I have been a bit nostalgic this Christmas season, thinking about how big the kids are already. I’ve been going throw old pictures of them and I just can’t believe it.

I have been blogging now for 8 years this month, this is my 650th post, jeez. I am sure glad I have a journal of sorts of all the things we’ve done. In all those years I don’t think I’ve ever been up to date in December and with this post I’m about to be. We just went here this weekend.

One of things that made me think about Christmas’ past is the Winter Garden a Glow at the Botanical Gardens. They are celebrating their 20th year! We celebrated our 6th year going. That’s just another one of those moments that is just making me go my gosh how did we get here so fast? 6 years of going to the Winter Garden a Glow feels like much less.

Anyway we went and had fun as usual. We got there pretty early after they opened so there were not a lot of people yet. We hopped right in and got some hot chocolate and cookies while there was no line.

Usually we look at the trains last but since we were close while drinking our hot chocolate we checked them out. Jayse still just loves those. We’ve gotta get that kid a train set one of these days.

Then it was off to visit with Santa. That Santa is such a nice guy! On our way home Jaelee asked if the Santa we saw was the fake or real one. I asked her what she meant and she said some Santas have fake beards and are just fakes. She said she thought this Santa was the real one because his beard was real. I just told her I think she was right.

After Santa we walked around and looked at all the lights. We always love walking to the very top to look down at all the lights. It’s pretty awesome. Usually it’s pretty cold so we all wore a lot of layers. By the time we hiked up that little hill we were all sweaty and peeling layers off. My purse, pockets and Greg’s pockets were full of hats gloves and scarves.

We walked around and looked at more of the lights and then headed home. While heading out because there was still no line Greg and the kids got more hot chocolate. And just like that our 6th year at Winter Garden a Glow was over and just as fun as ever.

(Crying inside at how big they are on Santa’s lap)