Babies, trains, and Elf pets

December is my all-time favorite month. Even though it leaves me exhausted and wishing there were more hours in the day, I love the excitement and all the activities.

This little girl is now almost 6 months old! She is army crawling really well and when she says "da da", we're pretty sure she means George.

She's also trying to sit up on her own!

Lily is a good big sister (when she's not laying on top of her or "loving on her" with her feet). I think these two are going to be fast friends as soon as Lexi can keep up.

Cole is still Polar Express obsessed and is convinced he's getting an O-gauge Polar Express train set for Christmas. If you look closely,  you can almost see the words Polar Express going from right to left in this picture, along with a plate of train-shaped Christmas cookies and carrots for the reindeer.

Can you tell what this is a picture of?

Can you tell he's in the Christmas spirit? Cole will sit for an hour at a time at the kitchen table and draw. He used to draw mostly trains, but lately he's been drawing Santa, elves, Christmas trees, and other Christmas-themed pictures. I love it!

Speaking of the Polar Express, we finally broke out our train set and this little boy was in heaven!

It just wouldn't be Christmas without this guy:

My Grandma Brewer sewed this Santa for me when I was a baby. He's old and yellowing, but I love him! 

Our Elf Ze made his first appearance on December 1st, bringing with him a Lego Advent calendar. We'll have to see what awesome shenanigans Ze gets into this year.

Aunt Jen got Lily these cute slippers over the Thanksgiving holiday and she spent a good week wearing them everywhere. No real shoes for this girl, just her "claw slippers".

Cole isn't the only one who enjoys driving the train!

We were at Michaels one day and Cole saw this cute dragon and asked for it for Christmas. This boy loves baby animals and the color pink. Blue is still his favorite, but pink is a close second.

Christmas list ideas from the kids:

The kids had been begging for Ze to get a pet, and one morning we woke up to this:

Yay! We were worried we wouldn't be allowed to touch the deer, or he could lose his magic like Ze, but luckily, the book that came with the reindeer said we can totally snuggle this guy. Cole immediately adopted him and insisted on the name "Paw". The other kids had their own ideas, but finally gave in. Welcome to the family, Paw!