Holiday Fun #1

"It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags."

I love The Grinch, and I love that line from it - Christmas means so much more. Over the next couple of posts (I'm posting a little at a time because there's so much holiday fun to cover!) there will be several of the boys opening their packages, boxes, and bags, because this was their first Christmas and it was such fun shopping and watching them unwrap their gifts. But of course there's so much more, and lots that I wasn't able to capture on film. We have so many fun Christmas traditions to look forward to as the boys get older, like a midnight church service, making cookies for Santa, etc. etc. This year the only ones we incorporated were La's birthday dinner at Shoguns with the entire Irvin family + grandparents, the Angel tree, our Christmas eve pajamas, and giving the boys 3 gifts each, with a Santa stocking. I love that last one, since Jesus received 3 gifts on the night of his birth - that gives it meaning and also helps us to not go overboard. It would be soooooo easy to go overboard - what is it about parents wanting to give their children everything?

So I'll start with our Hanukkah/Christmas celebration with Honey & Papa 12/20, the first night of Hanukkah. I'm disappointed we missed out on Hanukkah with the whole Solomon family, but we will look forward to next year!

Richard & Susie (aka Papa & Honey) came over the Tuesday night before Christmas for dinner & holiday fun. :) Katie & Guy (aka Tia Katie & Uncle Guy) came over the day after Christmas. The boys got all kinds of fun and QT in with their Solomon family. Now, Ben & Jack had some experience with tearing paper, as they had gotten into Dad's magazines a couple of weeks ago. They're pretty good at it, too. But this was their first experience with gift opening - what fun! Overall impressions:

• Ben thinks eating paper is kind of neat
• Jack worked on perfecting his pincer grasp with small pieces of wrapping paper
• Both boys may be percussionists - beating on boxes can be more fun than the gift itself!
• Waving the paper around can also be more fun than the gift itself
• Ben is so used to pictures now that he sometimes anticipates the flash and squints his eyes :)

Ben: Mmmm

Jack - intense concentration

Jack: Tia Katie, what gives? I was playing with that :)

      

Ben: No more flash photography, please

Tia Katie & Uncle Guy

And this is only the beginning! Lots of fun family time, and so many new, fun toys to play with! Ben & Jack are well-loved by their entire family. :)