Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas eve with Brandon's brother Rick and his family. To start off our night, we all went to church for their Christmas service. In case you don't want to count how many people are in the picture, there was fourteen of us (including me, even though I'm not in the picture).


After church, we came home and got dinner ready.




Not everyone helped. Some spent the time playing. (That same someone has become quite the expert at the Wii while we've been in California and can play several games without any assistance. Pushes the right buttons and everything.)


And some slept.


At last, the feast was prepared and we all chowed down. Caleb ate nothing but rolls.



Brandon's brother Lane read the story of the candy cane, then Sarah read The Three Trees (but somehow escaped having her picture taken while reading it -- at least by me) while the rest of us listened intently.




The baby needed a change before we started opening presents. I suggested we take some family photos while we waited. I had lots of grand plans of all the pictures I wanted to take, but apparently changing a diaper doesn't take as long as family photos, so we only got a few.



Since I've already posted way too many pictures of Caleb opening presents, here are a few of other people opening their gifts.





I'm told that the majority of them stayed up into the wee hours of the morning playing with all the new presents. Caleb and I went to bed though so we missed out on the craziness.

Christmasy Pictures

Here's a few pictures of Caleb being Christmasy. I figure if I go through all the effort of forcing the kid to look at me and smile (which is apparently a much more ridiculous request than it sounds like), then I ought to force the rest of you to look at the pictures.




And a few of Aiden, who is Caleb's second cousin. Or maybe his first cousin once removed. I'm not really sure how those things work.

Cookies for Santa

While in California, Caleb and I went to visit my friend Jocelyn and her two boys. Jocelyn let the boys decorate cookies for Santa. I really really really hope that Santa didn't eat the cookies. But at least the boys had fun decorating them.

Our Hanukkah Christmas

This year, we celebrated Christmas so many times, I think next year we'll have to switch to Hanukkah just to keep our child as entertained.

Christmas Number One: We were bored and I thought it was silly that we had so many toys waiting to be played with, so I decided we should open one. Caleb was delighted and loved his new game.






Christmas Number Two: We decided to open all our presents early since we were going out of town for the holidays. And since we weren't going to take the new toys with us, we opened them when we still had a week left in Arizona so we could enjoy them all. Caleb did great opening all his gifts and loved each and every one of them.












Christmas Number Three: at the Crowleys. Caleb didn't care at all that Naomi's present was super huge while his was rather small. Especially since he got a toy he had really really wanted (a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse phone) while Naomi got boring clothes.



Christmas Number Four: We stayed with Brandon's brother Rick and his family in California. They open all their presents on Christmas eve, so we joined in. Since we had opened the majority of our presents in Arizona, Caleb didn't have a whole lot to open, but that didn't stop him from trying. I spent most of the night having to tell him not to open everyone else's presents. Fortunately, Aiden let Caleb open a lot of his presents, seeing as how he's only five months old and his little fingers got tired of opening presents after a while. Caleb was more than willing to take over for him.




Christmas Number Five: Christmas morning we drove down to Irvine to have brunch with my family. Caleb had a good time playing with his cousins and thought Tiana's toys were way better than eating. When it came time to open presents, Caleb was the first one up.




Christmas Number Six: After that we drove up to Chino Hills to have Christmas with Brandon's parents. Caleb's cousin Trevor had already opened all his presents, and Rick's family hadn't arrived yet, so Caleb got to open his gifts with no competition. Every gift was for him and he was in unwrapping heaven once again.





Christmas Number Seven: We didn't make it up to St. George to see my mom, so she sent Caleb's presents down to Chino for us to open. When Caleb first saw them, he got really excited that there was a basketball (unwrapped) in the mix. I asked him if he wanted to open his presents and he told me no, he wanted to go play with toys. Apparently seven Christmases is one too many. Eventually though, after he got his toy fix, he did come down and open his presents and was very excited about everything he got. He's got the routine down now -- open a present, take a moment to look to see what it is and ooh and aah over it, then hand it to mom and start on the next. And it no longer phases his when he asks if we can open something to play with it and I say not now. He just moves on to the next one.





So whether it was one Christmas or seven, we had a very merry Christmas indeed and hope you did too.