Christmas Day '08

Growing up, stockings were considered "fair game" and we were allowed to open them as soon as we woke up. I remember as a teenager, we'd wake up really early and go downstairs and open our stockings, then go back to bed. Since by that time, my parents were long past the getting up early phase.

This year, Caleb woke up around 9:45, so that's when we got up too. He had his bottle, then took the idea of "fair game" stockings to a whole new level, pulling stuff out of Mommy's and Daddy's stockings. Maybe I should have explained the concept to him a little better.




Because of the head cold that decided Christmas time would be a great time to visit me, we didn't end up with a whole lot of pictures of Christmas. That's okay. Even without the pictures, we still had a great time. (At least, I'm pretty sure we did. Due to the haze that surrounded me at the time, I don't really remember Christmas now.)


Brandon got this reindeer (that poops out candy) in his stocking. Caleb absolutley loved it. To the point that Brandon had to hide it from him, causing much tears in our house.


Our little Santa Baby!


(Who then promptly removed the hat.)

Caleb spent the majority of the morning opening presents with only one hand. Whether it was fruit snacks, or a toy he didn't want to give up, he could only spare one hand to open new presents with.




Taking a break to play with a present. We had a lot of breaks Christmas morning. In fact, the last several presents we had to beg Caleb to open. Caleb got play-doh from my brother's family and once we'd opened that, Caleb refused to open a single other thing unless he had an open container of play-doh in his left hand.


Here he continued with his one handed opening tactics. The things kids are forced to do to appease their parents.



Yertle's been missing in action for a while. He was in desperate need of a bath, and while he was missing Caleb did really good with a different stuffed animal so we didn't bother giving Yertle back. Brandon had the great idea of wrapping Yertle up and giving him to Caleb for Christmas. Caleb was so ecstatic to see Yertle again!

After opening a present that came with this little Elmo doll, we told Caleb to give Elmo a hug. First he had to grab Yertle and hug him, and then he could hug Elmo too. Apparently he missed Yertle.


Caleb playing with his new toy after he got dressed for the day.



After Caleb's nap, we went up to my mom's house for food, fun, and of course, more presents.



And just as a head's up: if you ever hear Caleb say "catch," you'd better watch out because it means he's throwing something at you at that very moment. He loved throwing things off the balcony, but then expected us all to throw the things back up to him.