Christmas 2007
Josh and I finally just sat down and let out a sigh of exhaustion amidst the new toys and leftover boxes in our living room. The kids are in bed although Harrison is still wired from the excitement of Christmas and is trying to convince Josh to play some more. Here is a quick recap of our Christmas 2007:
Yesterday we went to Ellen's house for a Christmas Eve lunch with some members of our ward. She lives in an old high school building that screams New England and has more recently been converted into condos. Her home is part of the old auditorium and is just down-right cool. We munched on great food and Harrison had a wonderful time playing with the other children. When it was time to leave, he said he wanted to stay and live with Ellen; an offer she graciously declined. The kids took naps when we came home and then we set to making Christmas Eve dinner. We made some homemade chicken cordon bleu, a spinach salad, Amish white bread, and sausage stuffing (I know, not a natural fit but it was that or do a full-blown turkey dinner). We then moved to the living room and each opened one present. Harrison and Ellie received new Christmas Mickey Mouse pajamas with their names embroidered on them. Harrison was so excited to get ready for bed and wear his new jammies (if only every night was that way!). Unfortunately both pairs of pajamas are on the big side and the kids kept tripping over the long legs. We put four peanut butter Hershey kiss cookies out for Santa per Harrison's request. Harrison stalled and stalled at bedtime but finally went to sleep an hour and a half after we laid him down. Ellie went down easily despite her recent grumpy mood. Josh and I spent the evening putting together a kitchen and some baby doll furniture.
Since Harrison went to bed late, I wishfully thought he might sleep in. Hah! Waking up early on Christmas morning must be ingrained in children. He called out for daddy at 5am, an hour and a half earlier than normal. He immediately wanted to see if Santa had come. Josh brought him in the living room where they sat and ate cereal while looking at the tree. At 6:15am, they came into our room and woke me up. I told Harrison he could pick out two things from his stocking to play with. He found a set of Little People and some Curious George stickers. Ellie woke up shortly thereafter thanks to Harrison's loud (and persistent) requests to open presents. I threw some french toast in the oven and we took the standard Christmas morning picture in front of the tree (we forgot to turn on the tree lights though; do you think it's worth photoshopping in 600 Christmas tree light tips? :) ). Harrison went through his stocking and then moved onto Ellie's; she apparently wasn't fast enough. Santa brought Ellie a doll stroller, high chair, cradle, and TMX Tickle Me Cookie Monster. Harrison got a vacuum, TMX Extreme Elmo, Memory game, a white board book, and something else that escapes me. When Harrison opened the vacuum he immediately took off with it down the hall to put in the closet next to our real one. He then proceeded to pull it out throughout the day to "clean up". Up to this point he has been "vacuuming" with his corn popper and so Santa thought he needed something a little more official. Ellie was really cute with all the doll accessories. She tried to climb in the high chair and used the stroller as a step stool to spy on the lizard. Harrison sure loves all the doll stuff too and is teaching Ellie how to put the baby dolls to sleep and feed them. We let the kids open their Cookie Monster and Elmo dolls at the same time. Now when these things originally came out I thought I would never allow something so obnoxious in my house. Well, I'm a sucker. Harrison fell in love with the TMX Elmo at the toy store a few weeks ago and at the last minute, we bought Cookie Monster and Elmo for the kids. They love those things and they are pretty funny. The Cookie Monster is a little smaller than Elmo and Ellie loves to watch him fall down and laugh.
Present opening took nearly three hours because we had to stop, open packages (with all those industrial strength twisty ties), and let the kids play with nearly every new toy. Both kids loved all their new toys and books. Ellie was growing tired, so we had them open the toy kitchen from Grandma Lue and Topper before laying her down. Both kids immediately started playing with all the doors, drawers, and accessories the minute the sheet came off the kitchen (my best attempt at wrapping). They have spent the day cooking and rearranging all their new toy food. Now I just need to convince Harrison that he cannot store his milk cup in the toy kitchen fridge.
Harrison was so excited to get new slippers. Who knew? Even Josh finally saw the light :) I have been trying to get him to stop wearing shoes in the house so he begrudgingly put slippers on his Christmas list. He put them on this morning and says they are so comfortable. Victory!
Harrison is on his version of the holiday diet. He has hardly eaten a thing in two days because he is just so excited. And I can sum up the day with the following equation: overwhelmed + excited + exhausted child = tantrum, tantrum, tantrum. Christmas is a lot for one 2 year and 51 week old little boy.
Ellie has also been on the grumpy side today but at least we finally figured out why. Shortly before putting her to bed we looked in her mouth and her top two front teeth have both broken through (but just barely). So I guess she got her two front teeth for Christmas this year. Finally! I thought we were going to have to get that child a set of dentures if her teeth didn't start coming in soon. She also said "cheese" today for the first time.
Overall, it has been a fun holiday although we miss all of our family and wish we could be in several places at once. Thank you for all of the wonderful gifts. We all wore new Christmas clothes today and our slippers of course. Now we just need to drag several more bags of Christmas garbage down to the trash cans. I feel like we have done our part to add to the landfill this year. Yikes! Those toys are wrapped in so much unnecessary packaging. Maybe we can all petition the toys companies to simplify their packaging (or maybe make the boxes out of something like soy) and eliminate those awful twisty tie things (my fingers are still sore from unraveling dozens and dozens of those today).
Merry Christmas!
Yesterday we went to Ellen's house for a Christmas Eve lunch with some members of our ward. She lives in an old high school building that screams New England and has more recently been converted into condos. Her home is part of the old auditorium and is just down-right cool. We munched on great food and Harrison had a wonderful time playing with the other children. When it was time to leave, he said he wanted to stay and live with Ellen; an offer she graciously declined. The kids took naps when we came home and then we set to making Christmas Eve dinner. We made some homemade chicken cordon bleu, a spinach salad, Amish white bread, and sausage stuffing (I know, not a natural fit but it was that or do a full-blown turkey dinner). We then moved to the living room and each opened one present. Harrison and Ellie received new Christmas Mickey Mouse pajamas with their names embroidered on them. Harrison was so excited to get ready for bed and wear his new jammies (if only every night was that way!). Unfortunately both pairs of pajamas are on the big side and the kids kept tripping over the long legs. We put four peanut butter Hershey kiss cookies out for Santa per Harrison's request. Harrison stalled and stalled at bedtime but finally went to sleep an hour and a half after we laid him down. Ellie went down easily despite her recent grumpy mood. Josh and I spent the evening putting together a kitchen and some baby doll furniture.
Since Harrison went to bed late, I wishfully thought he might sleep in. Hah! Waking up early on Christmas morning must be ingrained in children. He called out for daddy at 5am, an hour and a half earlier than normal. He immediately wanted to see if Santa had come. Josh brought him in the living room where they sat and ate cereal while looking at the tree. At 6:15am, they came into our room and woke me up. I told Harrison he could pick out two things from his stocking to play with. He found a set of Little People and some Curious George stickers. Ellie woke up shortly thereafter thanks to Harrison's loud (and persistent) requests to open presents. I threw some french toast in the oven and we took the standard Christmas morning picture in front of the tree (we forgot to turn on the tree lights though; do you think it's worth photoshopping in 600 Christmas tree light tips? :) ). Harrison went through his stocking and then moved onto Ellie's; she apparently wasn't fast enough. Santa brought Ellie a doll stroller, high chair, cradle, and TMX Tickle Me Cookie Monster. Harrison got a vacuum, TMX Extreme Elmo, Memory game, a white board book, and something else that escapes me. When Harrison opened the vacuum he immediately took off with it down the hall to put in the closet next to our real one. He then proceeded to pull it out throughout the day to "clean up". Up to this point he has been "vacuuming" with his corn popper and so Santa thought he needed something a little more official. Ellie was really cute with all the doll accessories. She tried to climb in the high chair and used the stroller as a step stool to spy on the lizard. Harrison sure loves all the doll stuff too and is teaching Ellie how to put the baby dolls to sleep and feed them. We let the kids open their Cookie Monster and Elmo dolls at the same time. Now when these things originally came out I thought I would never allow something so obnoxious in my house. Well, I'm a sucker. Harrison fell in love with the TMX Elmo at the toy store a few weeks ago and at the last minute, we bought Cookie Monster and Elmo for the kids. They love those things and they are pretty funny. The Cookie Monster is a little smaller than Elmo and Ellie loves to watch him fall down and laugh.
Present opening took nearly three hours because we had to stop, open packages (with all those industrial strength twisty ties), and let the kids play with nearly every new toy. Both kids loved all their new toys and books. Ellie was growing tired, so we had them open the toy kitchen from Grandma Lue and Topper before laying her down. Both kids immediately started playing with all the doors, drawers, and accessories the minute the sheet came off the kitchen (my best attempt at wrapping). They have spent the day cooking and rearranging all their new toy food. Now I just need to convince Harrison that he cannot store his milk cup in the toy kitchen fridge.
Harrison was so excited to get new slippers. Who knew? Even Josh finally saw the light :) I have been trying to get him to stop wearing shoes in the house so he begrudgingly put slippers on his Christmas list. He put them on this morning and says they are so comfortable. Victory!
Harrison is on his version of the holiday diet. He has hardly eaten a thing in two days because he is just so excited. And I can sum up the day with the following equation: overwhelmed + excited + exhausted child = tantrum, tantrum, tantrum. Christmas is a lot for one 2 year and 51 week old little boy.
Ellie has also been on the grumpy side today but at least we finally figured out why. Shortly before putting her to bed we looked in her mouth and her top two front teeth have both broken through (but just barely). So I guess she got her two front teeth for Christmas this year. Finally! I thought we were going to have to get that child a set of dentures if her teeth didn't start coming in soon. She also said "cheese" today for the first time.
Overall, it has been a fun holiday although we miss all of our family and wish we could be in several places at once. Thank you for all of the wonderful gifts. We all wore new Christmas clothes today and our slippers of course. Now we just need to drag several more bags of Christmas garbage down to the trash cans. I feel like we have done our part to add to the landfill this year. Yikes! Those toys are wrapped in so much unnecessary packaging. Maybe we can all petition the toys companies to simplify their packaging (or maybe make the boxes out of something like soy) and eliminate those awful twisty tie things (my fingers are still sore from unraveling dozens and dozens of those today).
Merry Christmas!
3 comments:
This is your cousin, Angie! When I was in California your parents gave me your blog address, and I just found it in my sudoku book. It looks like you had a fun Christmas. Luckily I didn't have to undo any of those twisty ties, but I will next year. Davis and I just found out we're going to have a baby boy! Our blog is davisandangie.blogspot.com.
I love the picture of you guys in front of the tree. We completely forgot to do that. It sounds like you had a great Christmas. I have to say that Christmas with kids is definitely more fun. Just watching them open things is incredibly exciting.
We missed you guys! Have a great New Year!
We want pictures of Ellie's two front teeth! I've never known of a child to actually get two front teeth for Christmas; she must have been VERY VERY good all year. By Christmas 2008, we'll be expecting Harrison and Ellie to say "Christmas Cheese" when posing for photos--that's what cousins Mia and Gabby said for 3 days straight this last week. Thanks for sharing the details of your Christmas; it makes us feel just a little bit part of your day...only 2 1/2 months before we see you again!
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