Polar Express, Birthday, Graduation, Oh My!

Hello again from your local delinquent blogger! Just thought I should post my bi-yearly update on our family :)We are still going at warp speed, but things are slowing down a bit for the holidays. We had a wonderful trip to the Polar Express the day after Thanksgiving with a lot of friends and family during which we celebrated Noah's 3rd (can you believe it?) birthday.



So much for getting a good family picture on the train :)




The next weekend we had Noah's real birthday which we kept really low-key, just relaxed around the house. He LOVED his presents which included a cool car garage, a basketball hoop, and a John Deer remote-controlled gator (my walls however, did NOT enjoy some of these gifts!)



Last weekend we went to San Francisco for Steve's PhD graduation. We are all so proud of all the hard work he put into that degree! Now he is applying at Universities and Seminaries all over the country.














Celebratory dinner at Bucca di beppo:





Today Grace had her Christmas recital at school, the kids were so cute! Grace was pretty nervous about singing in front of so many people but we had a talk about some techniques for helping her to relax. I had to explain that talk to her teacher after she walked into class and announced "I am going to picture you in your underwear Mrs. McElrath!"