Apologies in advance for the many, many baby goat visit posts this month, but this is literally the best part of the spring and I am not actually sorry. I took the kids even though E was out of town, which meant I was watching or wearing (mostly wearing) Linc the whole time and means this first set of photos is very average. ANY pictures are inadequate to describe how sweet these babies are though. They’ve had more than 100 kids born in the past week or so, with 200 more to go (almost all mama goats have twins or triplets so it’s hard to know exactly), so in a couple weeks when the older ones are more like teenagers is when the barn gets super crazy and you’re in danger of being literally smothered by frolicking baby goats. IT IS THE BEST.

I’m a little sorry I’ve told SO many people about Oak Leaf Dairy. It’s gotten very popular and a little crowded now. I wish they were open either longer or on some weekdays so I could get my visits in when I didn’t have to share so much.

Newborn goat in a box.

THIS IS THEIR TINIEST BABY AND HER NAME IS GINGER SNAP.

That is the face of a tween who just discovered the miracle of goat birth.

Brand new baby goat!

The baby goat barn is still sparsly populated enough that they’re keeping all the babies in the stalls

Last year he just stayed in a bundle on my back and watched. This year he wanted down for a little bit to say hi, but then asked to go back up where he could pet goats without any of them trying to sit on him.

Disclaimer: Caroline dressed herself.

There are a lot of great things about the goat farm, but one of the best is that after all the goat snuggling the kids can go outside and run like crazy people.

My children ate all of the cheese curds in the car on the way home. I didn’t get ANY. So it looks like we’ll see you again next weekend, Oak Leaf!

Today was our first snow of the winter, and possibly the only one we’re going to get. Our weather has been unseasonably warm (no complaints) and the kids have been dying for a chance to build snowmen and do other normal New Englandy winter stuff. A Friday snow day is the very best scenario. I’m tired of the school routine, I was planning to stay home with Linc all day anyway, we have a bunch of food, and my husband will probably be home early. Which is exactly what happened. Plus it wasn’t even that cold, so playing outside was fun instead of terrible.

p.s. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Caroline’s snowsuit before. I got it at a consignment store last winter and it is the BEST. It’s from Hanna Andersson and is technically “baby” sized but still fits her this year. If you ever see one of these at a tag sale or thrift store, grab it up.

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No cameras were harmed in the making of this photo.

And then the snow stopped and the sun came out!

We did the Essex Steam Train North Pole Express (it’s basically the Polar Express without the trademark) two years ago and it was great. I skipped it last year because we have to buy tickets in August and last August I had a 1 month old and couldn’t get my act together. Plus E was gone that whole summer/fall and I was VERY sure I couldn’t take 3 kids on a magical nighttime train ride alone. But this year I planned to stay home on ticket day and got my fastest fingers ready and bought tickets for the last train on Caroline’s actual birthday day so we could all go. I think next year I’m going to spring for the first-class tickets. They’re a ridiculous amount of money, but I’m not throwing Caroline a big party next year so I feel like we can swing it. Plus I saw one of the elves who host the first class cars and she looked like a legit magical snow queen. Caroline would lose her actual mind.

It is a wonderfully done event full of good cheer – it’s well organized and everyone goes out of their way to make the kids feel special and really believe in Santa magic. The cars are decorated, there are special songs, they give you cookies and hot cocoa, and the whole last 20 minutes is a big dance party where the kids just go crazy in the aisles. All three kids had a blast.

p.s. In case you were wondering, the pajamas are from Hanna Andersson.

This girl worked at the station and I am not sure if she was an extra elf or a fairy or a snowflake or what, but she chatted with Caroline and it was SO adorable. She told her she peeked at Santa’s list and Caroline was definitely on the nice side. Caroline squealed she was so excited.

Look, I realize this is the THIRD post this week that’s basically just photos of my family doing holiday stuff. But guys, I got my Christmas cards mailed today. I also made candy cane fudge, lemon tea cookies, three kinds of hot chocolate stir spoons, sparkle cookies and a batch of sadly misshapen mouse cookies. PLUS I hosted a playdate and got the kids their flu shots. So between now and January 1 the blog is going to be 90% photos (as opposed to the rest of the year when it’s 75% photos) so I can get real life stuff done and have a magical holiday.

The Norwich Winter Parade goes almost down my street – if you look up the hill in some of these photos you can see my green house in the background – so we go every year, even in the cold and/or rain. Luckily this year it wasn’t cold, even though it was wet, so we had a pretty good time. It is a very small-town type parade with lots of super random stuff – Elsa! A giant bicycle! LOTS of fire trucks!) – but they throw candy and my kids and their friends will sit in the rain for candy all day.

On Sunday we went to Trees in the Rigging, which is a community parade and carol sing in Essex, followed by a boat light parade. It is also very small town and adorable, but in a extremely well-off, old-money, New Englandy way. Essex is beyond charming and we love to spend time there, so it was really fun. Plus the weather was great and we met some more friends and my kids absolutely loved both the singing and the waving.

My pictures are not the best – it was really dark and we were walking and no one wanted to stop to let me hold reeeeeeallly still for photo – but they’re very accurate to the experience. Plus Linc was dressed as a fox and Caroline was dressed as a reindeer, so.

It was 60 degrees the day after Thanksgiving this year, which made getting our tree much more pleasant than last year when it was 15 degrees. They also opened up the lower field of trees this year, the ones that had been growing for a looooong time now, so a) it only took 5 minutes to find a great tree and b) we accidentally bought a really really huge one.

We also managed to get a family Christmas card picture I was willing to have printed on 50+ cards to send to everyone I know. You would think that would be an easy task for an actual photographer, but the shoemaker’s children etc etc. I needed one for the family room gallery wall too, since poor Linc is sadly underrepresented. But I’m not posting the card picture until my cards go out. Luckily that will be REALLY SOON, because I took Minted up on their free addressing service and all but a handful of my cards will come addressed (I paid with my own real money but that’s an affiliate link, fyi). I can just slap a stamp on them and be done. Of course, the reason they do that is because now my address book is all typed into Minted and I’ll prooooobably use them again next year, even if they aren’t offering 20% off (which they are, right now, but not for long).

Linc REALLY loved the Christmas tree farm. I might take him back to walk around and take some pictures. If I’m feeling REALLY ambitious, I’ll take his Cozy Coupe and take a photo with a tiny tree tied on top. That would be so adorable it might be worth the effort.

Linc ran FULL SPEED towards the gator truck that collected our tree to take it back to the sales building

Best I could do. It was really sunny.

You know what, I don’t even care if Caroline isn’t looking, this is perfect.

And this is MUCH more accurate.

Almost ordered this one for the wall instead of the one where you can see all the faces.