Christmassy weekend!

Well it appears we no longer have a fear of Santa.  The guy in red gives out candy canes and to Grant any Grampa-looking guy that gives out candy is OK in his books. :)  We've been watching quite a few holiday shows too that would familiarize him with Santa and Rudolph.

Last week we were making a quick trip through a local mall here when Grant spotted the Santa house set up for pictures.  Last year he was terrified of him and so I thought we'd just cruise around to the front of the house so he could see Santa from a distance.  There was a family there taking their picture and when they left Grant kind of loitered near the entrance.  The Santa asked if he could have a candy cane and said it was fine, thinking that he'd probably be a bit too scared to get it.  Grant did a quick hit and run and we were off with the candy cane.  I let him try it in the car (big mistake on the messy front). 

Grant has also learnt how to say "Ho Ho Ho" in a deep Santa voice!

On Friday we had our PEPS Christmas party and Grant got really excited when he saw Santa and kept dancing around saying "SANTA.. CANDY CANE".  He happily hopped on Santa's lap and then followed him around trying to give him presents (other kid's toys). 

On Saturday we went on the Santa train again.  We did this last year and Grant loved the train ride but was a little suspicious of Santa.  This year he could hardly wait to get to him.  He of course LOVED the train ride and when it was our turn with Santa he ran over and hopped on his lap.  We were on the last train of the day so Santa came on the journey back with us and handed out candy canes.  When we were leaving Grant even ended giving Santa a big hug which was a surprise to us all.  The Christmas train was great.  We all sang carols and it was a perfect way to get you in the Christmas spirit. Grant's brother Henry slept the entire trip.  I'm sure next year Grant will coach him on the best ways to be cute and get extra candy canes if only to steal them from him. :)

This evening (Sunday) we let Grant open his presents from us and from his cousins in New Zealand.  We'll be in Nebraska over Christmas and tomorrow night is going to be spent packing and getting some early rest for our ridiculously early flight.  Grant seems to love musical instruments and never lets us out of costco without going through the piano and guitar aisle.  He was THRILLED with his own little piano.  I had a headache after about 10 minutes of listening to him and his dad belt out Christmas tunes really loudly into the microphone with background sounds of syncopated drumbeats and synthesized dogs.  Grant also received some great New Zealand Children's books from Peter's sister - He has already demanded they be read!!  Bryan was also kind enough to leave him a gift - A Wiggles book and handy carry along song player - he loves it!

I'm sure we'll blog more from NE but Merry Christmas early!

All of our December photos to date are here...

-misty

..and sometimes it's all exactly how you imagined it.

Today I made cookies for no other reason than it's Christmas time and I can't seem to let this holiday go by without baking something. I was able to mix up the entire batter while Grant had his lunch and Henry napped. The planets must have been completely aligned for it all to work out with both naps and feedings. The cookies had just cooled down in time to test them when Grant was waking from his nap. I gave him two small cookies and a small glass of milk and we sat quietly at the table while he enjoyed his post nap snack. Our little guy of very few (understandable) words looked up at me with a chocolate chip goatee and gave me a very approving "MMMMMMM". It didn't matter that the house wasn't as tidy as it could have been and that I was still in my pajamas with uncombed hair. In my naive pre-parenting days it was a moment like this that made me excited about being a mom. After doing it for two years it's definitely a lot more work than I could have imagined but it was nice to just live in the moment and accept the compliment for what it was.

-misty

As I typed this I caught Grant almost upending the plate of cookies from the counter onto his head.

Henry's Passport Photo

Well we were finally able to get Henry's passport photo taken - now we just need to take him down to the post office to file all of the paper work!  Who knows when that will be!

 

So here is Henry as he will be for the next 5 years on his Passport - Don't mess with him - He's tough!

back to normal & we've created a Christmas monster...

So things all seem to be doing better for Grant. He's back up to his normal tricks and tantrums and the only thing that seems to be remaining is that he keeps squinting up his eyes like he's got a headache. We've got a Sleep EEG scheduled for Thursday and a results follow-up with the neurologist on Friday. The Sleep EEG should be fun. Grant isn't allowed to sleep more than 4 hours the night before and no naps. It's not like we're getting loads of sleep with Henry around anyway but geez. But if it rules out any other issues I'll happily comply.

December 1st was yesterday and we woke up to see a blanket of snow in our yard. I had no idea that Grant even knew what snow was but he was incredibly happy to see it. He was standing at our sliding glass door and clapping and yelling "SNOOOWWW". Peter took him out later in the day to play around in it and he loved it and threw a good old Grant sized tantrum when he learned he had to come in.

This year we also bought Grant an Advent Calendar. It's wooden and looks like a small Victorian house with little doors and compartments for treats for every day leading up to Christmas. We didn't really do this in my family but it was a big part of Christmas for Peter and one he wanted to do with the boys. We took it out the night before and decided we'd only put the treat in for the next morning because we weren't sure he was going to GET that you could only have one treat every day. When he woke up that morning it was the first thing he saw, even before the snow and kept saying "HOUSE" and pointing to it. We'd decided we would let him open the day's door after breakfast so Peter could be here with him when he did it. We may have made a mistake in putting his favorite treat in the world in day #1. Mini M&M's. He got to have some of these over Halloween as a special treat and since then anytime he sees them in the store he asks for them. He calls them "red,blue,green,blue" which is a lot longer than M&M's but it seems to have stuck. So we had to spend all day long telling him we only got into the house one time a day - after breakfast.... all day long.

They also had the little Rudolph and Santa Christmas TV shows with the felt stop animation that I loved as a kid and we bought them thinking he might like them. Because I came down with something (yes, Henry is the only man standing not hit by this virus) he spent a good part of the day watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. When he wasn't watching it he was asking for it... all day long.

This morning Grant woke us up at 5am. I heard him saying something over and over and since we're both still on hyper-alert from his seizure I went in to check on him. In a flash he'd jumped out of his bed, ran past me out his door and down the hallway and stood in front of his Advent Calendar and asked for his "house". When we told him that we had to wait til after breakfast he asked to eat and when we told him it was too early he then requested "Red Ball" while rubbing his nose. He repeated this process til it was time for breakfast, time for the calendar and time for Rudolph.

Tis the season!

Merrily yours,
-misty :)

OH!! and we had some photos taken of Henry a couple of days after he was born. Here's a slide show of them: http://www.emilyweaverbrownphoto.com/dampier/