Tis the Season for Christmas Lights and Gingerbread....Trains

We had wonderfully relaxing day today... lounging around the house and enjoying our first day of Christmas break together. Edison played with toys, I was able to read my book for a while, Jonathan went out and flew his airplane... and then had to fish said airplane out of a tree. It was a great day.

We decided to top if off with a trip to the store to get all the fixings for a gingerbread house and on the way home, we drove past 3 houses all decked out with lights.

I LOVE driving around at Christmas time, looking at all the beautiful lights. If I had my way... I'd go to Timbuktu and back to look at lights. Jonathan on the other hand is a bit of a different story. He likes to look at Christmas lights... but not if he has to drive far to get to them. So, I pre-staked out 3 houses, all within 15 minutes of our house for us to go and look at. Maybe later on in the holidays I'll convince him to go look at some houses in a different town than ours.

Edison really enjoys looking at the lights as well. He doesn't always notice them right away, but once you point them out to him he doesn't take his eyes off of them. He sits there in his car seat, pointing away at all the pretty lights.

As we were shopping for all our gingerbread supplies, I saw kits for a gingerbread train and I was sold! I thought it would be fun to mix it up and decorate something other than a house. As a side note... I never make the gingerbread from scratch, I always buy a kit... mainly because I don't even like gingerbread. I like the decorating, and eating off the decorations... and then I leave the rest for Jonathan.

I knew Edison was going to be too young to try to decorate it himself, but I thought he'd still like to watch and I was right! He sat right up on the island, watching me put it all together. He also really enjoyed playing with all the candy and making a big mess. But the cutest part was when I started sticking the candy on the train, he started passing me each piece... I'd glue in on and he'd pass me another piece. He was very intent on helping me out in whatever way he could. He also discovered Smarties, which he'd never had before and once he ate one we were in big trouble... he was a Smartie eating machine. Nothing like a big sugar high right before bed!

 

Very excited for ginger-train making 

Checking out the gingerbread... there were a couple of close calls when Edison tried to sample it

How do all these little pieces make a train?!? 

Oooohhh, candy 

Doesn't look very pretty yet, but at least it looks like a train 

Time to decorate! 

Edison, handing me some pieces  

The big mess he made 

Chooo Chooo! Ain't she a beauty?? 

It was a very Christmassy evening and a great way to end a great day! We're looking forward to spending many more great days together over the holidays!