Christmas Afternoon!

After a yummy breakfast of homemade waffles and Uncle Jay's casserole, it was time to open presents!  Caydin, of course, was the king of the hour... as everyone watched him open presents and get really excited.  He got lots of great gifts, including a scooter, an imaginext helicopter, some books and games, and a camera!  He also got the black dump truck and the digger that he asked Santa for!  (There wasn't any mud under the tree like requested... but we have some in the garage!)  Little Wy-guy slept through all the activities but he got some good gifts too - lots of toys for him to use in a couple months!

Christmas Morning!

The tree was all ready for Caydin to wake up!  Out of habit, Caydin woke up around 8:30 am and came to our room.   I said something like "Do you know what today is!?!?!" and Caydin responded with "Monday!" - hahah - it was actually Sunday! Then Rob asked "Did Santa come see you?!?"  and Caydin looked around then responded "No, he not come see me."  I think he expected Santa to come to our house and talk or play with him.  We took him to the living room and he got a big smile on his face and said "WOW!"  At school, he learned to recognize his name so he started searching the presents looking for his name.  He did a really good job finding his name! Though, Santa made it pretty easy and put most of Caydin's gifts on one side!   We let him open one gift before everyone got up and came over.  He was excited when he opened up his gift and it was a big Car transporter for his Hotwheels/Matchbox cars.  OH and Santa woke him a letter! :)

Annual Christmas morning Tree/presents picture!  Grandma saved the day with her "helicopter" silly voice!  So excited to have another little boy to share the picture this Christmas! :)

Our Christmas Eve

Daddy had to work really early on Christmas Eve so he came home and took a nap.  While he was resting, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Jay, Auntie Jen, and cousin Jay came over.  We had a fun afternoon at home.  After awhile, Aunt Tee-tee and her boyfriend, Travis came over.  We had ham, sweet potatoes, celery (my fav!) and lots of other food for dinner.  Caydin found his cousins toy Hess truck and played with it all evening long. 

Before bed, Caydin and mommy wrote a letter to Santa, put out some cookies (made by Aunt Julie) and milk and headed to bed to read a million and two Christmas stories.  Perks of being an elementary schhol teacher!  It took awhile to get Caydin to sleep, though that didn't really surprise us!

After Caydin finally fell asleep, everyone played Blokus.  Sadly, Caydin woke up around 12:30 am with a terrible cough and stuffy nose.  He sounded terrible and probably felt horrible.  We gave him some medicine and let him lay down in our bed for awhile.  Poor big boy.. he would cough, then cry, then repeat.  Luckily that only lasted for about an hour before he fell asleep again.  Uncle Jay and Daddy stayed up late playing checkers... a Christmas Eve tradition for them.

Santa!

We took the boys to see Santa on Monday.  Caydin has been watching shows about him and we've been reading lots of books to get him ready!  Well he did great!!!!!!!  We waited in line for about 20 minutes only because Santa was on a break.  We were the first ones there so Caydin got to take everything in... Santas chair.. all the pretend presents.. the man taking the pictures..

When Santa arrived, Caydin walked right up to him was a big "hi!" and climbed on his lap.  We put Wyatt in Santa's other arm and Caydin started telling Santa what he wanted.  Caydin has seriously said he wa going to ask for the SAME three items for the last 2 months! "A black dump truck, a digger, and mud."

When he told Santa the 3 things, Santa looked up at me a little confused..  Caydin said "A dump truck, a digger, and mud."  again.  I asked Santa if he has ever had a little boy ask for mud and he said "Well its a first but I definitely can see why you need mud... for the dump truck."  So Caydin was all excited!

After a few pictures, Caydin hopped off and Santa spent some quality time with Wyatt.  :)  After a picture of just Wyatt and Santa, Grandma went over to get Wyatt but Santa wanted to hold him longer!  Santa told Grandma to go look at the pictures while he cuddled with our "grumpy old man!"  So sweet! Santa did a great job of getting Wyatt to sleep so we offered to take Santa home with us!

As we walked away, Santa yelled to Caydin, "I'm not going to forget your mud!"  Cool points for Santa - Caydin is now in love with him!

On the drive home, Caydin wanted to turn around so he could go see Santa again.  Then he asked questions about when he is coming and if Santa can come to his house or not. 

Such a huge difference from our visit last year with Santa(s).  The first time we saw Santa - Caydin cried and refused to sit with him... The second time, Santa was sneaky and pulled him onto his lap and we got a not-so-thrilled picture of Caydin!

Christi the Elf

On December 1st, Christi the Elf arrived at our house!  Caydin watched a few short videos on the internet and listened to me read the story - then it was time to name him/her!  Caydin doesn't usually name his stuffed animals so I was alittle curious to see what Elf's name would be...  After no prompting - he came up with Christi (I'm guessing Elf is named after Grandma :) -- Maybe Grandma was wearing red that day too??? I have no idea why he named our Elf Christi!)   The name stuck and now he refers to the Elf as Christi every time he sees him! 

Christi isn't your typical Elf on the shelf...  He likes to stay in the same spot for a few days before moving! LOL!  Caydin enjoys looking for him though!  Here are some of Christi's favorite spots so far!

Holiday Projects

A few days ago, Caydin and I sat down to do a holiday project while Wyatt was napping.  Caydin is interested in anything Christmas right now so he thought it was really neat that he had the outline of a Christmas tree on his paper.  I found the activity on Pinterest (I think).  The directions said to bite the marshmallows in half then stick...Caydin didn't really understand how to bite them in half so he just licked them and they stuck to the paper pretty good!  He stayed pretty focused during the activity. :)  He did tell me that he "didn't need to put marshmallows on the tree trunk" - I guess he was done with the activity by the time he got to the trunk. 

He also told me that he doesn't like to eat marshmallows.  I figured that would be half the fun when doing this activity - licking one for the paper... then eating one... licking... eating... but nope - he didn't want to eat any!

Now when he sees me printing something to getting stuff out of my craft container - he asks if we are going to do a project.  :)

Presents Galore!

Now that all the Christmas activities have finally slowed down and things are back to normal, I thought I'd share some of Caydin's favorite things this holiday season!

His most teasured items this holiday are his Thomas and Chuggington trains. He loves them.  And oddly enough, I don't have a single picture! He played with them pretty much all day and knows almost all of their names!  Pretty impressive.  He doesn't get to watch Thomas videos very often and will usually only see a show or two of Chuggington a day - that show is stinkin' cute. So I was pretty amazed to hear him listing off all the train names!

Christmas Day, he did a "big boy" puzzle. I was pretty impressed with how focused he was... he lost focus and moved on to something else around letter n.  We would ask him to look for a certain letter/picture and he did a great job finding them!

 

We're still opening gifts around here.  Somedays we'll open one and others we won't open any.  On Christmas Day, Caydin would open a present and want to play with it right away so we just opened a few then.  Now, if he sees the wrapped presents, he'll ask "open pre-zee" and gets really excited to see whats inside.

 He loves this firetruck that Santa gave him.  It's large! He thinks its the best thing ever and loves to pretend to put out fires everywhere.  He has put of fires on my leg, shoes, cabinets, floor, books, toys... just about everywhere.  He runs the firetruck around the house saying, "Fire truck to the rescue!"

 Motorcycle is becoming more and more of a hit around here.  Caydin rides it through the house saying "beep beep, coming through."

 And finally, who can resist some Mickey Mouse ice cream (and food) toys for the play kitchen?!?

Wordless Wednesday - Christmas Group Photos

Christmas Eve

While trying to save some time in the "uploading 100 Christmas pictures to blog" game, I thought I'd get a little crafty in Photoshop and make some collages! I figure if it doesn't fit on the collage, then I don't really need to post it! So my 100-ish pictures is now done to 2! Score!

Besides, I tried to upload some pictures earlier and Blogger to me I was out of space! Do I really upload THAT many pictures! SOOOO, I bought more space.  Merry Christmas folks (ummmm Dad).  You will not lose any sleep because of a Caydin withdrawal!

We had a good Christmas Eve.  In the morning, we went to Ice! The rest of the day was spent cooking (not by me!) and playing with Caydin.  Caydin is beyond spoiled and loved all the attention he got from his aunts, uncle, and grandparents.  He was constantly saying, "follow me" and "come this way."  Caydin also got to watch a Thomas Christmas movie.  We had a big ol' turkey for dinner on Christmas Eve and a ton of sides with it!  Delish! Caydin filled up on turkey - he loved it!

After dinner, we each opened up a present with Caydin going first.  He got a Follow Me Thomas and LOVES it.  I got a new scarf and Rob got a checkers game (which came in mighty handy after everyone else went to sleep - right, Rob and Jay?!?!)

Winter Carnival

On Wednesday, we headed over to a local carnival.  We wanted to take Caydin on the big ferris wheel, which he called a "peary wheel".  We went right before the sun went down and were able to see downtown Orlando as well as the sunset. 

 While on the ferris wheel, Caydin saw a couple of rides he wanted to go on and lucky for him, he is right at the 36 inch limit that you had to be to go on a lot of the rides.  He went on the dumptruck ride by himself.  His first amusement park (sort-of) by himself - go Caydin! He took driving the car very seriously and kept his hands on the steering wheel the whole time! When it was over, he wanted to ride again so we switched trucks and went again! He wasn't so serious about driving the truck the second time around :)

 Caydin also went on a mini-rollercoaster.  Grandma and Grandpa went on with him the first time, then I went on with him the second time.  He had a great time and threw a fit when we didn't let him go on it a third time!

 After a snack and some dinner, we saw an animal show.  Very neat - there were 4 tigers, a camel, some goats, donkeys, and lots of little jumping dogs!

 Caydin had a great time!