Schneider Christmas

To celebrate Christmas with Jon’s family, we headed over to the other side of the state on Friday before New Year’s Eve – driving in a yucky snowstorm for the first hour! Then it cleared up and the roads were fine (which was good since we were almost ready to turn around and head back home). We stayed with Jon’s Mom and Terry on Friday and Saturday night, and Jon’s Dad and Sherry on Sunday night and Monday night. Jon still doesn’t have much vacation since starting the new job, so he had to work on Wednesday and we had to head home on New Year’s Day.

Opening Presents with Grandma Amanda and Grandpa Terry

Before we opened presents on Saturday morning, Elijah had already spied the stockings by the fire and was very concerned about who each stocking belonged to. He found his pretty quickly actually, and then was interested in the little red one hanging off the end of Mommy’s stocking. This was a tiny stocking for the baby! Elijah wanted to know where the baby was, and we said in Mommy’s tummy. So Eli promptly walked over to me, poked me in the stomach and then lifted up my shirt. Then he said, “Open it! Open it, find baby!” and poked me again. That’s the first time that Elijah’s been interested at all in the baby or responded when told that the baby was in Mommy’s tummy!

Once Uncle Jeremy woke up (oh to be on a college schedule again), Elijah was so excited to open his stocking he was dancing around the room. We all found cars from the movie Cars in our stockings, and Elijah quickly claimed everyone else’s cars as his own. And of course there was candy, which is always a winner!

Once we moved on to presents Elijah wanted to open everyone’s presents for them, though if told it was someone else’s he would either bring it to them or say “oh” and bring it back to the tree. Elijah was a pretty lucky boy and got train cars for his new tracks, a book all about the University of Michigan (complete with Eli’s picture in it, not that we have any expectations or anything), a parking garage with a really nice set of 50 cars, Red the fire truck from Cars, a nativity play set, and personalized luggage for all the traveling back and forth he does (just in time too, since the diaper bag will soon have a new owner).

I think the train cars were the biggest hit, though Eli had a bit of trouble sharing them with others. It was funny to watch him and Uncle Jeremy play together. Uncle Jeremy was touching Eli’s trains and Eli was whining, “No, that’s mine!” over and over. After insisting that he needed ALL the cars himself, he finally conceded the yellow engine (the one that came with the track originally) and he played with his new red engine and his new Gordon engine. If forced to share Elijah always picks to keep Gordon (and don’t even touch it or you hear, “No, that’s mine!”).

On Saturday night we had another treat of having dinner with Jon’s Grandma and his Aunt Cheryl, who was visiting from Georgia! I took some pictures of all of us together, but I think I had the wrong setting on the camera because they all turned out blurry. We had a great dinner together though!

Opening Presents with Grandpa Bob and Grandma Sherry

On Sunday we basically relaxed all day and played, and then headed over to Jon’s Dad’s house in the early evening. Elijah fell asleep for about 10 minutes in the car on the way over, and was pretty cranky when we got there. Eli loved running around in the basement though (Jon’s Dad is finishing it, and right now you can run around between the studs), but when he started banging some of the doors and not listening that fun was over. Then he threw a tantrum and ended up going to bed early. Oh the joys of two and a half year olds! Jon’s back threw a tantrum of its own when Jon was carrying in our bags, and so for the rest of the time Jon was out of commission and had to pretty much stay on the couch and couldn’t get around!

Since Jon couldn’t upstairs to the tree and presents, on Monday morning we brought the presents down to him! Eli thought that was fun and he helped carry some of the smaller presents. And since this was his fourth time opening presents, Eli was very excited and eager to help everyone open all their presents. By this time he had present opening concept down pat! And he did so many cute things while we were opening presents too.

First, when Eli ripped the paper off his first present he yelled, “Yay, a box!” and then moved on to the next gift without opening the box. If we had known boxes made you happy we could have all saved some money, Eli! Then, after he/we opened each gift, Eli started yelling, “Let’s open it!” And when Jon opened a new Mario game for the Wii, Elijah was very excited about that. He sat right down to look through the manual, and when Grandpa asked him to help him open a present, Eli didn’t even look up and just replied, “Just minute, Grandpa. Finish reading this book first.” Okie dokie then! To cap off the cuteness, when I opened a present which was packed with styrofoam peanuts, Elijah had to climb in the big box and start jumping around in the peanuts and acting silly.

Eli made out like a bandit again and got new bathtub blocks and paints (we were in serious need of new bath toys!) and then a computer of his own, called ClickStart, that you plug in to the TV and then he can play games on. It has a its own little keyboard and mouse that are so adorable!

Elijah was really in to the ClickStart, and after rigging a new mouse set-up (the included mouse pad isn’t very big and doesn’t work that well) Elijah was off and running and playing on his own! He just loves it! He’s not so good at sharing it though; we’re still working on that. He didn’t want to share with Grandma Sherry, and gets quite upset when the other kids touch it now. Good to know he loves his present at least!

On Monday night we took it easy (it was New Year’s Eve) and I got the treat of taking a Jacuzzi tub bath at Dad and Sherry’s (I adore baths if you don’t know that, but we don’t have a deep tub so I never get to take one). That pretty much made my evening. The only thing that would have made it perfect is if I had an iced coffee to sip while relaxing in the tub, but seeing as it was snowing like crazy (they got almost 8 inches overnight) I wasn’t going to try and get that. :) We ended up shoveling out and leaving in the early afternoon on Tuesday, and watching most of the Michigan game on TV when we made it home. Michigan won, and that capped off a great extended weekend of family, fun, and football. :)