All Aboard the Polar Express!

This was our third year riding the Polar Express steam engine train out of the Texas Railroad Station in Palestine.  Although it's a drive into the middle of nowhere, requiring an overnight stay if you want to avoid being on the country highways late at night, it has become one of our favorite holiday traditions.

We've gone with our good friends the Barr family each year, and driving up there together adds to the excitement.

My parents joined us last year, and it was so fun we were glad they could make it again.

On boarding the train you're served cookies and hot chocolate by a staff that dances and sings in the aisles while the Christmas lights along the top of the train sway as the train clacks down the tracks.

While Jonathan and Abby enjoyed fancy drinks and sitting beside their friends at the "kids" table (ah!  they're getting so big!!!),

Joshua got in lots of cuddles (and lots of cookies) with his Daddy, Nonnie, and Papa.

Once we reached the North Pole, a sparkling scene of Christmas lights and happy elves outside, Santa boarded our train.  David reminded the kids that Santa only comes if you're sleeping, and Abby was careful to keep her eyes tightly closed while waiting!

 Santa boarded our train and delivered Christmas Bells to the little passengers.

We rang the bells singing Christmas Carols on the return trip back to the Palestine train station.

 And after a late dinner at Applebee's, we crashed at a local hotel for the night.  Well... some of us crashed.  Joshua was still pretty excited about his first train (and luggage cart) ride!

In the morning we enjoyed a buffet breakfast.  The kids went down early with their grandparents while we slept a bit later with Joshua, having spent some quality time with the tot in the wee hours in the morning.  Later we all headed down to the indoor pool where David led the kids in an energetic game that seemed to have its roots somewhere in the Lord of the Rings series.  Watching them laugh, squeal, and splash around the pool with their Daddy while Joshua splashed on the steps with me was such fun.  One of my very greatest joys is watching my kids play with their daddy, alongside the joy of watching two or three of them totally lost in the delight of playing with one another.  It simply makes my heart sing.

Christmas, so far

 I get more excited about Christmas every year.  The older the kids get, the more meaningful the season becomes to them, and the richer the traditions we're sharing with them.  I've been excited about Christmas coming for months now, ever since I added a morning hymn to our breakfast routine.  Jonathan especially is enjoying learning hymns.  Now when I turn on one we've learned about in the past, I'll hear him say, "Oh!  This one is my favorite!"  There is something wonderful about hearing him sing How Great Thou Art while playing Legos.  We get lots of other kinds of music through the kids' music class, from traditional kid songs to folk songs from a variety of cultures, and I like sharing the soundtracks of some of my favorite musicals with them.  But I knew as soon as we started studying the words and music of hymns in the morning that I would take all of December to delight in Christmas carols.  Some mornings I play them on piano, sometimes we use Casting Crown's Peace on Earth album, and other times we find a fun version on YouTube for sing along.

A few years ago enjoyed a particularly funny moment at our church's Christmas celebration when Jonathan bust out with "Old MacDonald had a Farm E-I-E-I-O" while the church sang Away in the Manger around a live nativity scene set in a stable.  Hopefully a little more thoughtful approach to learning and enjoying the lyrics of familiar carols will prevent a reprise of that evening!

In addition to enjoying Christmas carols over breakfast, I've replaced our scheduled morning Bible study with a fun children's Advent study that is set up as a series of seek-and-find pictures, and we are enjoying our growing selection of children's Christmas books.

Anyways, to kick off the month we picked up our Christmas tree on the way home from our Thanksgiving weekend trip and decorated it the next evening.

 Soon it was clear it would be safest for Joshua to finish the festivities from the safety of the Ergo, so we snuggled as the finishing touches went on the tree.

And then, of course, there was a celebratory dance.  Because why not?

A few days later Abby sang with her classmates in Mrs. Hall's Duckling class at her preschool's Christmas Program.

She was quite excited about it and really enjoyed getting to perform with her class.

As one of the older kids in a class of two year olds, you could actually hear Abby quite well, and she remembered all her words and hand motions.

We were so proud to see her enjoying her first school Christmas performance!

Over the next week we'll attend a few more Christmas performances, including the ballet Amahl and the Night Visitors, put on by a friend's dance studio, and a children's Christmas show performed by a local Christian theater group.  We have play dates planned for making ornaments and decorating cookies and are looking forward to the weeks to come!

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving with my extended family at a reunion in New Braunfels and had a wonderful weekend together.  In these kind of trips, I find that managing my own family is exactly as much as I can handle, and I regrettably capture little of the weekend on "film" -- there's just too much else to focus on!  But the reunion was put together so very nicely by my aunts with just about everyone pitching in to organize one aspect or another.  Sharing  a condo with my parents was wonderful, and we got to see lots of Daniel and Kimie's family as well, which was a real joy.

Kimie so kindly swapped me family photos for holiday pics, and I made out with these lovely Christmas card shots from her.  I'm so, so grateful that I didn't have to get an appointment with a local photographer and get everyone decked out and on location here in town.  In 10 minutes flat she had us posed, shot, and the kids were retrieving their prizes ;)

I got to snap some of her family, too, though I don't think I would have been successful posing them without her professional experience!

We even got the grandparents in and managed to capture all 5 grandkids in one place.

Aren't they sweet?

I'm so impressed that Kimie is doing this with family after family.  Just getting my own kids out to a field around sunset once a year is as much as I can handle.  But she's clearly great at it, and I was glad to benefit from her experience!

One of the highlights of the weekend from Jonathan's perspective was doing his Kiwi Crate crafts, complete with some rocket-launching assistance from Papa.

 Now you see it,

now you don't!

 There is much, so much, to be grateful for.  I'm blessed to say that the past 7 years have easily been the best ever.  I vividly recall our first year of marriage thinking time and again, "This is just so very right, such joy."  This past year has been quite similar.  Though aspects of being home full-time and the beginning of homeschooling have actually been more challenging than even residency, I find myself profoundly content and grateful to be where I am this year.  David and I are enjoying these kids immensely, and teaching Jonathan at home has added another layer of delight.  Watching Abby grow from a toddler into a full-fledged creative and delightful preschooler has been so fun, and Joshua's  playful spirit has been the icing on the cake.