Christmas Photos

I hope that everyone had a magical holiday season and that 2011 is bringing much happiness. I promise to catch up on everyone else's holidays soon but for now, here's our update.

This was Colten's first time making cookies. Grandma and Colten were cutting out a star-shaped sugar cookie, and then Grandpa and Colten were in charge of decorating them. Oops, Colten, maybe that's a bit too many red sprinkles : > Needless to say, Colten had so much fun with the dough, the sprinkles, and the flour!

Here is a photo of Colten playing with his remote control car from the Bleschner's - thanks guys! He loves it; it's just the right size and speed for him.

After our remote control car fun, we headed to Grandpa and Grandma's to exchange gifts on Christmas Eve day. Colten really got into Christmas this year; he wanted to open everything and in typical kid fashion, if it was clothes, he tossed them aside and quickly looked for the next present : > Strangely enough, he was very upset if there was wrapping paper on the floor, so all the paper from unwrapping went directly into a bag. However, once we were done, Colten decided that he wanted to play in the paper - here's a photo of him rolling around and laughing among all the paper. What a silly boy! And check out his new Nike's too (thanks Uncle Mike; that's his first pair!)
One of Colten's favorite gifts was this suitcase from Uncle Mike. Every time we visit Uncle Mike or every time Uncle Mike comes to town, Colten insists on pushing around his suitcase so Uncle Mike got Colten one of his own. And believe me, Colten loves it. We may be the only house where the suitcase is part of the play area : >

After opening lots of gifts and playing like crazy and after a much needed nap, we were off to mass - but not before a few more photos.

When we got back to Grandma and Grandpa's house, Colten jumped right back on Lucky, his new pony : >

I can't wait for the day that Colten wakes us up around 4am in hopes that he can go see if Santa came, but for this year, we started our celebration around 6:30am when Colten woke up. Tom and I had already exchanged so we could fully enjoy the magic of the morning with Colten. And it was everything we hoped it would be. Colten was so excited and overwhelmed by all of his new toys. I loved watching him dig in his stocking too.This how we found Colten in his crib when he woke up. He sure loves his pillow pet - thanks Carroll family!


Soon it was off to Grandma and Grandpa's for lunch with the family.

Colten and Aunt Joyce

Colten loving one of Liz's famous buckeyes!

Colten and Aunt Carol

And then we make our annual visit to Aunt Tunny's to end the night. Unfortunately I don't have any photos, but we loved visiting with everyone. We had to leave earlier than we would have liked because Colten had had enough excitement and SUGAR, to say the least. I thought we were headed for the 'terrible twos' for sure, but after cutting out all sugar again, I realized that his tantrums seemed to stem mostly from that. So hopefully we can keep those out-bursts at bay for a bit longer : >

And here's a photo of Colten playing with his music station from the Moss family - thanks so much! He loves playing 'songs' for us, and he really loves making noises into the microphone!

After all of the fun, I was feeling the anxiety of a house that looked more like a toy box explosion. So I headed to the store for some much needed organizational gear. Thankfully our living room does not resemble Toys R Us anymore : > I'll show photos of the new toy box that I am in love with soon, or as soon as I upload those pics to the computer (which in reality could be weeks from now.) But you get the idea : >

Lots of love to everyone!