Our Christmas season kicked off with our annual visit to Irvine Park Railroad to ride the Christmas train with cousins Noah and Hailey.

Waiting not so patiently to board the train.

All aboard.

Meredith asked the twins if they could pretend to be reindeer pulling her sleigh.

The girls had already written a letter to Santa, and after much deliberation and browsing the Lakeshore Learning catalog, they decided they wanted “puppy purses” (stuffed animal dogs inside a plush purse– 19.99 for 3 at Lakeshore, so DONE). Meredith also asked for candy, and Samantha and Amelia asked for new play doh and new shoes.. nevermind that they already have plenty of pairs each. They are both in love with the glittery Sketchers Twinkle Toes kind that are colorful and light up, but I don’t buy them because the light ups aren’t allowed at school and I like to buy neutral shoes that can go with any outfit. Nevertheless, they are total girls and love getting new clothes and shoes, so they decided to put that on their Santa list this year in the hopes that Santa would bypass mom’s preferences for shoe buying.

Christmas Train in years past:

Storytime with Mrs. Clause.

Meredith ran up to meet Mrs. Clause, but then had second thoughts.

We let the kids use their tickets to choose a few activities. Their favorite is always “ice fishing” and “winning” the cheap stuffed animal prizes.

Getting so tall.

Amelia and Samantha raced each other in the jeeps while Meredith went crazy in the bounce house.

Our other adventure with the cousins was hanging out at Auntie Lynn’s Hanukkah Party! It was a good thing Auntie Lynn made approximately 12,000 latkes, because the girls gobbled half of them up. Latkes with applesauce, yum! They were equally excited about the delicious blintzes, cute Hanukkah cookies and playing dreidel/winning gilt (we didn’t tell Meredith that they were chocolate, and it surprisingly took a while for her to figure that out).

Zack gave my biceps a rest from holding Eleanor.

Eleanor loves Great Grandpa!

Lots of love,