The Boling Bunch: December 2010

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Christmas 2010

What a good Christmas we had this year! There is something so amazing about having a child at Christmas...their excitement, everyone's excitement about seeing their excitement, coupled with the magic and holiness of the season...pure heaven!! We went over to my dad's on Christmas Eve day, so we could open presents with my stepsister and her hubby and my stepbrother and his fiancee. I think Caleb has a bit of a crush on Miss Erin...he hugged her at every chance he could get, haha! He got some fun presents there, napped for maybe 20 min on the way home, and I tried to get him to sleep before we were supposed to go to church that night. HOWEVER, Bryan had secret errands to run and got stuck and so we didn't make it to church after all...I was VERY sad about this, but he told me he had a great story to tell me the next day that would make up for it. (And he did) We went to my mom's house that evening with my brother and his wife, where we ate dinner and opened more presents. Got home SUPER late, opened our traditional Christmas jammies, Mommy had a photo session with those jammies, and put out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. Read the Christmas story and then we put Caleb to bed, and started playing "Santa". Santa's big gift to Caleb this year was a GeoTrax Christmas train that we put around the Christmas tree. He also brought him some "big boy" tools and a blue truck/book about blue trucks. We are trying to start the tradition of Santa bringing 3 gifts, since that is what the Magi brought Jesus. We fudged a little this year b/c we thought it would be fun to put out the stuffed Bob and Larry, too. We were up late but Caleb woke up about his normal time (7:30) on Christmas Day. We woke up to a BEAUTIFUL White Christmas, thank You, God!! The first thing we did was sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and blow out his candle. It was SO sweet. Then he went and saw what Santa left him! He was SO excited about the train that he didn't want to open anything else...his stocking, his other Santa gifts, any of it! LOL! It literally took us THREE hours to open gifts, only because he was so poky with opening them and then wanting to play with them! Halfway through we ate breakfast, made by Daddy. Around 10:45/11 Caleb had what I am calling the Meltdown of 2010. It was epic. I think it was a combination of no nap the day before, a late night, normal wake up time, extreme excitement and stimulus overload, sugar filled breakfast, etc. I gave him a warm bath (that lasted, um, 30 seconds) and then laid him down for a nap/rest. That did wonders. I think it was just TOO much, and too much unlike his routine. This is a child who loves his routine!! Anyway, we used that time to get dressed and ready to go to my dad's. Went to my dad's around 1:00 and lots of family were there. My dad and his wife, brother and SIL, my aunt and uncle, Cousin Tom and Cindy and Noah, Cousin Greg and his wife Binnie, and my stepmom's dad Guy. Caleb was the center of attention, again, and he played that up to his advantage, haha. No nap again, ate Christmas dinner, and opened more presents!! I think the biggest present hit was Noah's train sets that he graciously donated to Caleb...they are a mix of the electric train Thomas sets and another kind that uses the small Thomas trains but isn't electric. He could have cared less that they weren't new, and he got all kinds of use out of it today!! Here are some pics of Christmas Eve and Day.