Christmas!

(Catching up on a few blog posts - this one was composed around the "slow week" between Christmas and New Years, but never got off my butt to add pictures to it, until now!)  :)


With all of the health issues Jon and I have been battling this year, we decided to cancel many of our trips to visit family this year.  So, we spent Thanksgiving at home, instead of traveling down to SoCal to see Jon's family, and we spent Christmas at home, instead of traveling out to New Mexico to visit with my family.

I was pretty bummed to have to cancel the New Mexico trip - the last time we traveled to NM was pre-Callum, so it's certainly been awhile.  My grandparents aren't getting any younger, and it's harder and harder for them to make any trips out our way.  Logan is also older now, that I think he'd appreciate my Uncle's ranch and horses so much more now.  But more than all of that, my parents and brothers were also traveling out at the same time, so it would have been really fun to visit with everyone together at the same time (not to mention, it would have been easier for Jon and I since the kids could have had some extra distraction from their uncles!)  :)

Ah well, such is life!

So, we had a very quiet but no less fun Christmas at home!  I spent the week or so leading up to Christmas buying last minute odds and ends for the boys, mostly stocking stuffers but a few larger presents too.  I've always enjoyed buying gifts and "playing" the Santa role (growing up I was my brothers' Santa for many years), but doing it for my two boys was (and is) so much more fun and fulfilling for me.  And, because Callum was older this year to understand the concept of unwrapping presents and playing with all sorts of new toys, it felt even more exciting to look forward to.  :)

Unfortunately, Logan caught a 24 hour (or maybe 12 hour!) stomach bug on Christmas Eve.  All day and all night, he complained about his stomach and needing to throw up - and finally started a series of vomiting sessions that evening for a few hours.  He seemed to handle it well, but I was worried he was going to be sick and feeling awful through Christmas Day, or worse, through the night.  And then WHO the heck was going to fill the stockings before morning?!  ;-)

So, when it was time to put him to bed, Jon actually laid down with him for some time, while I prepped all the Santa presents and then took a few pictures that night to boot.  :)

The following morning, our boys both woke up about 7am or so.  Logan was VERY excited - asking us if it was finally Christmas?!?  We said yes but he better check to see if Santa left him anything.  He ran into the living room and called out to us, Santa got us new cars!  Santa got us new cars!

(Santa got both boys a new Cars ornament for the Christmas tree, but I find it hilarious that that was the first thing that caught his eye)

 

We all got out of bed and piled into the living room, spending the next couple of hours digging into their stockings for all the Santa gifts, and then unwrapping all of the gifts from under the tree.  Logan is able to read both his own and Callum's names, so he was a very proud boy as he got to pick out each gift under the tree and read who the present was for and exclaim to everyone whether it was for him or his brother.  He absolutely loved that responsibility (and it was pretty cute!)  :)

Callum was probably more overwhelmed than anything, with all of the new toys being opened and showered onto the floor every few minutes, but that didn't stop him from immediately finding his favorites and playing with them for the rest of the day/weekend.

We finished unwrapping presents by about 9:30-10am.  I made some pancakes for breakfast (funny enough, that's what Jon had requested a few days prior so I made sure to have the right ingredients on hand for Christmas morning, only to find one of the gifts from my coworkers was a pancake mix set! so we used that instead for Christmas morning)  :)

We spent the rest of the day lounging around in our pj's, watching tv/movies and playing with all of the new toys that the boys got.  They had a fantastic time, and so did we.  :)

Spraying our new mushroom garden

The face off!

Skype-ing with Uncle Curtis and cousins Luke and Stella

Hope everyone had a beautiful lovely Christmas!!  For pictures from the entire day, see our full album.

Stitch

Santa also left behind a cool ornament just for me and our tree! ;-)

Sleigh Bells

Santa left a couple of sleigh bells behind for the boys tonight.

Merry Christmas Eve!  :)

Christmas Lights

We decided to check out the Vasona Holiday of Lights show this evening, only to turn around and head back home after we saw the ridiculous line of cars just waiting to get in. It was hard convincing Logan that he wouldn't want to wait that long so we decided to drive around our neighborhood checking out people's house lights instead.

This was one of our favorite houses. They even had Mr. and Ms. Claus sitting on the front porch, visiting with the small kids as well! (Logan didn't want Santa to see him though - not sure why - so we didn't go up for a visit.) :)

Loganism of the day

(while discussing what Logan wants for Christmas, and what Santa is going to get him....)

So what does Santa get a bad boy for Christmas?

A bicycle.

And a partridge in a pear tree

We had an excellent Christmas!  Logan was VERY excited about Christmas this year.  He loved the advent calendar I created (although tracking it for 25 days was much too long for a 3 year old's attention span, even with candies attached).  He loved the Christmas tree and outside house lights.  He called Santa "Christmas" half the time, asking when Christmas was going to get here.  And, although we didn't get a chance to see snow this holiday, he talked about that nonstop as well.  It was definitely holiday time here at our house!

My parents, Zane (and his girlfriend Norma who we met for the first time!) and Kai all joined us on Christmas Eve for a yummy tamales dinner and gift giving (after the kids were both down for bed).  In recent years my parents have done a (really nice) White Elephant gift exchange for Christmas.  This year, there was a theme: kaleidoscopes.  Jon and I scored some really nice ones!  :)  (Sadly, I didn't snap any pictures during our Christmas Eve festivities although I did get a couple of Logan checking out my prized "win" on Christmas morning)

Christmas morning, my parents and brothers came back over to join us for another big meal and of course, presents.  I had told everyone to arrive at 9am but Logan woke up at 7:30 and immediately started asking if he could open his presents.  It was a ridiculously long hour and a half of distraction.  ;-)

Logan and Callum received an absurd amount of gifts!  I think we'll have to pare down our current toy collection in order to make room for all the new stuff that joined us this year.  That said, we all had a grand time - Logan loved his new presents and Callum loved playing with all of (Logan's) new toys.  ;-)

This is for ME?!?

Logan helping Callum open his present

WHOA!!! A rocket ship!!

Mommy's favorite - a wooden "memory" game

The rocket ship was the favorite of all toys, I have to say

The "big kids" got a present too - Santa left an Xbox Kinect with a few games (Dance Central, Sports and Kinectimals) as well.  Logan liked watching everyone play, but had some trouble playing himself, since a lot of the games required reading directions and/or knowing your left and rights very well.  So, it didn't hold his interest as long as I had hoped - but I think he'll enjoy it soon enough.  Daddy had a blast (with Zane and Kai) playing the Sports games while Mommy fell in love with Dance Central.

What did Santa hide back there?

 

 

 

I just love this series of my brothers - they're "running" hurdles btw :)

Logan and Callum gave us gifts too!  Logan made a colorful Christmas tree decoration and Callum ('s teachers) put together a gorgeous frame of pictures and hand print.  I loved them both!!  :)

Check out how BIG Callum's handprint is!  ;-)

In between game playing, we had a yummy feast and visiting.  What a merry Christmas indeed!

The above are just some of my very favorites, to see a number of other snapshots throughout the day, make sure to visit Callum's album.

Home sweet home

Left the very festively decorated (but rainy) Bellevue late this evening. Unfortunately Jon, Logan and Callum are all sick. Guess it's back to being Mommy again! :)

Lonely.

It's much too quiet in here.

I was just catching up on another Mommy blog and she has this neat idea to do a daily picture countdown to Christmas. I looked back through my blog and have almost posted one pic a day since Dec 1st. So I'm going to steal her idea and see how far I get as well!

Day 6: Travel up to Redmond and already missing my munchkins terribly.