Trains, Trains, and Boats

Sort of like Planes, Trains and Automobiles, right?

We started off the holiday season with a bang at the Wilkinson household this weekend.  One of the perks of doing a website of kids-based activities is that we get a lot of free tickets to do fun stuff around town.  This weekend we took full advantage.

On Friday, Grady and I, along with my business partner Tabitha and her son Marshall, headed to Hood River, Oregon for a Polar Express Train ride.  This was to be Grady's first exposure to Santa.  Fingers were crossed. 

Grady was pretty excited to get on the train - his first train ride.  He spent quite a bit of time looking out the window. 

He also enjoyed his first hot chocolate with his buddy Marshall.

Before too long, Santa Claus himself came by.  As you can see, Grady was thrilled!

Santa gave Grady a little bell, which he very much enjoyed until he tried to swallow it, at which point I made the executive decision that it would become a Christmas tree ornament.

On Saturday, we took another train ride - this time less of a drive and with Daddy - at the excellent Oregon Heritage Rail Foundation's holiday express train ride.  We live on a bluff, and the train passes right below us every holiday season, so we had been looking forward to going for a while now.  This was definitely the highlight of the weekend for Grady.  He loved everything about this train.

It was a steam engine, and seeing the steam was pretty awesome.  There were also a number of people from school on the train, which was a real treat.

However, the real clincher was that Santa gave out candy canes on this one.

Grady actually ate the whole thing.  I don't even think I've ever eaten a whole candy cane, but his sticky hands and face proved it.  

Here are some more photos from that trip.

Post-candy cane face

Then on Sunday, we went on a "Cinnamon Bear" cruise along the Willamette River.  Cinnamon Bear seems to be a mainly-Oregon phenomenon, but it's basically a Christmas story about this bear that helps two kids find the missing star on top of their tree, and it somehow also involves pirates, a dragon, elves, fairies, and some other stuff....  We didn't quite get the whole thing.

However, Grady was excited to be on the boat - and we have yet more pictures of him looking out the window.

The Santa equivalent on this ride was the Cinnamon Bear.  Grady begrudgingly posed with him, and not-so-begrudingly devoured the cinnamon cookie he received afterwards (we are aware that G is a sweets fiend).

For the most part, Grady was a little too young to completely appreciate all the festivities going on, but he really enjoyed running around the boat and getting to see his friend Marshall again.  He was also pretty interested in the tree, which I hope bodes well for picking out our tree this year.

Despite all our activities, Grady remained a ball of energy when at home.  Although he was a mellow kid for so long - I remember for a couple of months when he was around a year old he used to take lying down breaks in the middle of playing - he gradually has become a really active boy.  He loves to run around, play on the couch, "play" with the cats, and generally tear around.  It's hard to keep him contained all of a sudden!  This led to his first brush with the edge of the table this weekend, and he's sporting quite a bruise from it now.

Grady's been putting more and more words together to form surprising and funny sentences.  He'll now say "she got it!" when Besa gets the cat toy.  He also asks to "sit real chair?" instead of in his booster seat.  Even though his chin doesn't clear the table, he really prefers to be part of the big kid crowd.  He's also beginning to tell stories - at daycare today, he told about the holiday express train ride (steam! santa claus! train!).  He's also been putting stuff together in obvious ways but that still impress his mama - when I got him out of bed this morning, my hair was wet from the shower.  Grady said "Mommy shower."  And when Matt came home today in his running clothes, Grady yelled "Daddy running!"  Make believe is becoming a bigger thing now, too.  He likes to play with his stuffed ducky, pretend to wear glasses, and today for the first time purposefully set up the animals in his barn. 

He is also beginning to get the hang of numbers, which was a big surprise to me!  Here's a video of that before I close.

I did say beginning to get the hang of numbers.

Keep the name suggestions coming on little girl Wilkinson.  We're still not there!