So he just randomly named his horse Rosie. We have no idea where he got it from, but at some point yesterday, he introduced me. He said, “Dis is my horse. Her name Rosie.” Well okay then. So here are a few of Caleb and Rosie. He got one of those Fisher Price kid tough cameras and now we have about 100 pictures of the back of Rosie’s head (from sitting on Rosie taking pictures) and several pictures of the inner workings of Rosie’s nostrils.

A new favorite picture!

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As a kid, my parents were always very organized people. Neither of them liked clutter. Of course I don’t remember when I was this age, but I can remember as a kid, just wanting to tear down the stairs and start ripping into presents, but I felt that it would be inappropriate. Like it was against the rules or something. We had to open things slowly and clean up as we went. After the first few gifts, Scott asked who wanted to be on cleanup duty. Nobody, I replied. I want it just like this. A sea of wrapping paper and tie wraps and boxes. It is only one day a year and it doesn’t take that long to clean up. I sat right on top of a pile of wrapping paper. When I called my parents later in the morning (like 10:30), we were still buried in wrapping paper and my mom said, “I have all of our wrapping paper folded flat and your dad is vacuuming.” I said, “Well we misplaced our living room floor. I know it has to be under here somewhere.”

It’s like Where’s Waldo, only I would never name my kid Waldo.

What I always wanted to do Christmas morning

Wubbzy says Wow, Wow!

He did NOT want to eat breakfast, there were entirely too many important things to be done than eating. We ate a late breakfast, so there was no lunch. At dinner he ate two and a half pancakes and two pieces of bacon!

Put me down, put me down. I’m stressed.

Ugh!

Yipee-ki-yay!

M.I.T - Mechanic In Training

Those geniuses at Cranium…this thing is really neat, he loves it!

The castle blocks, mailed December 16th via Priority, and arrived December 24th! They cut it a little close!

Doorway puppet theater…he kept saying “Ladies and gentleman! Welcome to the show!”

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We finally went to bed about 3:30am Christmas morning, I’m not sure either of us got much sleep. We were so excited and anxious. We got up about 6:30. Caleb had come and gotten in the bed with me about 6:20, so I waited until he was back asleep and got up. By 7:20, we could no longer contain ourselves, so Scott went and woke him up. It was really dark in one half of the house and really bright in the living room…

“You wake me up, make me immediately get out of bed, it is too bright in here, I don’t know where Mommy is, and, and….”

“…and…whoa. I think I need to sit down for a minute. Take everything in.”

“Okay, done taking in. Let the wrapping paper fly.”

Opening the first present

The mile long eyelash picture

I’m so glad he liked this Wubbzy book. Because I went through hell to get it! It came with a beanie baby sized Wuzzby and a book not much bigger than the plush. So it shouldn’t be too much right? Only $12.99, not too bad. Here’s the catch. The only Wubbzy merchandise is made by Scholastic. And only sold at book fairs. Since I refused to pay over $30 for this on eBay, I made some phone calls and wrote some emails and waited. For over a month. I had given up and forgotten about it by the time someone randomly called from Scholastic. She let me mail her a check and she mailed me the book. It was a lot of trouble, and phone tag, but in the end, he seems to really like it. The show comes on Noggin, it’s really cute.

Checkin out the new horse

Working on Percy the train

Santa drank all the milk!

But he left me a cookie.

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On Christmas Eve, Santa sent one of his elves to drop off a special pair of tracking pajamas. This is how he knows when little boys and girls are in bed. They are made with a special fabric you see. So the little elf dropped off a package that could have only come from the North Pole. It was wrapped in beautiful gold paper with red felt swirls on it, complete with a gold ribbon bow on top with reindeer bells and a special letter to Caleb.

Santa’s letter

Special tracking pajamas, can’t you tell?

He looks so much like Scott did (in the picture below) when he was this age, it is insane. People are all over the map on who he looks like. Sometimes, he’s a carbon copy of me, sometimes of Scott, some people say he’s a good mix. Scott had to drop by his mom’s for something today, and I sent this picture along. She said it looked like Scott as a kid “more than you’d ever know.”

I really like this picture. It’s almost like he just heard bells on the roof.

Santa Claus came to town

The cookie plate with a letter to Santa written on it. This way he’ll be sure to see. No missing a letter that is beneath delicious cookies!

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Batch one of the photos. These are from Saturday, when we had Scott’s family gathering. You know, the Cleaver family video?

Caleb and cousin BJ

For some reason, this picture just screams at me how much my little man has grown up this year. He looks so tall and, well, grown up in this picture.

Uncle Micky

Caleb and Daddy

About to pitch a ball of paper in my direction

We got Granny Gooch a digital picture frame, and loaded it with…are you ready for this…seven hundred and thirty nine pictures. She now has a new TV to watch! She was quite amazed. She wouldn’t look away for a second without asking me to pause the pictures.

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Our hidden Santa cam. He moves so fast, you can’t even see him! But those presents certainly didn’t walk themselves in there from every nook, corner and cranny of this house.

 

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We went, we waited, we waited, we waited some more, we saw. When we took the interstate exit, we took a left and stopped two car lengths from the top of the exit ramp. He creeped slowly down toward the first stoplight. There is a shopping center on the corner there, so we pulled in and turned Caleb’s carseat around. His first time riding forward facing (wanna know why?)! He could not keep his legs still, he kicked and kicked and kicked. He seemed to enjoy himself.

I turned him around before the drive home. He’ll have to be forward facing soon enough, may as well make the most of our last few months. He wanted to be able to see out of the back. He kept trying to see behind him and actually fussed about it a little bit and said “you can turn me back around.” I, of course, had to take pictures. I excused myself as I asked Scott to hand me my camera when I got him strapped in, saying “Sorry, I’m a blogger, and must blog about this mundane detail as well.” Scott just laughed and I snapped a picture, then another, and a couple more. Finally I said “Okay my dork is showing, I’ll go ahead and get in the car now.” So we exited the opposite side of the shopping center, essentially ‘cutting in line’ from where we had entered the shopping center.

I think we waited between 1.5 and 2 hours in line. They had 3-5 lines entering the park at various places which all had to be condensed into a single file line of cars. It was nuts. We were second guessing our descision after an hour or so. Wondering why we waited so close to Christmas. Why we weren’t there before dark. Caleb kept saying “You can go faster Dad, go faster, go faster!” There were police cars everywhere trying to direct traffic. But once we finally got going, the back of the car silenced in awe. He sat quietly looking most of the time. They have a gift shop in the middle that sells things made by local artisans, hot chocolate and marshmallows. We stopped, and I changed Caleb into some comfy clothes. The car parked next to us had a little girl who appeared to be about 15 months old. She was SCREAMING like there was no tomorrow and hitting her mom! It was not pretty. She was pissed! Finally they plugged a bottle in her mouth and all was quiet, and she turned into their sweet little angel again. We went in and were surprised to see Santa sitting there! I had not planned on taking Caleb, as we have several wailing pictures already. We stood back and watched while Santa talked to a little girl and then handed her a candy cane. I should add here that Caleb had his first candy cane on the way to the festival of lights. It was a little mini one from the UPS store. So Scott scooped him up and walked closer. He asked Caleb if he wanted to sit with Santa. He said no. Then Santa whipped out a candy cane. Scott said “He will give you a candy cane if you sit with him.” “Okay!” That’s my boy. He certainly has a sweet tooth, which he most definitely got honestly. So, he sat with Santa and told him that he wanted new twains, specifically Thomas and Perwcy. We were shocked. Scott was beaming. I didn’t know he had wanted Caleb to go so bad, I just didn’t want to feel obligated to pay $20 for a mall picture of him screaming again. Even though I took these, we still had to pay. It was only $2 but the lady was sort of bitchy about it. She stood next to me, waited on me to push the button, and then snapped “you can pay her.” I said “I’m sorry?” “It is two dollars if you use your own camera, the sign is right here, you can pay her.” I was just like um, okay, no need to be so bitchy about it. You could have them take a Polaroid for $5. No thanks, my memory card costs as much as your camera! *sticks nose in the air right back atcha lady*

And all the wait was worth it…

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Who needs Sears anyway? I had so much fun doing this! Almost tearless too. We had a little fuss at the beginning, but only because I was giving him bribes mini vanilla wafers one at a time instead the whole cup full.

“What do you mean, one cookie at a time??!”

Three cookies at a time…much better

 

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We’re running a little late this year, but better late than never right? Last year, I took it down the day after Christmas because it was so dry. And because I had my wisdom teeth cut out two days after Christmas and I wanted to get the tree done and over with. I think we didn’t get it in water quick enough last year. I learned that you need to do it as soon as you cut the bottom off. Otherwise the tree stump will reseal itself within two hours or so, and won’t drink the water it needs to last through the Christmas season. It is also important to make sure the water doesn’t dip below the tree stump while it is inside for the same reason. Learn something new every day! My thumb is definitely black, and plants run away screaming when I look at them. Actually no, they just usually turn brown and die. But you know…

Anyway, we put the lights on this morning and put the decorations on this afternoon. It officially feels like Christmas! It is so pretty! Luckily we got a very full tree, because I seem to have misplaced the tree skirt. I think my mom took it home with her to “get it out of my way.” I think she did the same thing with the garlands and stockings that she made. She and Dad swear that the decorations are not there. They only took the wreath and the bows for the garlands. Because that makes sense. I didn’t want her taking the stuff last year, because I knew this would happen. Things would get misplaced, and I would be left buying new things to stand in and tearing apart the whole house because everyone insists that they are here. *rolls eyes* Oh well. I don’t care, I just love my tree!

“I can blow out da candle”

All finished, and only one broken ball

Caleb’s “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament. We still have the stump (from making a fresh cut on the bottom) from 2005. We have good intentions of getting a wood burning kit and writing “Caleb’s First Christmas, 2005″ on it. One of these days.

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We went to a different lot this year and I couldn’t believe how many enormous trees they had. Like ten and twelve footers. We have good intentions of hauling our own back from the mountains one year. Apparently not this year though. It was just brought to the lot today, he hadn’t even priced it yet! I can’t wait to get it inside, but I’m gonna have a look around online to see if I can find something to help preserve the needles, and make it last a little longer.

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