So our big goal for the lambs this year is that they live.
Well, more specifically that they live long enough for us to butcher them.
It's a tough life when you're a farm lamb.
Anyway, with that (and the calendar) in mind (lambs came in January last year) one of our projects for the holiday break is to try and create a smaller area with a higher fence. Hopefully one coyotes can't jump. So Scott and Poppy spent a wet afternoon outside today, siting out an area, digging holes and setting posts. Couple more days of work and we should be ready for Lambs: Round 2.

 

Merry Christmas to each of you from the Burke farm!



We spent a gorgeous Christmas Eve at home - working in the garden and playing with the boys before heading off to Christmas Eve service in the late afternoon. On the way home we stopped at the nearby Newton Lights display, where we played on the railroad tracks, watched the lights and hummed along to the music of the display. Before bed we snuggled up on the couch and read The Night Before Christmas and then tucked two excited little boys into their beds.


   

Christmas morning started about 6am when Carson crawled in with us... he tried to stay calm (and lasted about 15-20 minutes) before blurting out, "Is it morning yet???" After that it was all we could do to stall the gifts until Great Grandma arrived. (Happily she was early!) We read the Christmas story and then dove in...

 

Once everything under the tree was opened we pointed out to the boys that there had been no gifts from Santa, "Maybe you need to look around a little..?" (In their defense, it was still pretty dark when we first started.) Finally they found their "Santa present" sitting in the lawn. We spent much of the afternoon outside (between rainstorms) enjoying the beautiful rainbows that God kept sending, one after another, to remind us of his love on Christmas Day.

Happy Birthday, Jesus - and Merry Christmas to all!

Sunday was the annual Christmas trip on the Polar Express!
They actually made some good improvements this year, including a Santa that was fabulous and some elves that really kept things moving. The boys were more anxious and excited than I remember them being in past years, staring at the door until the moment Santa entered our car. Absolutely adorable!
More pictures posted here!

  

Green Christmas tonight at our house! That makes it official - it's the weekend before Christmas:)

 

Come one, come all to Carson & Nolan's Christmas programs!
Nolan's last day of PreK in 2011 was Tuesday and we celebrated with cookies, string cheese and Jingle Bells. (No one can party like 3-year-olds!)
Carson's last day is tomorrow and he stood on stage tonight with his class and sang before an audience of hundreds - WAY TO GO CARSON!
Very proud of what both of the boys have accomplished already this year!

 

Thanks to Scott "liking" a Sheridan facebook page, we found out there's an annual Christmas parade and tree lighting ceremony in town. So we bundled up last night (probably more than we needed to as it turns out) and headed out to our hometown downtown. The parade was about 10 minutes... roughly the length of the boys' attention span. Small live advent, petting zoo and Santa at the fire station. Fun night:)

   

An entire section of the play room as been turned into a giant blanket fort!
All fun and games 'til you try and lay on the couch to watch a movie... staring at every blanket you own and not being able to use any of them without risking the wrath of the 6-year-old! Brrr....

Mary and Joseph are in the back corner of the house, headed for Bethlehem and the first door of the Advent has been opened - Happy December!

   

The boys and I came back from Seattle today on the train! I love the train (brings back memories of playing in Europe in younger days) and was excited, and very nervous, to take a train trip with them. Scott had originally planned on staying in Seattle for a while, but as it turned out he didn't need to so he shadowed us down the freeway, which made me less nervous about corralling both of the boys. His periodic texts read, "Waiting in the parking lot at Centralia." "Need me to stop in PDX?" Yes, I was comforted by the fact that I could toss one out to Daddy if they started to act up! But it wasn't necessary - not even close.

They had a ball; we explored every inch of the train we could access in the first 30 minutes. Literally. This is the over-sized baggage area:



Their top two favorite places were the dining car, which had large wrapping windows and seats positioned to take away the "who is going to sit by the window" argument, and the arcade room, which Mommy refused to fund, but had a lot of open space and few people (so that whole noise thing that comes up a lot with us was less of an issue). They even befriended another little boy on the train, which made things a lot easier on me! The second picture here is putting road stickers on the windows - then they drove hot wheels cars on them for a while.

     
 
Half-way through we took a movie break, which Carson was all about. Nolan seemed to know he would fall asleep if he sat still though, so he spent the time staffing a gate he made across the aisle with his headphone cord and opening it whenever someone walked through.

   

Great trip overall - thanks for the memories boys! :)