Merry Christmas

I woke up this morning to three elves on my trampoline!

I hope you all have nice holiday!

Train Field Trip

Today we all went on a school field trip for Rebecca out in Boulder City. They do a Christmas train ride with Santa out there, and Rebecca loved it last year, so we all decided to go this year.

William and Braden sat with Kevin and me.

And Rebecca sat with her friends. Way too much growing up from this girl lately!

That had an open train car that all the kids loved.

And all of the workers were dressed like this. I loved it.

We took our short ride out and back, and then they unloaded us from the train. I thought maybe Santa was somewhere at the station waiting. Turns out he wasn't there at all today. And Rebecca and William were really hoping to tell him what they wanted for Christmas, and I was happy that we wouldn't have to go stand in a long line for it. Oh well. Bass Pro Shops is fun, and close, and Santa is always there at Christmas time.

Braden lasted about five muntes on the freeway home before he fell asleep. That's candy cane all over his face. I think William fell asleep a few minutes after I took this picture, but you could probably already tell that from his face.

It's not often that we do stuff like this as a family. Even though we didn't get to see Santa we still had fun riding the train together.

Almost a month ago...

Rebecca turned 6. I'd like to say that I'm posting this late because I'm lazy or really busy, but that's not true. I wasn't going to post about her party for fear I would hurt feelings of anyone who wasn't invited, but today while looking through my pictures, I realized that I really want her party documented.

This party was Rebecca's first friend birthday party. We invited all the 6-year-olds and 5-turning-6-year-olds from church, our next door neighbor, 2 cousins, and 2 friends from across town, which turned out to be 15 friends! I told her not to tell anyone at school she was having a party because I don't think I could handle any more little girls! We sent cupcakes to school instead, and Rebecca has a nice party with mostly church friends.

The girls started out decorating sugar cookies and eating pizza. My sister-law Emily made the cookies and brought icing, food coloring, and sprinkles for decorating. The cookie decorating was a hit!

Then we moved to the couch for presents. This is where most of the girls started out.

Except for Natalie who sweetly helped Rebecca with her gifts.

Then they all started moving in to get a closer look. I love this picture of Braden in stride.

Lately Rebecca loves gumball machines at the store, so she was very happy to get her own personal gumball machine from Kaylie and Marissa.

We ended with cake and ice cream. I had some other girly activities planned, like painting fingernails, but the girls just wanted to jump on the trampoline and play upstairs for the rest of the party.

Rebecca had a great time, and I am glad to have my first kid party out of the way. It was not as bad as I expected it to be.