Christmas Dinner

After our busy morning and a long (and much needed) nap, we packed up and headed to the Ortmans' house for Christmas dinner.

I also made a "helper stool" for Ned.  Elliott and Ned jumped right in together.  I'm pretty sure Ned is helping himself to some frozen peas here.  Both boys like eating peas straight from the freezer.  Odd, but very easy at mealtime.



I'm sure Ned is teaching Elliott very important things here

Elliott opening his gift from the Ortmans - a magnetic chalk board with magnetic letters and numbers.  He loves playing with the fridge magnets at their house.

Ned "helped" open the other gift - wooden food for Elliott's new kitchen.

Love that belly

Ted was sitting with his feet on the coffee table and Elliott copied him!

Coco and Penny

Inspecting a fire truck

Mike and Mike having a laugh

For a fun Christmas activity, I brought cutout cookies to decorate.  We did this on Christmas Eve last year so hopefully this will become an annual tradition.  Ned and I worked on them for a while before Holly, the professional, showed us how it was done.  Fortunately, even the less pretty ones are still quite tasty!

My helper.  Ned really enjoyed eating the frosting, sanding sugars, sprinkles . . . anything with sugar.  And then I left.  Auntie Em fail!  But fun was had by all.  I hope you all had a Merry Christmas as well!

 

Sorting Laundry

We keep two laundry baskets in our closet: one for whites and one for colors (the only place I am at all organized).  Elliott occasionally moves the laundry from one basket to the other.  Sometimes he tucks laundry away in odd corners of the closet too.  That's handy.  On Wednesday evening, he started moving laundry from one basket to the other . . . and back . . . and forth . . . and back . . . and forth.  And so it went on for about 20 minutes.  Hope you enjoy this as much as we do!

While we're on the topic of laundry, let me share what Elliott did today.  I handed him his fleece in the kitchen and asked him to go put it in the laundry basket.  Sure enough, he walked into the bedroom closet and put it in the right spot.  We are constantly amazed by how much he understands.  He's a smart boy!

Christmas Morning

After multiple days of preparation, we woke up on Christmas morning, and Elliott treated it like any other morning.  As we usually do, we played in our bedroom for a bit before venturing out into the living room.  Over the past month, Elliott comes out every morning and wants all the Christmas lights (and music) turned on.  On this morning, the lights were already on.

Our tree



Here is Elliott's approach to the tree . . . he stopped when he saw his kitchen from Coco and Poppy.  He was oblivious to everything else.

Hard at work

Woah!  The burners light up!  Those Swedish elves sure know what they're doing!

Elliott isn't too interested in opening gifts yet.  We helped him open gifts and pick things out of his stocking.  After a little bit, he pointed to his stocking and told us (in his grunts) that he wanted it.  He proceeded to put only the items that came in the stocking back in.  He likes putting things away.  He gets that from the Doren side of the family . . . 

Elliott cute new outfit from Rob and Ginger.  Now he can look just like Uncle Rob Tocker!

Taking a break from opening to read the book he got from his teachers at school

Coco and Poppy impressively made it to our house by 7:15 am to be there for gift opening.  Here are Jesse and Coco helping Elliott open his panda bear from Grandpa Nick.

And right away, a kiss for his panda

I made this stool for Elliott for Christmas so he can stand at the counter safely with us

Organizing the fruit and vegetables for his kitchen

Elliott loves dancing.  Here he is dancing in his new stool.

Elliott loves my parents.  When he took a tumble on Christmas Eve at their house, Jesse picked him up.  He reached for me so I took him.  He promptly reached for Poppy, who he wanted all along.  When Coco and Poppy went to leave our house late on Christmas morning, Elliott followed them out the door and into our fresh snow.  He fell in the snow and stood up with a "what is this cold stuff on my hands" look.

Getting cleaned up by Poppy

And walking back in

I want to go with you!!  (He was a bit tired . . . more on that next.)

After that busy morning, Elliott was a tired boy.  We were feeding him lunch and then something odd started happening.  For the first time, he feel asleep while eating.  And then he kept eating!  I apologize for the shaky video; I could not stop laughing.

Next post: Christmas Dinner

Santa and the Elf - Together at last on Christmas Eve

At last!  Santa and the Elf have been reunited for Christmas Eve dinner at Coco and Poppy's house.  I forgot my camera (gasp!) but fortunately was able to high-jack Holly's camera to capture the evening.  We had a great family gathering.  It felt like the old days when we used to have get together for holidays with my cousins.  Life is a different pace with kids running around so we opted for easy food (lasagna) and informal dining on the couches.  It was perfect.  After dinner, we had a little bit of gift opening.  Here are some shots.

Santa checking the Elf's handy work



And the Elf styling Santa's hair??

Smiley boys

Whispering some top secret Santa-Elf business

Elliott looks like such a big boy here!

You may recall the funny story of my dad as a child suggesting he and his siblings buy drums for their mother, as he really wanted his own.  Well, he finally has his drum.  And, since my mom and Ted monogram for a living, dad got a monogrammed drum.  

Uncle Steve is so thoughtful.  He brought gifts for all the kids on Christmas Eve.  Ned was so excited when he opened his gift - a tool box that folds out to become peg board with bolts and a power drill.  

And Elliott LOVED it too

We were quite impressed when Elliott brought the real screwdriver over too.  He is one smart kid!

Elliott getting coached by Poppy

And helped by Daddy

Elliott piled some of the bolts in his dump truck that he got from Uncle Ted and Aunt Jen

And pushed them around.  He makes "vroom vroom" noises now when he pushes vehicles around.

Holly and Mike - they look pretty good for parents of a newborn!

Aunt Jen with Penny in her fancy Christmas Eve outfit

Elliott with Uncle Ted

Penny looks like a little angel

Looks at those squishy cheeks!  She is still such a little peanut!

As the boys obsessed over the new drill set, Steve quietly told my dad that he was so excited the boys liked it but he hadn't bought that toy.  He bought the gifts from a small shop in town that provides gift wrapping.  Steve picked out his gifts, payed for them, and picked up the wrapped packages.  Knowing that Ned was a big fan of heavy equipment, he picked out a garbage truck for him.  The shop mixed up the wrapped gifts!  We sure hope the little person who was supposed to get the drill set liked the garbage truck as much as our boys liked the drill!!!  Here is Elliott, taking off with the drill set!

 

A Walk in the Woods

Wow!  I have a lot of catching up to do on the blog.  We have had a wonderful week of family time, fun with snow, and many photo opportunities.

We went for a walk in the woods last Sunday after our first real snow of the year.  It was a clear, crisp day with beautiful sun streaming through the trees.

Looking at the snow out the window with Daddy


Happy boy

Look, Mama!  No hands!

Elliott got his snow boots and brought them to us

All excited and ready to go!

Our house

And we're off

Pretty path in the woods

My boys

This neat fence is along a random stretch of our property line.  I think it was just something to do with all the fallen trees.  Either way, it looks beautiful with a fresh dusting of snow.

Our pond

We're excited to have this beautiful place to walk around.  We have a lifetime of work to make the woods more walkable - it's quite treacherous in places.