Christmas Eve 2009

We went back to Grandma Nancy's house for Christmas Eve this year! The tradition continued for our family and this year we were joined by George and Alex (Louise's boys), my Great Aunt Maryann and her daughter Leslie, my Uncle Gary and Jamie's boyfriend Matt. It was quite a party!





And now, it's time for a fireside chat with Steve and Matt.



I was in charge of cooking this year and I couldn't find a roast big enough for our crowd so I bought 2 smaller roasts and proceeded to cook the crap out of them! Luckily the meat was of decent quality so it wasn't too tough, but there was nothing rare about it. This is me with my Yorkshire Pudding.



I was meeting Leslie for the first time and she couldn't decide if I look more like my dad or my Grandmother. There's a whole lot of Hinckley/Hagberg in me so I kind of look like everybody.

When it was time to eat, there weren't enough seats at tables so we ate where we could. Gary borrowed Maryann's walker for his meal.

After dinner we moved into the living room to open presents by the fire. We were fortunate to have a visit from Santa Claus (a.k.a. George). Ethan was amazed by his presence! At first he was very unsure of him, but then he climbed right up on his lap and asked for, of course, a black train with a remote control. I have a long video of Ethan's visit with Santa, but here are a couple of shorter ones. It was really very sweet.

Ethan got a bag with his name on it but he was more interested in the candy cane.

Matt scored some Twilight trivia cards.

Steve scored himself a beer holster.

Ethan had a really long day and was exhausted by the time we finished with presents. George and Alex are both so great with him and he cuddled right up with them.

We drove home that night so we could have Christmas morning at our house. It was another wonderful and cozy Christmas Eve night!

Snow fun after the storm

We thought we were in for quite a night last night with all the hype about the storm coming for us up the east coast. When we went to bed at 11:30 last night it hadn't even started but we awoke to the sound of snowplows at 5:30. When we finally got up at 7:30, it only looked like about 4 inches had accumulated, but it was coming down hard! We didn't make it out to play until it stopped at around 2 or so. Ethan had refused to nap and was trying to refuse to go outside to play in the snow. We gave him one of his one thousand choices of the day and he chose to go outside over taking his nap.

As you can see, we only got 7-8 inches or so.





I call this picture "Big kid in a little sled". I guess we'll add that to his xmas/birthday list.



I love this picture! It looks like they're consulting on something important.



Umm...maybe E should have had a scarf on. Rosy cheeks was an understatement! Poor little guy. He did have a lot of fun out there though.

Edaville Railroad

Yesterday afternoon we met Grandma Jan at Edaville Railroad for their festival of lights. This is where Ethan, Steve and Grandma Jan came for a day out with Thomas last year, but I haven't been here since I was a kid! I was very excited to return which is why it was so devastating when we almost had to turn around as soon as we got there. Ethan's coat is too bulky for him to wear buckled into his car seat so he wasn't wearing his for the ride down. We were almost there when I all of a sudden realized that Steve and I were wearing our coats but had forgotten to grab Ethan's! Seriously. How the heck does that happen to New England parents in December the day of a predicted snowstorm!? I'll tell you how. It was one of those afternoons where we kept him up from his nap and he was melting down over everything so we were stressed trying to just get the heck out of the house. To you nonparents out there it may not sound like a big deal, but let me tell you, he can ratchet up the stress level with the best of them. We were so happy when he finally fell asleep in the car! We were over an hour from home when we realized our mistake, so we got off on an exit that advertised several gas stations in hopes of discovering a Marshalls or TJMaxx but that was not to be. Grandma Jan arrived at Edaville ahead of us and went in to see if the gift shop had any winter coats. We were in luck and they had a 4T (one size bigger than our little guy, but better than wearing my fleece!). However, they didn't have it at the first and most convenient gift shop, it was in the middle of the park at the big gift shop so I wrapped him in my fleece, opened my shell and held him against me and walked/ran the whole way in! I was exhausted but they not only had a coat but they had a Thomas coat and the evening was saved. I dreaded looking at the price tag but it was only $25! We were sold. Especially since we'd already paid admission and weren't missing the train ride.




Here's his look of "seriously mom. I do not want to look at the freaking camera but I'm tired of listening to you". I had to get a picture of him in his new coat!




The train ride goes through the woods and past many displays of lights. Ethan started out the ride in his usual overwhelmed state, but once we got going, he really got into it!

Ethan wasn't interested in showing me his ticket, but here is Steve with his!

After our train ride we walked all around and admired more lights, climbed on trains and went on a few rides.

Ethan's first ride was the Jolly Caterpillar. Steve was going on with him and GJ and I were going to watch but then we decided to get in on the action. We barely fit in the car, but we were laughing the whole time! This was definitely a kids ride. We were unpleasantly dizzy by the end.

Ethan and I then went on a train ride together. I was too big to sit in the engine with him. He was disappointed that the buttons didn't do anything.

After refusing to see Santa again and again, I finally got him to agree to go. This isn't a great picture, but it gives you a good idea of how he was feeling about it! He was oh so skeptical about the man in the red suit. He barely spoke and didn't even ask for the black train with the remote control that he's been fixated on for weeks (which he will be getting Christmas morning and we can't wait to see the look on his face!). He did sit there and didn't make a scene or anything but I think he was relieved to get down. Besides, Santa was sucking on a cough drop and didn't sound so good...

We are aware of how this child reacts to chocolate in his system, but with the cold weather, we just had to have hot chocolate. It was delicious and Ethan was a wild man! It took a lot to wrestle him back into his winter gear to go out and ride the airplanes that he'd been dying to ride since we got there. Here he is in the red baron. This plane matches one of the ones on his new shirts so that was cool. What was funny is that there was a "stick" in front of him that makes the plane go up and down as the ride goes around. Every time he passed us we were yelling "Ethan! Pull the stick!". He did eventually pull it and he went up once and then back down and that was it. It was pretty darn cold by that point so maybe he wasn't feeling it so much.

We stopped for dinner at a Bugaboo Creek and then Ethan fell asleep in the car on our way home from there. I thought for sure he'd wake up when we got home but he was exhausted and stayed out for the night. There weren't many people out and about as we were expecting a giant snowstorm, so it worked out great for us. It still hadn't started to snow when we went to bed last night but we woke up to the heavy snowfall they'd been predicting. More on that later!

8 Crazy Nights

It's Holiday time with our very particular toddler. When we were decorating the house, Ethan got to choose which knobs certain decorations were to hang from. When this kid puts something in place, that's where it goes. Period. It is not allowed to hang from anywhere else. Who cares if all of the ornaments and such are hanging from the drawer knobs so that you can't get into the cabinets without first removing the thing? Certainly not Ethan. This "We Love Winter" mitten has the most frustrating placement right in front of the sink, but we are not allowed to move it. If we try to put it in a more convenient location, Ethan doesn't have a fit or anything, he just goes and gets it and puts it back where it "belongs". It's really easy to mess with him these days but he is dead serious about where things go.




We lit the menorah candles for all 8 nights of Hanukkah this year! Ethan was into it but he was frustrated on night 7 that there was one hole left without a candle. It just didn't seem fair, so he was pleased on night 8 to have all holes occupied.

If only they were all occupied by full up candles. Somehow we were left with only 7 candles for the 8th night, so we had to improvise with birthday candles. On top of that, I broke 2 of the candles while getting them into the too small holes so we had the saddest menorah of all that night!

Ethan got a Hanukkah present on the 8th night. He got a Lightening McQueen car and it has a ticket and everything! Steve couldn't find a holiday bag, so he gave it to him in a Valentine's Day bag. No big deal right? It's just the method of delivery after all. Unless you're Ethan and then the whole package has to stay together. When he is done playing with Lightening, he not only goes back into the plastic packaging he came in, but it all goes back into the bag too. We love our particular toddler!

O Christmas Tree

We went back to Boston Hill Farm yesterday to get our Christmas tree! It was a chilly but sunny winter day and Ethan didn't have his sunglasses. He pulled his hat over his face because the sun was bothering him.



I made the rookie mistake of asking Ethan if he wanted to wear his boots and winter coat instead of telling him that he was going to wear his boots and winter coat. The wind was blowing when we first got there and he was too cold. Then we went into the sunshine and it was warmer but his feet came out from under him and he fell flat on his back and that really shook him up. So I ended up carrying him while we looked for the perfect tree. This is the tree we picked and there were kittens hiding in the group of trees so Ethan was watching them scurry away.

This would be a great picture if he didn't look so terrified! He wasn't too keen on walking on the snow after his fall.

Steve had a hard time getting E to give a thumbs up. There are a lot of fingers that just sort of pop up along with it, but he seems to have it right here.

This was Ethan "helping" dad trim some branches off the tree.

This picture only has the lights on the tree but Ethan did a great job hanging the ornaments. I was worried about letting him help with my slight OCD tendencies but he did a pretty decent job with ornament distribution!

That's it for now. I have to pack for my trip to CO Springs!

One of those moments

We had one of those moments to night where we just had to pause and realize how big our little man is getting. It was time to go potty before dinner and he walked into the bathroom and turned on the light all by himself! He was so excited. He was yelling to me about it and I asked if he used his stool and he said he didn't and then I looked and it wasn't there! He said it was because he was a really big boy and raised up his arms in celebration of himself. It's so great to see how proud he is of himself and we are so proud too.

Before all of that, it was just him and I for a few hours and we were of course playing with the lego's. We took a few knights on a tour of the living room on their noble steeds and then I asked E to pose for a few pictures with the space ships and moon rovers that Steve's been making for him. He was in a good mood so it worked out for once!

As I mentioned, Steve has been as excited as Ethan to have the lego's out on the scene. These are some of the things he's already put together. He's been looking up the instructions for his kits on-line and bringing them home to create.

Lego Maniac's

We had a very busy Saturday this past weekend! Ethan was invited to Caleb's 3rd birthday party and it was kids only! Steve and I had planned to go for a hike in the Fells or go out to lunch, but he had a little too much fun on Friday night so he stayed home while I dropped off E and hit the mall. The kids had a blast all together. Check out The Barnes Family blog for the details!

After I picked him up, we met Steve at my work for an open house. They had all kinds of displays and activities for the kids and we had a great time. It was a miserable day outside so we ended up skipping the town tree lighting and attempting movie night again. Ethan did much better this time, but we still haven't seen the whole Cars movie!



After E went to bed the rain turned into our first real snow!



In case you couldn't guess, Steve was a huge lego man in his younger years. Alan and Suzanne saved all of his lego's after all these years and Steve felt that it was time to bust them out and see if Ethan was into them. The first step was to wash them as they've been in a bin for almost 20 years. They were at it for about an hour. They pulled all of them apart and talked about what the pieces were and what they would build.



Ethan fell in love immediately with the legos. We've had the duplos for 2 years and he's never really been into them, but the little lego's are the coolest! He especially likes to build the people. We've been doing a lot of sorting through the hundreds of pieces looking for legs, heads, helmets and torso's. I could not believe how long these things occupied his attention Sunday afternoon. It was great!



Steve just couldn't help but get into the action. The past 2 night he's stayed up late making space ship/lunar lander type things for E to play with in the morning.

Ethan's favorite part is the boat that he can put his guys on. He puts together the guys and it's my job to put them on the ship. We're up to 18. It's standing room only at this point.

I'm not sure if it's the time of year or what, but Mr Bethan is having A LOT of trouble listening. I thought it was just us, but we got a report from school today that he had a tough day with that. We never hear anything remotely negative about him so this caught me off guard. We had a big talk tonight at dinner about how it's important to listen to grown-ups. We'll see if tomorrow is any better. He gets a kick out of using my fingers as conversation points so tonight my fingers were "listening", "helping", and "cooperating". Most nights I use all of my fingers to illustrate "brush your teeth", "go potty", "read books", "sing a song", and "go to sleep". Bedtime is a convenient 5 finger process. He's also had trouble going to sleep the past 2 nights too. I've had to rock him a bunch which I don't really mind because I love the cuddle time, but I love it as the exception not the rule. I've got to break that habit soon. My nights are too short as it is! Maybe 3 is harder than 2...