Christmas Day with Grandma Amanda and Grandpa Terry!

Christmas Day this year was spent with Grandma Amanda and Grandpa Terry. We stayed overnight on Christmas Eve at their house and woke up on Christmas morning to open our presents together in our jammies (except for Jon who forgot his jammies and who we convinced to put clothes on to open presents). :)

Having morning coffee with Grandma and Dad - don't worry, Elijah wasn't drinking, he was just kissing the cup! Over, and over, and over . . .

First we opened our stockings – Elijah’s was filled with all kinds of good loot, including magnetic letters, a new book, a stuffed snowman, alphabet puzzle cards, and a little football (which he loves since he is obsessed with football!).

Reading my new book. Very interesting stuff in here.
If I'm going to grow up and be a quarterback I better start practicing!

I took some balls from Dad's stocking! Catch me if you can!

After a nummy breakfast prepared by Terry (he cooks, and everything he makes is delicious!!), we adjourned to the living room to open presents.

Reading with Grandma while Grandpa makes us some grub.
You people eat sooo slow! I'm bored and ready for presents.

From Great-Grandma Snyder (Jon’s Grandma), Elijah got a toy vacuum – that actually works! He was crazy about it! He pushed it all around the house, and thought it was pretty cool.

Vrmm vrmm. I'm vacuuming Grandma's floor!
Cuddling with my vacuum. I love it!

The only thing that came close to the sweet vacuum was a toy train and train track. Ever since we got it Elijah’s been playing with it. He’ll play with his blocks from Grandpa Bob and then his train, and then his blocks and then his train. He just keeps going back and forth!

I know the present in here is going to be cool, but I've GOT to get every inch of wrapping paper off this box first!
Look, Mom! A red caboose! Just like in my books! Toot toot!

Eli also got a table and chairs which are going to be fun. They were all assembled and waiting for us, and Grandpa Terry is going to stain them (once we decide what color we want; hopefully we’ll decide before Eli turns 18). Eli loves sitting at the tables that are his size at the library and the play land near us, so I know he’s going to have fun with his own set.

At my table with Dad, all dressed up for Christmas dinner. Can I eat here?

The rest of Christmas day we just relaxed and enjoyed being with Mom and Terry. To cap off our day we had a wonderful Christmas dinner together (not in our pajamas!). We didn’t want to leave, but since Jon had to work on Tuesday we headed home Christmas evening.

I think the only thing that could have made our Christmas celebrations more enjoyable was if Jon’s brother Jeremy was with us. He is on a three week road trip with friends right now , driving through Central America (pretty cool, huh! Hard to beat that!) We were thinking of you though Jeremy! Feliz navidad!

Christmas Eve with Grandpa Bob and Grandma Sherry!

We celebrated Christmas Eve with Jon’s Dad and Sherry, and Jon’s Uncle Vaughn, Aunt Laurie, cousins Becky and Ashley, and Ashley’s boyfriend Brandon, at Jon’s Dad’s house (that was a mouthful!). We had a great time – good food, good conversation, and good presents too! :)

Mommy and Daddy looking cozy on the steps
(Elijah wouldn't sit with them).

Last year Eli didn’t totally get the present-opening thing, but he really got in to it this year! Though at first I think he would have been just as happy pulling the tissue paper out of the bags and not worrying about the presents underneath, in the end he began to understand the concept that FUN THINGS are in the packages he is opening!

Hmm, I'm not so sure about this big gift . . .

Here, Grandpa. If you put it on my head I'll put it back on yours!Elijah got some really cool presents from Grandpa Bob and Grandma Sherry – including a children’s Bible (with beautiful illustrations), and Go Blue Michigan football book for kids, and a personalized Sesame Street book with pictures of him on every page! This book has to be seen to be believed – it is awesome! Eli’s head is cropped on to a little boy’s body, and he helps the Sesame Street characters find the missing letter of the day (an E, obviously!). His name is used all through the book, and his birthday is the number of the day. Since we received the book on Sunday night I think I’ve read this thing to Elijah at least two or three times a day – all the way through, which his insists on, even though the book is at least twenty pages (lots of words!) long. What a great gift!

Elijah also received an art easel which I know he’s going to love. We haven’t taken it out yet since we’ve been busy celebrating the holidays and getting ready to go to Grand Rapids, so Elijah has been enjoying the box so far. If he enjoys the actual easel as much as the box then it will be a hit! He keeps looking at the box and standing on it and dancing. Goofy.

Standing on them was pretty fun, so Elijah decided to sit on top of the gifts too . . .

The highlight of all the gifts though had to be the handmade blocks that Grandpa Bob made for Elijah. Eli’s eyes lit up when he saw them and he hasn’t stopped playing with them since we got them home! Whenever I pick them up he just runs around yelling, “bla bla blas” – blocks blocks blocks – until I get them all out again! What a wonderful gift of love for little Elijah. Our little boy is certainly blessed with generous and giving grandparents – he’s a fortunate little one!

Look at these blocks! I'm so happy!
Elijah and Grandpa building towers together.

Sorry, Grandpa, your building didn't pass inspection and had to be demolished.

Living in a Winter Wonderland

Christmas is almost here, and our house is a winter wonderland of decoration. Elijah is much more aware of what’s going on this year (I don’t think he noticed anything last year being only 6 months old). But at 18 months he loves the decorations (and seeing what happens when he tries to “redecorate” for mommy sometimes).

When we put up our tree Eli seemed kind of oblivious to the big tree going up in his living room (he liked playing with the box the tree was in much more!). And he played with the lights for about one minute before he got bored and decided that reading by Christmas tree lights was better than actually helping put them on the tree.

Here Dad, let me untangle those . . .

Hmm, I think I'll just fling them around like this.

Oh, these go on the tree! They're not jump ropes!

I'm bored. I think I'll read by the lights instead.

Once we got the ornaments out though Elijah was completely interested! I made a whole section on the couch of ornaments that he could play with (which was a lot more than I thought I would have originally!), and he had fun sorting them, taking them in and out of boxes, and stacking the empty ornament boxes too. By far his favorite ornament is the one I got for him this year – of, you-guessed-it, a frog. :) Driving in a little red truck, with wheels that actually move! Eli loves playing with his froggy truck!

Unloading some boxes for Mom . . .

This frog's got a sweet ride.

Organization and stacking are some of my strengths.

Once we put the ornaments on the real challenge began – how to keep Eli from taking them off!

Are you sure these go on here, Dad? It looks kind of funny to me.

I'll just be taking this off now, thank you very much.

We decided to just create a section at the bottom of the tree of non-breakable ornaments for Eli to take on and off. He now knows he can touch his froggy car, his Veggietales ornament, some stuffed penguins and snowman ornaments I had, and the football Santa Claus. Even with his “permissible” section, after one or two days of taking the ornaments off he pretty much started leaving all of them alone, except for his frog and a stuffed reindeer which he likes. The house feels so much homier and cozier with all the decorations up! I wish it was Christmas time all year long!

What a beautiful tree!

P.S. To any of you who were wondering, no, not a single one of my Santa bears are making an appearance this year. I didn’t feel like running around chasing Eli as he tried to take their outfits off, touched them with dirty hands, or stuck them in the plants. I decided to take the easy route and let the bears keep hibernating this winter!

"Foo Boo"

Eli has a new word, which is one of his first two-syllable words where the two syllables are different from one another (as opposed to "ma ma" and "da da", where they're the same) -- "foo boo" What does this mysterious new word mean? It means "football", of course!

Eli said "foo boo" to me for the first time this week when some NFL highlight clips were on Sportscenter when we were watching it together briefly. I told Missy about this yesterday when we were at lunch together at the Canton Chili's, and I'm not sure she believed me at first... but then a football game clip came on the TV above the bar while we were waiting for a table, and Eli pointed and said "foo boo" again!


And then last night, Eli did something really cool. We have a kind of silly Christmas ornament on the tree that looks like a Santa Claus dressed up in maize and blue, wearing a football helmet (though with no facemask) and pads, and holding a gift in one hand and a little football in the other. Eli snagged this off the Christmas tree (which itself is a no-no, but we're working on that), brought it over to Missy and I, and said "foo boo"!

I thought it was pretty cool that Eli could take the concept of football games and clips that he has seen on TV and apply that to our little Christmas ornament which only kind of looks like a football player!

Following Directions!

Eli’s Uncle Jeremy visited us one afternoon this past week. Eli was quite excited to see him and started “showing off” by running around and sliding down his slide repeatedly. (Usually Eli spends more time sending his toys down his slide than sliding down himself!)

Missy had gotten Eli a little wooden Christmas ornament, a frog driving a truck, with the truck having real working wheels. Eli had this ornament in-hand, so I asked him, “can you slide your truck down the slide?” Eli walked over and did it! Jeremy thought that was cool, but he didn’t seem to be convinced that Eli was following my directions rather than just acting on his own.

So I tried to come up with a “test” that would show that Eli really was listening to me. I thought that Eli knew what the “trash” was -- he likes to play with our metallic trashcan with the flip-top lid that we have in the kitchen. Eli also had his truck back in hand (having retrieved it from the bottom of the slide). So I said, “Eli, can you put your truck in the trash?”

Eli thought about this for a second, and then walked off towards the far end of the room. He bypassed the doorway to the kitchen, so I thought he didn’t get what I was saying. But then he continued past the front door, pushed open the door to the bathroom... and dropped his truck into the little trash bin that we have in the bathroom! He then proceeded to turn around and grin at us!

Jeremy was pretty impressed! He finally acknowledged that Eli has become “smarter than the dog” (Jeremy’s dog, Camper)! (This had been an ongoing tongue-in-cheek discussion/debate between the two of us for a while.) I was pretty surprised and proud, too. I was expecting Eli to head for the trash can that I had in mind, the one in the kitchen, but he followed my (silly) instruction correctly and put his little truck in the bathroom trash can instead!

Now I just need to make sure that Eli doesn’t *continue* to put his toys into the trash!