It's Santa's Train!!! (+ Santa Visit #2)

I love trains!  Anyone who knows me knows how incredibly intrigued I am by trains.  So when Mommy happened upon an announcement on My Baton Rouge Mommy about the Kansas City Southern (KCS) Railroad's Holiday Express coming to Baton Rouge, she knew they had to take me!  And I'm so glad they did.  We all had a great time, even Madeline loved it!

I was super excited when we arrived and I realized I would be so close to the railroad!  I could see the tracks and the ties and everything!

We boarded the train through the Caboose.  Santa's elves were on hand to help us.

And right inside we found Santa Claus himself!  I was so happy to see him!

I, on the other hand, was not too thrilled at all about the man in the big red suit with the fuzzy white beard.  This was as close as I was going to get.  The nice elf used our camera to take this picture for us.  

There were four cars of model trains set up for us to look at.  I was completely enthralled!  I had such a good time watching them go around and seeing all the details to their setup!

The outside of the train was just as cute and festive!  I loved "ooh"ing and "ahh"ing at all the pretty sparkly decorations and shiny lights!

We had such a fabulous time!  It put us right in the perfect Christmas spirit!

Santa Visit #1

The first Sunday of December, Daddy and Mommy took us to the Mall of Louisiana to see Santa Claus and have our picture taken.  See, they knew I'd have at least one more opportunity to see St. Nick at my school, but they wanted to make sure to get a picture of me and Madeline.  Well, they should've saved their money!  That silly girl wanted absolutely nothing to do with Santa Claus!!  I guess she doesn't realize that she has to tell him what she wants if she's going to get any presents on Christmas.  I sure got up there and told him I want a BBQ Grill and all of the Bob the Builder machines!  I took a great picture, but Madeline wouldn't let go of Mommy at all!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree.....  

After begging for days, we finally got to decorate our Christmas tree!!  It was going to be so much fun!  This year I chose to have red and green ornaments.  We used about half of our assortment from last year, and Mommy got some additional ones (mostly the stars) for this year!  My first job was to put the hooks on the individual ornaments.  And I did a great job, too!

I was so anxious to get my ornaments on the tree!  As soon as we finished eating, it was time!  I got to put the first ornament all by myself!

Mommy brought me over, too, and held me up so I could put some ornaments on just like my Bubby!

My job became handing the beautiful ornaments to Daddy and Bubby, while Mommy kept working on hooks.  I "ooh"-ed and "ahh"-ed at each one, too!

And then it was time to put the star on top.  This is probably the last year I get dibs on this job without a fight from my sister, so I took full advantage of it!

Ta-Da!  It's beautiful!

Magical Elf Breakfast!

Wow!  I knew Santa Claus was magic, but man!  We got home from church this morning to a great surprise!  Santa Claus sent one of his elves back to our house again this year!  This time he arrived by setting out a great breakfast for us!  He even brought our favorite - donut holes!  And all kinds, too!

We each got these cool cups with curly straws with our initials on them -- "W" for me and "M" for Madeline!

Our elf brought us a book to read too -- The Elf on the Shelf.  Mommy read it to us while we at our donuts!  In the story it told us that we can't touch our elf because his magic will go away.  And each night, he's going to go back to Santa Claus at the North Pole to tell him if we're naughty or nice! 


The story also said we had to name our elf.  I chose the name Evan the Elf.  [I have a friend at school named Evan, so that's probably how I came up with that name!]

After the story was done, Bubby noticed that there were two presents with our initials on them, too!  So Mommy and Daddy let us open them!

I got some new "bling"!  I just love my necklaces and bracelets!

I got a kit to paint a Christmas Tree ornament!  Evan the Elf knew I liked to paint!  We can't wait to see where we'll find him hiding every day.  I'm pretty sure he's going to make us laugh with all his hiding places!

Just a little Christmas

As soon as we got home from Parin's and Aunt Emmy's I was ready to start decorating for Christmas!  We weren't home 15 minutes, and I'd already pulled every stool I could find into my closet to try and get my tree out!  None were tall enough, so Mommy threw me up on her shoulders so I could pull it down!  Parin and Aunt Emmy got me this tree for my room last year and I just love it.  But it didn't take me long to realize that the lights I had for it were wooden, and that Madeline didn't have one!  So after a little insistence by me, Mommy took us to Hobby Lobby to get more decorations and a tree for Madeline!

We came home and set out to decorate.... only to realize very quickly that we needed ornament hooks.  Paw-Paw to the rescue!!  He ran to Walgreens and delivered them to us!  (We were already all in our pajamas!)  Madeline and I had fun decorating these little trees for our rooms!

Gobble! Gobble!

We spent Turkey Day at Nannie's and Uncle Kent's house (or Parin's and Aunt Emmy's, if you're William) in Fort Worth.  They just bought a new house about six months ago, and were excited to host a big gathering!  So Tuesday, around lunchtime, Grangie and PawPaw loaded Bubby and I into Mommy's van, along with all our stuff, and we headed out.  Oh, and we picked Mommy up at her office on our way.  [Daddy didn't come with us.  Instead, he flew to Atlanta to visit his Grandpa.]  It was a long long drive!  But we finally made it there.  The next night, Nannie's family arrived too.  Here I am taking a very important call on Rebecca's phone (Nannie's sister).

On Thanksgiving Day, Parin was cooking the turkey outside in something called a "Cajun Microwave".  He put the turkey inside, and set a bunch of coals outside the cooker on fire!  I watched very closely so I can do this next year!

I enjoyed time visiting with my Parin, too!  Yep, he and Aunt Barbara were visiting other family in the DFW area, so they came to lunch too!  [We also met Uncle James and Ms. Anne for breakfast Wednesday, but we didn't get pictures! :( ]

Me and Parin had lots of fun hanging out and playing together!

Miss Rebecca just loved me!  

It's no wonder... I'm just irresistibly cute!

If Mommy thinks it's hard enough to get a cute picture of one of us, it's even worse getting one of both of us together!  This was the best she got!