The English Baby Blog: December 2009

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Christmas Catch-up

Whew! It's hard to believe that Christmas flew by so fast! We had an awesome and busy Christmas week. There's tons more to post, but here are some of the highlights from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

The week leading up to Christmas we were in Dallas with Jill's side of the family. On Christmas Eve before going to bed, we had to make sure that we put out cookies and milk for Santa. The plate and glass both were empty in the morning, so Santa must have thought that it was pretty good!

Ethan woke up nice and early and couldn't wait to see what Santa brought him. Sure enough, Santa read Ethan's list very well - he got a new tool bench (with power tools), some cars, a big football, and a big football tee!

Poppy got a new power too, too and showed Ethan how to use it:

Ethan also knew just what the safety goggles were for. If you're going to work with the tools, don't forget safety, Uncle Alex!

Oh, and Santa must have gotten my letter because we had a white Christmas! On Christmas Eve we got some good little flurries that dropped an inch or two of the white stuff so it was gorgeous when we woke up.

It wasn't long until Ethan wanted out in the snow. The only problem was that we didn't bring any snow gear. So we put E in some fleece lined pants, put him in his jacket, and CC got some little gloves for him. Uncle Alex showed Ethan how to make snowballs and he was soon pelting anyone within range!

Later in the afternoon we packed everything up and headed down to Waco to spend the rest of Christmas with my side of the fam. Grandma, Grandpa, and uncles Kevin and Keith showed incredible self restraint to wait for us to get there to open presents.

Here, Ethan got some great stuff to play with outside. Ethan got a baseball helmet that he wore about half the weekend...

...and some walkie-talkies and a little lantern!

We took it pretty easy at Uncle Kevin's house. Keith and Ethan snuggled on the couch to watch TV more than once...

But we were a bit silly when Ethan got into Uncle Kevin's mini-dart gun....

Like we said, it was a busy Christmas! We still have tons more pics to show, so stay tuned!!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The List

For our trip this year to see Santa, we wanted to naturally avoid the meltdown that we had last year. To help us do this, we decided that Ethan should have a list of what he wants for Christmas so he could show Santa.

So what does Ethan want from the Big Guy? If you ask him, he'll say: "a big football and a big football tee." He also said that he wants drums, tools, and some cars. I opted for a pictoral list since, you know, Ethan can't actually read yet.

Waiting in line, Ethan held on to his list and actually sounded excited to tell Santa about it.

Success! Ethan was really good, but he got a little uneasy after a few moments - but we got some good pictures! It wasn't a total cry-fest, so we'll count that as a win.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Happy Birthday, Nonnie!

Today is Nonnie's birthday - we hope your day was great! Happy Birthday!!

Friday, December 11, 2009

Feeling More Like Christmas

Wow, it's hard to believe that Christmas is just two weeks away! Last weekend we really got into the Christmas spirit by getting all of our decorations up around the house. Ethan really got into working on the tree, so we got some footage of him. Enjoy!

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Fake Snow is Still Snow!

Over the weekend our neighborhood had a Christmas party called "An Evening at the North Pole". The main attraction was the snow that they imported and dumped in front of the community center.

After watching some of the older kids throw some snowballs around, Ethan caught on quickly. He dove right in!

We ran into Ethan's friend, Santi, and they played together in the fake snow. Now, when I say "play together" I mean they "put together balls of ice and threw them at each other".

Afterwards, to warm up we went inside the Community Center where they had other activities for the kids. Ethan got to decorate his own sugar cookie complete with icing and sprinkles!

And then another room had some art tables where the kids could decorate their own ornament. Ethan found a round ornament and got going on it with markers and stickers.

We had also planned on seeing Santa, but Ethan had no interest in that whatsoever! If we got anywhere near the jolly ole' man, he (Ethan) didn't like it one bit. To his defense, the Santa that was there had a fake beard and I think that would have freaked me out too. Maybe if we try a Santa with a real beard...