Christmas 2012

It was a wonderful Christmas this year! Aunt Gina took the train from New York City on Friday evening to join in the festivities. This year we decided to do our big meal on Christmas Eve, thus leaving Christmas Day free for lounging, playing (with new toys and the Wii!) and eating delicious leftovers. So, on Christmas Eve Henry helped Mike make our Christmas meal:

Then, we baked and decorated more cookies for Santa:

Here is our plate of embarrassing cookies (embarrassing in that only one was made by a 4 year old. I won't say which. Note poor, broken Tiny Tim with his toothpick crutch)

We opened our traditional Christmas Eve pajamas:

Which he then insisted on wearing to dinner:

We put out cookies and milk for Santa:

And headed to bed.

For the last month Henry has been requesting that Santa bring him "a recycling truck with a side mechanical arm and more cars from the movie Cars (of which he already has many)". Santa did not disappoint (and even threw in a marble run!):

Christmas morning arrived:

Henry was amazingly patient and waited in his room until his clock said 7 (his usual rule), then came out to discover his Santa gifts:

We moved on to stockings:

Before taking a break for breakfast. After we ate, we moved on to the gifts:

Most of the morning was spent playing with his many new toys:

Helping Mike with his new SodaStream:

And much relaxing and MarioKart playing.

We were sad to see Aunt Gina off this morning, but Henry is off from school this week and we have some fun things planned for the last week of 2011 to fill our time. Happy Holidays everyone!!!

Holiday Weekend

We had a fairly festive weekend!

On Saturday morning we headed out again to the Boston POPS Holiday show.

Henry really enjoyed it again. He was completely enthralled for the first few pieces. Musical readings of "the Grinch" and "The Night Before Christmas" pulled him back in. Santa appeared at the end, which was very exciting for him. For a 4 year old sitting through 90 minutes at the symphony he did very well :)

Immediately after we had to run to his friend Kyu-Chan's fifth birthday party (once again at My Gym, that mecca of all preschool parties. Henry is now very insistent that he wants his fifth birthday party here as well, so be expecting more of the same pictures in a few months...)

On Sunday we put together Henry's first gingerbread house (from a kit, of course. I am not THAT crazy).

Note the sprinkles that somehow made it All.Over.The.Table (and floor)

The finished product - modeled with Whizby, our "Elf on a Shelf"

Holiday Party

This past weekend we hosted our now annual holiday party with some of Henry's best friends.

The kids decorated sugar cookies:

Trimmed the tree:

Lit the Menorah and played dreidel:

And had a gift exchange:

I was sadly lax with the camera so not many great photos, but it was a great time!

Santa

Henry was once again an old pro with meeting Santa. He has wavered a bit with what his main Santa request is - nothing is sticking out clearly like the monorail from last year. His current list consists of "more cars from the movie Cars, but not any of the ones I already own" and a recycling truck. We think Santa may be able to accomodate.

The Polar Express

This weekend was our annual "Polar Express" trip with our little train lover. We broke out the holiday PJs and headed to the North Pole to see Santa.

There was a dramatic reading of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"

Hot cocoa and cookies were served:

Carols were sung:

And upon arrival at the North Pole, Santa was spotted:

The Christmas season is officially here!