King of the Castle! : December 2012

Merry Christmas!! My absolute favorite time of the year (even though I hate cold weather!). I turn into a little kid December 1st and love that I can share that excitement with Jameson now. We had a very busy Christmas season this year! We had a celebration in early December with The Rudicils, The Bradleys and the Hunts...our first annual Kiddo Christmas! It was a success!

The family Christmases started on the 23rd. We went out to Kim and Dan's house to celebrate with the Weber/Taylor side of the family and the Meyers! It was fun to have everyone together since it gets so hard around this time of year. We ended up coming back home that night because we were worried that Jameson would be too excited to get a good night's sleep! We went back out to Cooksville Christmas Eve morning to open presents and have some lunch. We all had a great time watching the kids open presents. Jameson was a bit out of sorts because he only got about 10.5 hours of sleep the night before, which is not a lot for him :). But, we all managed to survive and enjoyed our Mexican Christmas Eve lunch (which I learned Jameson does NOT like bean burritos!). We had to leave shortly after we finished eating so J Man could get in a good nap, but we had plenty of time to hang out and celebrate together! He even entertained us with singing Jingle Bells, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and a Christmas classic - The ABCs :). I always love having everyone together. http://youtu.be/3TibtgmyrCM

That night, we headed to church with the Hahns and my parents. Jameson did amazing during the whole service. He loved the singing and even joined in the Children's Sermon! After church, we went to my parents to eat dinner and hang out for a bit! Once we left there, we came home to partake in our family traditions. We set out Christmas cookies and a note for Santa and then tossed reindeer food on the lawn! After that, we headed upstairs and had him open his Christmas Eve present, which is always a Christmas book...this year he got two! He got the Berenstain Bear's Santa Bear and the Little People Christmas. Then it was time to watch our Christmas Eve movie. We tried to find Mickey's Christmas Carol because that was our traditional Christmas Eve movie, but we had ZERO luck. So, we watched ABC's Prep and Landing Special and he snuggled with us for the whole show. After that, I took him to his room so we could read his two books and the Night Before Christmas audio book from my parents from Christmas last year and then it was time for bed. He was so excited when I told him Santa was coming to bring him presents!

His excitement must have completely exhausted him because slept until after 9:00 Christmas morning! Darin and I opened all of our gifts while we waited and as soon as he started stirring, we ran upstairs to get him! He was asking about Santa, so we quickly brought him downstairs so he could see what Santa had brought him! It was so fun this year because he actually opened the presents and would get so excited when he'd see what it was! I loved seeing his joy and excitement...I still feel like that when I open presents on Christmas!! We took a little break after he opened the presents from Santa to have some breakfast, but quickly got back to the present opening. Took about an hour and a half, so once we were done, we got ready to head over to my parents' house for present opening #3!!

He was so excited the whole drive over there and was saying, "Merry Christmas, Grandma and Ray". He was also singing Jingle Bells for us and attempting to sing Feliz Navidad - I was quite impressed! Once we got there and he saw all of the presents, it was a madhouse! He wanted to open EVERYTHING, so it was kind of hard keeping him at bay until the Hahns got there! But, he was a very good boy considering the temptation of it all! Once the Hahns got there, we started opening presents and again, he did a great job. The only problem was he wanted to open every toy after he unwrapped it, so it was kind of tough to keep him focused. But, that is what little boys (and sometimes Mommies!) do on Christmas - it's too exciting to just set a toy down sometimes! After we were done with gifts, we all had some lunch (while watching Dora's Christmas special of course!) and then we decided to take him home to nap. I ended up going back to help my Mom ice cookies and help with dinner. It was a great day and I always love spending time with everyone.

Jameson ended up napping until 5:00, so he and Darin came back to my parents' right as my Aunt, Uncle and cousins were arriving. He was definitely excited to see Braden again and those two started running around like crazies! It was slightly difficult to get him to want to sit down for dinner, but once we said Braden was going to also sit by him, it was a piece of cake! He didn't eat too much - he was mostly interested in singing and playing with Braden, but that's OK! After dinner, they ran around some more and opened one more present from Mike and Dar. Everyone started to filter out and by that point and we could tell Jameson was exhausted! We got him in his PJs and said our goodbyes. Surprisingly, he was completely OK with leaving - clearly he was ready for bed!

Once we got home, we skimmed through a Christmas book again and he was pretty much asking to go to bed. I definitely hugged him a bit longer that night - didn't quite want the magic of Christmas to end yet. We both said Merry Christmas to each other a few times and then as I put him in his bed, I told him when he woke up, we would go downstairs and play with all of his toys! I got a sleepy giggle and a "yeah" out of him and then we hugged one more time and he was out cold!

The next morning when he woke up and I went into his room, the first thing he said was, "go downstairs and pway with ALLLL the toys!". It made me smile ear to ear and I realized that the magic and excitement of Christmas should not be reserved for just one day or month....we need to grasp onto that ALL year round and never let it go. My little boy shows me that each and every day and I know that I can learn so much from him. On that note, Merry Christmas to all...and to all a goodnight!