Last night we celebrated Christmas at Grandma Ardy & Grandpa Gene's house with Gigi's side of the family. We decided to skip the usual turkey/ham fanfare and opted instead to do an Italian lasagna dinner for the family. It was a nice change of pace, especially since we'll be serving ham once again on Christmas day. We didn't have our camera, so if anyone (hint, hint, Auntie Deb ;)) got any cute pictures, send 'em my way! The boys had fun being the center of attention, and they came home with some really cool new toys.
Sutton got the Little People airport (which will connect to the Little People parking garage that he's getting from Gigi and Granddad for Christmas) from Grandma and Grandpa, and he got the Parents Bee Bop Band drum (with all the other instruments inside it) from Aunt Debby & Uncle Steve. He's been having an absolute blast drumming all day long - I had no idea his rhythm was that good! The airport is really cute too, and once we showed the boys that all of their Little People people from their other sets fit into this one too, we had a bunch of laughs making the pirates fly the helicopter and the farmer fly the plane. Sawyer got a construction vehicle and crane set from Grandma and Grandpa and a VTech Fly & Learn Globe from Debby & Steve. Sutton seriously spent all morning today going back and forth from his new drum to fly the plane on the globe, so all the presents were a HUGE hit (thanks again everyone! XOXO) Honestly, I'm loving the globe myself, and I can now say a few key phrases in Mandarin and Portugese, thanks :)
They were both exhausted by the time we left Grandma Ardy's, but since Sutton seemingly refuses to fall asleep in the car anymore, they were both still awake when we got home to light the menorah and celebrate the first night of Hanukkah. The boys have both been dying to turn the lightbulbs on our plastic electric menorah decoration on, so that was probably a bigger thrill to them than lighting the actual candles. They opened their first present from Mommy & Daddy - Sutton got a Melissa & Doug magnetic fishing game and Sawyer got a dinosaur play set in a plastic tub. By the time 9:30 rolled around they were exhausted and ready to crawl into bed after such a late night.
After a week of Sutton throwing himself out of his crib a dozen times a night and enduring completely out-of-character painfully long and tearful bedtimes and nighttime wakings, we decided to convert his crib to a toddler bed this past Friday night. We figured that even if he didn't stay in his new bed, at least he wouldn't be adding to his greusome collection of bruises from tossing himself overboard anymore. We've let him stay up late these past few nights to really tire him out so that he would fall asleep easier, and it hasn't been a complete success, but we're making progress. Most of the tears have diminshed, at least. The first night he fell asleep on his floor, and I had to carry him into bed, and he did that at yesterday's nap as well. The other times I've had to stay with him until he fell asleep, but once asleep he stayed in bed. I'm not sure what caused the change in his bedtime behavior, whether it had to do with him being sick or not. I did a bunch of research that showed that it's something that lots of kids do around this age, but that no one seems to have a real reason for. Something to do with possible growth spurts or two year molars or a new sense of self leading to the realization that they're alone at bedtime and other junk like that...who knows. Hopefully he'll get used to the new bed soon, and then I'll have to work on breaking the habit of needing to stay with him while he falls asleep.
Tonight we're going to light the candles on the menorah and read our new Hanukkah counting book. The boys will open their Shake N' Go race cars presents from us, and after they go to bed Mitch and I are going to try to finish painting our kitchen. We may also have to run out to the grocery store because I still have SOOOO much to do before Christmas, and I'm starting to get a little stressed and overwhelmed. When we offered our house for the Christmas day dinner this year it didn't actually occur to me how much extra work that would need to be done. I've got one solid day tomorrow with the boys off at daycare, and I have about a dozen things to do aside from cleaning up around this place (where you can find all those awesome newly acquired toys completely strewn about!). Ack!
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