Catching Up on Christmas, Part III: Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was wonderful. As we expected, Eli was excited to see what Santa left him, it made the morning magical. While Eli was into his presents, we took breaks. He would get tired after opening one or two, or he'd want to take some time to play with his new present. As we had quite a few packages under our tree, since out of town family and friends had been generous, we started opening at 7:00 and didn't finish until 11:00. It was great to be able to take our time and savor it.



Since we had celebrated Christmas with Grammie and Babo on the 23rd, we didn't have rush around at all on Christmas. It was great to let Keira nap and Eli play with all of his new toys. Here he is playing with his new plane from Grandpa Jan and Grandma Karen.

Catching up on Christmas, Part II: Dendi and Bapa's House

The next night, Christmas Eve, our Christmas celebration continued at Dendi and Bapa's house. Keira did better. I think the thing that helped the most was that this time she slept for almost an hour in the sling. When she woke up she was in a good mood for the rest of the night. Maybe she was getting used to being out of the house in the evening, and I think it also helped that there were only a few of us -- less noise and fewer faces to set off her stranger danger anxiety.




Since Keira was in a better mood I actually got to open some presents, with Eli's help. My favorite of the night was a picture frame. On on side there's a picture of Eli on the other side is his handprint -- a perfect Mommy gift. You can see the frame on the ottoman in front of us in this picture of me giving him a thank you hug.


It was nice to sit back and be able to enjoy Eli opening his presents. His favorite of the night was his water tower book. As I've said before that boy is obsessed with water towers. Dendi drove around and took pictures of all our local water towers, and even took pictures of water towers all through south Georgia and Florida on their way to the cruise. Then she went to Jason's store, Wolf Camera, and made a book out of all her photos. He was enthralled. He carefully turned each page and looked at each water tower. He pointed and named all our local water towers.



Another big hit of the night was Keira's train. While it was a gift for Keira, and she does like it... Eli LOVES it! He played with it all the way home in the car, for quite a while during quiet time and at least a little every day since.


Keira was in such a good mood that after we all opened presents, she let Dendi hold her -- something that would have been impossible the night before.

Catching Up on Christmas, Part I: Grammie and Babo's House

Grammie had a great idea to start a new family tradition. In the past, we've opened presents with them during the day on Christmas. Instead, this year, she suggested that we get together on the evening of the 23rd. We all brought hors d'ouevres and our presents, and of course, to Eli's delight, no Christmas celebration is complete without chocolate.


Grammie suggested the change so that the kids wouldn't be so exhausted on Christmas. The idea was that if we spread out our celebrating, we wouldn't all be checking our watches, missing naptime or time to play. It also worked out nicely for Brian and Kathryn. They were both able to come to Grammie and Babo's and then fly out Christmas Eve to spend Christmas with her family.



It definitely got us all in the Christmas spirit. It was also a great excuse to break out one of the three Christmas outfits I had for Keira -- you've got to love the thrift store!


As expected, Eli was much more enthusiastic about presents this year. He even loved walking around helping everyone else open their presents, too.


Eli did enjoy his presents, and he wanted to play with them right away. He even brought out some of his older toys to play with while everyone else was opening. The surprising thing that held his attention the longest was the bubble wrap. I think he sat down for almost an hour methodically popping the bubbles one by one.


Another highlight of the evening for Eli was placing Baby Jesus in the manger. Grammie has adopted the Hispanic tradition of waiting to put Baby Jesus in the nativity scene until Christmas morning. It's Eli's job to place him in the manger. Since we got together on the 23rd this year, Baby Jesus made an early arrival. *On a side note: when I was looking through Grammie's pictures to find some to include in the blog, this picture was Eli's favorite, he kept going back to it. Then he said with a grin on his face, "I love Baby Jesus!"


Unfortunately, for most of the night Keira was fussy. Everyone graciously agreed to meet early for the kiddies, but it seems that there is no time early enough for Keira. Many nights she wants to fall asleep by 6:30, so going anywhere in the evening is tricky. Also, her stranger danger thing seems to be peaking, which seemed to antagonize her fussy, tired predicament. While everyone else opened presents, I spent most of my time pacing the hall with her in the sling. You can see me pacing behind Grammie and Aunt Seana in this picture.


Fortunately, by the end of the evening, Keira was in a better mood. I took her out of the sling, and she sat on my lap. She smiled at everyone, clapped and made kissy noises.



After opening all our presents and filling our bellies, Eli had a blast playing with Uncle Brian and Kathryn. First, Brian and Eli played with Eli's pattern blocks, but as playing with Uncle Brian typically does, it soon escalated into a riotous running around game -- this time Hide and Seek. Eli had so much fun with Uncle Brian and Ms. Kathryn that he cried when it was time to leave. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. The fact that our Christmas celebrating had just begun helped to cushion the blow.

Dendi's New "Part" (Park)

The last few afternoons have warmed up beautifully -- perfect for the park. A few days ago, we headed over to Dendi's New Park. That's Eli's name for the park in downtown Senoia. Since we were so close to Dendi's house, we invited her to meet us there. Here are some pictures that Dendi got with her camera.

Dendi was especially impressed by Eli's climbing ability on the giant dinosaur.



Eli wanted to swing with Dendi, on Dendi's lap. Dendi tried to explain that she wasn't born with much of a lap -- she has short legs, but he wanted to try anyway. It was good for a few swings back and forth and lots of giggles.



The train tracks run right next to the park. No park visit is complete without a train passing by. Eli always stops playing to watch. And, of course I can never turn down an opportunity for a family picture.


Keira is enthralled with big kids. She watches their every move as they run, jump, slide and play. She wiggles and giggles in my arms as she watches Eli run around. I think she would love nothing better than to get down and run off with him. She got her first taste of playing at the park -- she rode on the bouncy frog.

Jump!

Finally, the most active and fun indoor activity this Christmas break has been jumping. I think I mentioned earlier, that we set up Eli's big letters and numbers into a play mat. It has multiple functions, including being a soft place for Keira to play on the floor. Eli and I also invented little jumping games on it like jumping through the whole alphabet. That game got a makeover and turned into hours of fun and a good workout.

Eli has a new fascination with jumping. He wants to run and jump everywhere. One morning, he was trying to jump off his big stool. He was in a dangerous place -- next to corners of furniture, doorways and over the hard wood floor. Not a good idea. Instead, Scott put the big stool over the letters and suggested that Eli try to jump to certain letters. He loved it. Each time, he'd climb on the stool, pick a letter and JUMP! Scottie snapped some great action shots.

More Indoor Fun

We are now enjoying Scott's Christmas break. We've done our share of Christmas shopping and a few jaunts to the park. But, since the weather is still cold and Eli and Keira are still coughing, we've continued spending a lot of time playing inside.

On one of Scott's last days of school I discovered a game that Eli and Keira could play together, sort of. I called it Family Duplo Time. Keira likes any container with loud hard plastic pieces. I think Eli's tub of playdough toys is still her favorite. Often, while Eli and I are playing in his room, I'll set Keira up on his bed with toys and pillows all around her. This time I gave her his basket of Duplos as I had before. Eli decided to join in on the fun. I've told him that he can play with the things she's playing with as long as he doesn't take things out of her hands. He decided he would wait for her to drop Duplos, then he would pick them up and build towers with them. In the first picture, when I asked Eli to look at the camera, he started dancing.




Eli has rediscovered his quike. It's a four wheeled bike that he has had since he was about 18 months. It's always been a favorite, but it had been collecting dust recently. A few weeks ago, while rearranging, Scott moved some toys including the quike into Keira's room. Eli has ridden it every day since. He rides it as an activity, he sits on it while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (his new favorite) and he rides it from one activity to the next. He's big for it, but he can maneuver so smoothly now, that in some ways it's perfect for him now. He also loves to ride it while listening to his new favorite music -- They Might Be Giants.

The fact that he loves They Might Be Giants now cracks up me and Scott. We both listened to them back in the 90's, and it's funny now to be listening to them with our three year old. Eli's introduction to them is a little convoluted. As I said, Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse is his new favorite show. He loves it and thankfully, it's not scary. Scott was impressed by the songs at the beginning and the end of the show. He looked them up online and it turns out that they are done by They Might Be Giants. Since Eli loves those two songs, Scott introduced him to other They Might Be Giants' songs that we already owned. They were a hit. Now, when the music is on Eli either dances frenetically through the house or zooms around on his quike. One day, while he was riding around the house, I plunked a Santa hat on him, making for a fun, festive photo op. I always love to get Santa hat pictures this time of year.



Last month, I blogged about Scott bringing rockets home from school and Eli's insuing fascination. Now, Scott is working on electricity with his fifth graders. So, he brought a motor, a fan and lightbulbs home to show Eli. Sure enough, Eli was enthralled. Daddy and Eli made a few different circuits, and Eli likes to turn the switches on and off. One night, he had an intricate game where he would ride his bike to come get one of us. We would follow him in his room, he would switch on the circuit, switch it off again and ride around once more. I think he played with it for hours.





If you look closely in the last electricity pictures, Eli has the remnants of face paint all over his face. One morning, he sat and methodically drew all over his chin with each color.

Message From Santa for Eli

Santa's Message for Eli