It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I'm really enjoying Ashton's age this Christmas season. She is young enough where presents, wish lists, and consumerism are way over her head. However, she cares about decorating, Christmas lights, and other Christmas festivities. Our town has quite a few Christmas-y events so we've done some the last week or so.

Our traditional gingerbread decorating kit. She loved decorating the train.

We went to one activity at night that we probably won't visit again. They had "trolley" rides and since Ashton loves Daniel Tiger with trolley, I told her about it. Of course she wanted to go. So we went. It took over an hour of waiting in line for us to ride the trolley (which was just a trailer attached to a pick-up truck). She did great waiting and enjoyed playing with her glow stick that the event planners handed out.

I took her to the library for their holiday open house and they had Santa come. Ashton doesn't really understand Santa and doesn't talk about him. But she loved seeing him and sitting on his lap. This girl has no fear of strangers, which is both good and bad. She also made some cool ornaments there.

No fear. Went running towards him and loved sitting with him.

We went to a church that hosts a live nativity each year. They had hay rides and a petting zoo as well. Ashton enjoyed all of it. While there, we walked over to the local park's Christmas festivity where we met Santa again and roasted a marshmallow

On the hay ride

She's obsessed with the blow up lawn decorations on our street and loved that she could stand right next to some at the park.

No fear again.

Roasting some marshmallows. She thought it was cool to roast it for 3 seconds, take a bite, and then roast it some more. Her fingers were super sticky.

In other news, I'm ready for Christmas to be here because it means 2-5 weeks until we meet our baby boy. I'm measuring a few weeks behind all of a sudden, which is what I did with Ashton so doctor isn't worried. I am guessing baby boy will be bigger than she was simply because I think he will come later than her. I'm just hoping he's not over 9 lbs! Anemia is worse this time around but we finally got that under control. He is extremely active. Any time I sit to rest for a minute, he's kicking away. And these are some powerful kicks too. I don't recall having that with Ashton so I'm hoping he's getting out his energy out now and will be chill when he comes (wishful thinking at least).

Joseph received a new calling at church today. Since we moved to Lake Jackson, he has served in Young Men's. When the wards combined over a year ago, he continued to serve with the young men organization. Well, now he gets to serve with the young men in the Spanish branch. He was called as the Young Men's president in their branch. Thankfully, the times work out that he can still attend sacrament meeting with me and then go to his meetings/church. It will make for crazy Sundays but we'll adjust with time. We definitely did not see that coming and were shocked when he was extended the call.