National Christmas Tree

The boys and I headed into DC to see the National tree, Santa, and Jonathan last week. It was incredibly cold, but even the briskest wind couldn’t dull our enthusiasm.

The trains display was  impressive and Lincoln loved it, of course.

Santa’s workshop was also really cool. We loved seeing the desk where he writes all of his letters and the table where he designs the toys.

Santa himself might have been having a bad day, though. Lincoln wasn’t very interested in talking to him anyway, so we didn’t stick around for too long.

Finally, we met Jonathan for lunch. It’s always a special treat to see him in the middle of the day.

Christmastime at the Temple

The Washington DC temple puts on a “Festival of Lights” every year and it is really lovely. There are millions of Christmas lights and free Christmas concerts in the evening. We sacrificed getting the kids to bed at a reasonable hour and headed out there the week before Christmas. It was a pretty chilly evening, so we quickly took some photos with the temple before heading into the warm Visitor’s Center.

We checked out the display of nativities from around the world before taking our seats to see Paul Cardall (a pianist) perform.

When we went back outside I asked Jonathan to take a picture of Conan and me. The DC temple is sort of our special place since he was almost born there.

Instagram

I have started really liking Instagram. It is incredibly convenient and it is so nice being able to capture and showcase some everyday moments in our lives. If you have Instagram or decide to download the app (hint, hint…) my username is “llary523”. Here’s a sampling of some of the pictures I’ve captured in the last few months.

1. Conan swinging at Jones Point Park. 2. Lincoln showcasing his ink covered hand. 3. Conan resting. 4. Conan playing with fridge magnets.

5. Lincoln playing photographer. 6. Lincoln showing off his “I voted” sticker. 7. Playing at the National Building Museum. 8. Cupcakes!

9. We’ve been playing a lot of Connect 4. 10. I love when they play together. 11. Lincoln loves hopscotch all of a sudden. 12. The Jones Family Train.

13. A few of Lincoln’s many, many train drawings. 14. Christmas rocks! 15. Nothing on the coffee table is safe anymore. 16. Lincoln’s Lego train.

17. Lincoln rocked his dental check-up. 18. A huge chocolate bar. 19. Rudolph pancakes! 20. Blueberry yogurt on a super cute face.

21. Gingerbread ready for our gingerbread house play date. 22. Conan’s freshly finished stocking. 23. A letter from the North Pole! 24. Model train show!

Christmas Program

Lincoln had his preschool Christmas Program last week and it was really fun to see him in that setting. His preschool is in a church, so the music was all Christ centered, so his program was a really nice addition to our Christmas season.

Conan got to stay up past his bed time and charmed all the other parents near us, but that’s not unusual.

It wasn’t really possible to get pictures during the program, but when it was over they called up the parents from each class individually so we could all take pictures in an orderly manner. I couldn’t pick just one of these pictures because Lincoln looked so handsome in all of them.

I know I’m his mother and incredibly biased, but Lincoln really did a wonderful job. He knew all the actions he was supposed to do and most of the words to the songs (he’s still singing them) and, most importantly, he really sold the songs he was singing. Watch the following video if you don’t believe me. Sorry for the shaky camera work, but it’s worth it.

 

B&O Railroad Museum

While being praised by my mother-in-law for always diligently posting on my blog the other day, I began to feel a teensy bit guilty. These pictures are from the day after Thanksgiving. I’ll do better.

The day after Thanksgiving we trekked out to Baltimore to visit the B&O Railroad Museum and our friend, Yuri. The museum was amazing and Lincoln was in heaven.

There were extra cars lining the parking lot. Lincoln would probably have just been happy visiting them…

But we opted to also go inside where we were able to see a bunch of steam engines, tons of Lego trains, more Thomas toys then you can imagine and …

The most patriotic Santa you’ve ever seen! Lincoln wasn’t too keen on talking to Santa at first, so we just went about our business. As we were looking at a model train set, though, Santa walked right up to Jonathan and Lincoln and started a conversation. He asked Lincoln his name, how old he was, what he wanted for Christmas and just chatted with him about trains. It was truly a momtog’s dream because I was able to snap tons of pictures of Lincoln and Santa interacting, but it was also just a magical holiday moment. Thanks, Santa.

Lincoln cried when we had to leave the museum and asked to go back as soon as he got up the next day. If Baltimore were a little closer we could spend a lot of time in that place. We might end up spending a lot of time there anyway.