Oh Happy Day

Happy Saturday! This post is happening much later than I planned, but I guess better late than never right? I love the weekends, they are our lazy days. Saturdays especially because my awesome husband lets me sleep in (don't worry he gets his turn on Sunday). Today I was planning on doing cookies with the kids but decided to wait until tomorrow, plus we had to run to the store for last minute pre-Christmas groceries. After getting all of our supplies, and hopefully enough milk to avoid another store trip before Christmas (only 5 more days!), we came home to relax. The day was spent watching the Polar Express and making Christmas train Build and Grow kits that my sister Brandy sent the girls for Christmas. The fact that the Polar Express was on just happened to be an awesome coincidence.
Last Saturday we went to BLORA (Belton Lake Outdoor Recreation Area), to see the Nature in Lights display. Its about 5 miles of lights all throughout the park. Unfortunately the line of cars getting into the park was about a mile long and our youngest fell asleep. So we went back again this weekend (earlier this time) so that she could see all of the lights too. It was well worth it. Not only did both of the girls love the lights (even though Riley had seen them the previous Saturday), but we stopped in to Santa's Village to say hi to Santa and rode the train into Candy Land; a special section of lights that can only be seen from the small train. It was amazing, and so much fun.

My pictures really don't do it justice, but it's hard to capture lights at night from a moving vehicle (at least for this amateur). My favorite part of the night was the train. For $5 per adult and $3 per child (11 and under), you get to snuggle up on the open air train under a thick blanket and see a section of lights that are not visible from the road. It really has an intimate and magical feel to it, and that's what I love about this time of year. Everything feels like magic. It is nearly impossible to be unhappy or feel ungrateful this time of year. Every morning I get up and put my Christmas music on or put a Christmas movie on TV. I put out my indoor decorations before Thanksgiving this year, even the tree. Yep, I'm that person, the Holiday skipper. I'm mean, Thanksgiving is just a practice run for Christmas dinner anyway, right? But seriously, I can't help it. This magical feeling is only around this one time of year. You can't blame me for wanting it to last as long as possible. The Christmas season is one of my favorite parts of This Crazy Beautiful Life.