Gearing up for Christmas Time with Lights and the Polar Express

It's December and the girls are beyond excited for everything associated with Christmas.  They know that Brystol is coming at Christmas time, Santa comes, and we learn about baby Jesus.  

They were excited to pick out a tree and even though it sat naked for a couple days we eventually got lights and ornaments on them.  Well the lights were up the same day that Emi stuck a poof ball up her nose, but after the delay, it's looking much better... Well, maybe not in this picture! But that's how things look when the 3-4 year olds decorate.

Joel was excited about the tree but he's more excited about putting the lights up outside.  Each year we buy a string or two of extra lights.  This year we had enough to line the outside of the house, but since we have two large pine bush trees he wants to wrap those too!  Coming home to lights turned out and leaving for work with lights on makes him happy.

 One of the things that we found last year that we really enjoyed was going to Western Elite's Christmas Express.  It replicates the the Polar Express pretty closely and it's usually a lot of fun.  Last year they had an exclusive military night and there were maybe 800-1000 people.  This year was a general public night and it was crazy with lots of people ~3000.

We got there and the line for the train was wrapping the entire place.  We invited Katelyn, Jacob and McCall to come with us.  It worked out really well because Joel and McCall stood in line for the Express and kept each other company while Katelyn and I watched the kids and took them on the mini train ride, made potty runs, and got food and hot chocolate for everyone.  It was crazy but a lot of fun.  It was stressful for Joel, but he made it through.

Hot Chocolate face!