Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Our Christmas!

For Christmas this year we spent time in Massachusetts with Jason's family. It was so fun to be with all of them. The boys played a lot and I finally got to do some holiday baking. (Keep your eyes open on my Recipe Blog) With a plethora of pictures, I will show you the highlights.

We had an extended layover in Cleveland due to weather issues so the boys kept themselves busy by watching the planes. They had a few nice people that were working on the ground outside who looked up and waved to them. They thought that was pretty cool.Of course, Christmas morning was awesome. I, like Jason's mom get more excited than the kids. I woke up at 4:30 AM and fell back asleep a few times in an effort to make the time fly faster until I could reasonably wake the boys up at 6:00 AM. Usually at 6:00 AM it is hard to coax Tab out of bed, but all I said when I went in his room was Tab, I think Santa came, and he was out of bed and running. This was him first coming into the room and seeing the presents under the tree. I think it looks like Jason was in as much awe as Tab was. lol... Tab ran right over to the tree to check out the goods.The Stockings were first.
Tab got right to work dumping his out.
Benton wanted to pull everything out one by one.He thought the Barrel O' Dinos was pretty cool. Tab helped Uncle Bate Bate hand out the presents.Benton really enjoyed getting to rip the paper off.
He was very happy that Santa bought him some new noise making toys.Here is Tab opening one of his and Benton's Santa presents. Santa must have heard how much the boys loved the other Shel Silverstein book they have.Tab with all of his goods.
Benton with all of his goods.Grandma bought Tab, Benton and Carter (Kristine-Jason's sister's son) matching PJ's.
The boys had a ton of fun just being at grandma and grandpa's house. They got to take bath's in their huge bathtub which Tab called the pool. Grandma had found some Thomas "shaving cream" and "Razor" and couldn't resist. So every time they took a bath, they had to shave. Tab showing off his mad shaving cream skills.
And boy did he get a close shave.Benton just has to do everything that his big brother does.I swear Benton grew up big time on this trip. I did not come home with the little boy I left with. Look at him taking a stroll with his hands in his pockets. I just couldn't resist snapping a picture. Doesn't he look so old?
Tab of course enjoyed being able to watch "shows" as grandma has cable.Tab got a kick out of boxing on the Wii with Uncle Bate Bate. We surely got a kick out of watching him play. It is too bad a didn't get a picture of Benton kicking his dad's butt playing Wii. I think he somehow managed to knock Jason out with Jason not even being able to get one punch in.Grandma and Grandpa took us all to the Aquarium in Boston while we were there. The boys just loved it. I think they could have stayed all day and have been happy. They had a HUGE tank that went up several stories with stairs surrounding it all of the way to the top. The boys were glued to that thing. Watching all of the different fish. The coolest part I didn't get a good picture of. A diver was in the tank and put his hand up on the window and Tab put his hand on top of his on the other side of the glass. Benton loved it too.And would you check out the size of those fish.Shark anyone?Looking down from the top of the tank.Both Tab and Benton have this unexplainable draw to the Penguins. Lucky for them they had a huge display of penguins. (I think this is my favorite picture from the whole trip. It wasn't posed at all).Tab checking out the Penguins some more.Tab insisted that I take a picture of this particular penguin. He repeated told me that it was the "mommy mommy mommy mommy penguin!". He was hilarious as he was yelling "mommy mommy mommy mommy penguin!" trying to get it's attention.They also had this really cool hands on display as well. Tab had fun reaching in the water an pulling up various hermit crabs and such.A few days after Christmas Nathan's fiance (now wife!) came to visit. She was an instant hit with the boys. Tab was particularly fond of her, likely because played with and tickled him a lot. This was a particularly fun game. She had them laying in this massive bowl and was spinning it around on the carpet. Look how happy Benton looks.Now after a few trip around he doesn't look like his stomach is too happy with his ride.He was still laughing though. Witness.

Benton spent a lot of time in this chair in front of the window. He has always loved just looking out the window. It was perfect that grandma had a low window and a chair just his size. I don't even know how many times we found him just staring out the window at the snow and such.Benton also enjoyed playing with all of grandma's fun toys in the kitchen while mommy cooked.Tab and I made this awesome candy train. Growing up I used to make these almost every Christmas...or at least that's how I remember it. They are so fun.Grandma and Grandpa took the boys several times for us while we simply escaped. They took them out to this Toddler Craft time thing near their house. The boys had so much fun making their penguins. Thanks guys!Don't think for one second they got spoiled without paying the price.Tab absolutely loved getting to use grandma's vacuum to help clean up the mess from taking the Christmas tree out.And finally, back home in Missouri.

2 comments:

Rebekah said...

So so cute. I miss you guys. Cameron got a barrell of monkeys for Christmas!

Sarah said...

a very eventful trip. the aquarium sounds really cool.