Christmas Fun--Part 1

This Christmas has been my favorite Christmas in recent memory. It's amazing how having a child makes it SO much more fun and exciting! Henry really started to "get" Christmas this year. He was so excited when we decorated our house and got our tree, he was completely enthralled with all the lights everywhere, and of course he loved all the sweet treats he got throughout the month. 😋

Henry was in bed when we put the lights on the tree, and he was amazed when he got up in the morning! 

I bought this Christmas tree advent calendar from Pottery Barn on sale after Christmas a couple years ago, and I've been waiting anxiously for Henry to be old enough to use it! We didn't take pictures every day, but these from December 1st were too cute to narrow down! This was the day that we did our Santa train ride, so I printed a train ticket and stuck it in the pocket with a chocolate Santa lollipop. Henry loved getting a surprise everyday! Some days we left a treat or small gift, some days we left a Christmas craft for him to do, and other days were notes to do a fun Christmas activity as a family, like decorate a gingerbread house, or go see Christmas lights. 

 

  

One day Henry painted a gingerbread boy...

 ...and one day he painted a Christmas tree ornament!

Showing off the gingerbread girl ornament he made, as well as the ornament we bought on the Santa train!

My mom has bought us chocolate advent calendars every year since I was a kid, and she's kept the tradition alive to this day. 😂 Now our kids get to partake in the fun too! This was probably the highlight of everyday this whole month! Henry LOVED getting to open the window and get his chocolate! Each piece was a different shape and he loved getting to see what it was going to be everyday. One day he had a stocking shaped piece, and I asked if he knew what it was and he said "A BOOT!!!" Hahaha

As I previously mentioned, we did a Santa train ride at the beginning of the month with my family. This is something my parents took us to do as kids, and my mom mentioned how fun it would be to go back. We booked our tickets over a month in advance, and most of the seats were already sold out! Apparently these train rides are very popular. 😂 I'm glad we were able to get seats, because the kids had so much fun! We arrived at the train station at 2:15 for our 3 o'clock ride, and had time to check out some of the trains.

 

 

 

Henry was being a stinker and wouldn't smile or look at the camera. 😑

All aboard! Henry was pretty much all smiles once we were on the train. My parents had seats in front of ours and Amanda, Stephen, and the girls were a few rows ahead.

Santa came through to see the kids and Henry did NOT want to sit on his knee. He did let Santa hold his hand and then took a very timid picture next to him. 😂😂😂

 

 

 

As we exited the train, Santa passed out train banks and candy canes to all the kids. These sweet cousins had so much fun on our train excursion!

 

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is buying gifts for a child through the Salvation Army Angel Tree, and this year was extra special to me. Last year I adopted our angel online, and I found a little 5 year boy named Henry who I really wanted, but then I noticed that he had already been taken. I then noticed that he had a 7 year old sister named Zoe who had not been adopted (you can tell when kids are in the same family because they have the same ID number, and then a consecutive letter). It just broke my heart thinking about Zoe not having the same kind of Christmas her brother would have, so I was immediately set on buying for her. Well this year I went to the mall and got there right as they were setting the angels out on the tree. I said I was looking for a toddler girl who wanted dolls or something similar, and they gave me a stack of cards to look through. I went through a couple dozen when all of a sudden I came across a card for a 6 year old boy named Henry. I was like "Oh cool! Let's do this little boy named Henry!" Well then I look at the card immediately behind his and it was for Zoe, his 8 year old sister. I literally could not believe that I found the same children 2 years in a row out of the hundreds of names on that tree, and even though we really only planned on buying for 1, I had to take them both. Their cards said they both needed winter clothes, and Zoe wanted Barbies while Henry wanted Hot Wheels and a remote control car. Such simple requests among the consumer craze of most children at this time of year. I was so blessed by these kids, and the way God crossed my path with theirs again. I prayed over their gifts as I bagged them to take to the mall, and was left in tears at the knowledge that although I will probably never know these kids, God does! What an honor and privilege it was to be a part of Zoe and Henry's Christmas again this year!

One night after dinner and bath time, we got doughnuts and drove around and looked at Christmas lights. Henry had so much fun, and seeing the excitement in his eyes was magical! He "helped" us put our wreaths outside at our house (which he talked about all month long), and pretty much every time we passed a house with lights he would say "Me help! Me help!" 😂

My mom and Amanda and the girls came over one morning and we made cinnamon dough ornaments. The kids had fun smooshing it and making a mess, and we got lots of yummy smelling ormanets! Henry lost interest pretty quickly, but the girls were really into it. 

I'm going to end here today because I still have a ton of pictures to post, but I'll be back tomorrow with Part 2! :)