Merry Christmas! 2008, part 2

Christmas morning was amazing. The sheer joy and amazement on Nate's face was so infectious, it didn't take long before we all had big happy sappy grins on our faces. I'll spare you those pictures... trust me, a super cheesin' Jenn in PJs first thing in the morning is not a pretty sight. :)
Instead, I'll share some much more adorable pictures of Nate and family.

Nate checking out the plate and cup leftover from Santa's late night snack. He had gotten to help me make the cookies for Santa the night before and he was very excited about it.

Nate was so cute digging in to his stocking...

Nate's really into puzzles and wanted to stop opening presents to play... it took a bit of convincing, but the prospect of bigger and better presents finally got him moving on.

Like this playdoh, which we play with almost everyday. Did I mention everyday?

Checking out a giftcard from Nana and Poppy D... what oh what shall I get? Nate hopes his TN grandparents will be able to come see him soon!

Opening presents nearly as tall as me is great fun...

Christmas dinner at mom's house with all my siblings. It's so great when we can all get together.

My sister, Tracy, and her daughter, Syndey.

My brother, Brian, and Mike.

My brother, Joshua.

We had a really great Christmas both at home and with extended family. It's amazing how having a toddler can truly bring the magic back to Christmas. It's like we get to have both sides of the story. We get to watch as Nate unwraps each present, delight in his expressions and excitement. His overwhelming happiness is the best gift I've ever received. Then when we go over to my mom's house and spend Christmas afternoon with my siblings, eating all my mom's homemade comfort foods of our childhood, joking and laughing together, sharing gifts and stories. Then we all came back to my house and my Dad and Stepmom and brothers came over to spend Christmas night together. I'm unsure how we fit so many people in our house, but we do, and it's great. The kids all play, the adults got to act like kids and played a board game. It's just so great to spend a whole day with all the people in your life that you love the most. I love my family. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Preparations 2008

As the Christmas holiday was approaching we celebrated a bit with friends from my work. They graciously invited us to stay the night at their home in Lexington and so we brought Nate along to enjoy the party too. Nate was sooooo good and was immediately comfortable around everyone. He is definitely coming out of his shell more and more each day. Nate is still the pickiest eater I know (that's saying a lot coming from me!) and so I'm not quite sure, but I believe that his "dinner" consisted of wheat crackers, cheerios, and ranch dip. That's healthy, right?

Nate's new best friend, Jeromie, "loaned" him his iPhone, which Nate immediately fell in love with. His favorite application was the Star Wars light saber. Nate forced Jeromie to play with him and the iPhone for an hour at least. A whole hour where Mommy cringed each time the $300 iPhone got slung around and pounded on.

Back home we decided it was time to get our own tree out. Though Mike questioned my idea to put the whole tree up while Nate was awake, Nate did a GREAT job helping. He was really excited at each step along the way. It made putting the ornaments on quite a slow process, but since we still don't have a lot of ornaments yet it worked out just fine.

Each year I buy a new ornament for the tree. The last few years I've been making it a point to get ornaments that can be hung low on the tree with a toddler. :) This year's addition were these super cute mittens. I let Nate put all the soft ornaments on the tree this year. He did amazingly well, both in skill and in patience.

Here he is bargaining with me that this jingle bell ornament is indeed a soft ornament and thus he can put it on himself. Who can resist him?

This was when I realized I needed to explain to him about the reason for the nativity set.... that they were not infact action figures as he first thought. Nate did really well for the most part, not playing too roughly with the nativity figures, only needing reminders from time to time. He'd even bring them too me, showing me the mommy, daddy, and baby. However we clearly will need to explain again next year, since last weekend when we put the tree and decorations up I noticed that one of the wise men had lost an arm in battle... sadly the baby Jesus will not be getting one of his gifts next year, I'm just unsure if it was the gold, frankincense, or myrrh.

I'll post soon with pictures from Christmas. My problem is somehow deciding between the 70 gazillion pictures I took...