First things first – Jonah and Nora got a new cousin this week, just in time for Christmas! Phoebe Magnolia was born early Tuesday morning, the 21st. Sooo cute, and we can’t wait to meet her! When I told Jonah about the baby cousin, he said, “Um, but they are still going to live at their house, right?” I think one baby girl in his space is all he wants to handle. ;) He has enjoyed looking at Phoebe’s name, though, and noticing all the interesting spelling things going on, like the “Ph” at the beginning, an “o” that doesn’t make a sound, and the “e” at the very end that actually does. He’s our little word master.

OK. Now on to Christmas Eve. Before bed, Jonah and Nora got in their Christmas jammies and both made drawings for Santa.

Jonah drew Henry and James, the trains, because they’re Christmas colors, and put Bertie the Bus at the bottom. I’ll let you guess what Nora drew. ;)

Reading the Night Before Christmas with Dad.

Bringing out a plate with cookies for Santa

Jonah swoops in to save Santa’s cookies from the speedy and determined Nora.

Nora did not need help opening presents today, aside from the occasional ribbon. She totally knows what she’s doing!

She enjoyed opening her presents, as well as admiring Jonah’s.

She got a raincoat, now that she’s going to be walking around in the rain for the next six months, and she wanted to put it on right away. How cute is this?

And Santa brought Jonah just what he wanted – trains with faces, like Thomas! Mom had a lot of fun building the track, too. :)

The real trick is going to be keeping Nora from “playing” too much with the tracks while Jonah’s busy with it, too. She loves trains, just like her big brother!

Finally, we showed them the big felt playhouse I made for them which fits over a card table. They love it! (which is good because I can’t even begin to count the number of hours that went into making it…) ;)

Here’s Jonah peeking out the door.

And Nora really likes crawling in and out and in and out and peeking out the windows. The mailbox opens for mail to go into the house. There is a jingly ‘doorbell’ to the left of the door. I made some keys that go in the keyhole, and they can pick the flowers.

The other sides. . .

A garden with corn and carrots to pick. A pond that fish and ducks can go in. Removable train cars with Jonah as the driver (of course) and the rest of the family as passengers. A moon and sun can be changed out for day and night.

The back side is the market. There are shelves and a crate to hold veggies from the garden or other things for sale. The window shade can go down when the store is closed, and there is a removable shopping bag to use.

The other side has a window with windowbox for flowers and flowers to pick in the grass below. Apples can come off of the tree, as can the chunks of leaves if they want a more wintry tree-branch look. Originally I thought I’d make some fall leaves, too, but yeah… we’ll see…