOVE apple juice!"  St. Nick is a clever one.

This weekend, we had plans to go to the North Pole with none other than our best buddy, Charlie!  Grammy bought the tickets ages ago and I've been DYING to tell Sylvia she gets to ride on a real train.  When she woke up from her nap and I told her where we were going - oh heavens!  I've never seen this kid so excited!  She was laughing and trying to talk but she was to excited to get any words out, and she was shaking and flapping her arms, and when Sylvain walked in the room she screamed, "Daddy, we're going on a TRAIN!!!"  Then she giggled for a solid ten minutes while I got her dressed.

We arrived in Lebanon and met Grammy, Poppy, Matt, Jenn, Claire and Charlie!  Riding on a real train was a B.I.G. deal.  And to a couple of tiny tots, it was magical!  The adults were a little disappointed in the "North Pole," but the kids had no clue it wasn't the world's greatest train destination ever!  The train was great, Santa and Mrs. Claus were fabulous, and the kids were all very well behaved and agreeable!  You can't ask for more than that, can you?

This one melts my heart!

Gingerbread cookies!

Hot chocolate!

She might look cold, but this is her "better not pout" move.  It wasn't cold at all!

She's come a long way in two years.  This is the first time Sylvia's sat on his lap alone without crying.

And Margot followed suit!  No tears!!  SUCCESS!

Considering the five or six other Christmas events I turned down this week, I'm glad the things we decided to do turned out so well!  I don't know if we'll do the train ride again next year, but it was a great idea this year and the kiddos had a blast.  Part of me can't wait for Christmas, but most of me doesn't want December to end!