It Came and Went

So, Christmas came and went and I promised myself I'd update the blog with a Christmas post. Then New Year's came and went and I told myself that the first week of January is still sorta-kinda, technically, not really, but excusable enough of a time to do a Christmas post. But that week came and went and I neglected to post...again. So here we are the day before Gideon's first birthday and I'm determined to record this Christmas appropriately since I know tomorrow requires a birthday post. Because in all reality this blog is mostly for me. It's sort of my baby-book/photo-album/memory bank. I apologize that I'm all late with this since you're most likely over the Christmas holiday and now you're shopping for Valentine's goodies or something. But I can't not immortalize my children's Christmas via the interweb, right? Right.

Here are my 2011 Christmas memories:

We decorated for Christmas at our house in mid-December. I was wary of doing so, thinking that both kids would be all about un-decorating the tree. We didn't get/decorate a tree at all last year which was lame and depressing. Turns out, having a tree wasn't so bad. Caleb is becoming a better listener and amazingly, Gideon is not nearly as persistent as Caleb was at his age, so we were easily able to deter him from taking ornaments off the tree.

Caleb decorating with Daddy. 

Matt did an awesome job decorating the outside of our home but I wound up never getting any photos of it. I'm bummed about that. The lights looked great though and as it became dark each night, Caleb would peek out the window and declare, "It's kri-miss!" (rhymes with "Grimace," the purple McDonald's character). He loved looking at the neighbors' lights too and I really looked forward to his nightly excitement.

We headed down to North Carolina to spend Christmas with Matt's family. This includes his mom, dad, two older brothers, future-sister-in-law, his maternal grandparents and Theresa who is a dear family friend. We spent several days there and had a great time! The boys thoroughly enjoyed being completely spoiled and doted on by their relatives. Matt and I even squeezed in some one on one time to do last minute shopping since we had grandparents available and willing to watch the little ones.

Matt's mom had a Power Wheels Jeep for Caleb to play with while we were there. It took Caleb some time to figure out the steering but then he mastered it enough to go in circles and he did so for a while. Future Nascar racer? Perhaps.

Christmas Eve at the Pladna household involves a big Italian meal. Dee-lish! Shortly after dinner, it was bath/bed time for the kids. The boys got matching Christmas jammies from Matt's parents. This is the best picture I have of that. Clearly, they weren't very into the pictures that evening.

Christmas morning, our family was up before anyone else in the house (no surprise there). Nonna Rose woke up and allowed Caleb and Gideon to open a couple of items before the rest of the family woke up. 

One of the things Caleb got was a little pair of real glasses (with plain lenses). He looks SO adorable wearing them.

I was pumped that Matt gave me a new camera, so just for fun, we spent some time doing this:

I got some cute shots of the little guys in their Christmas outfits, courtesy of Nonna Rose.

Nonna Rose and her grandbabies.

I'm thinking he'll be an engineer.

Gideon finally sprouted his upper teeth while we were down there. He literally got his two front teeth for Christmas. Funny.

Gideon took is first steps during our visit. I don't have any photographic or video evidence of that but I wish I did. There are witnesses though. Anyway, he was standing up without holding onto anything and took one step toward me, later he took two. Right foot then left foot then a graceful fall into my arms. He's been working on that ever since. 


Matt and I actually wore real clothes as opposed to the uber-casual look we typically sport . See?

Brett and Kristi brought their new puppies over for everyone to see. Caleb LOVED the puppies, not sure they were very into his eager affection though.

And this is just my husband being himself. I love this man!

Caleb got his first professional haircut while we were there. Thanks Nonna Rose!

Before

After

My absolute favorite picture from our Christmas trip. Gideon with his great-grandfather.

Representing the 1st and 4th of 4 generations.

Wow! After typing it all out, I realize we had quite an eventful holiday in NC. I'm not done yet though and if you're still reading, bless you! We headed home two days after Christmas. We stayed home for a night to recuperate and then headed up to NJ to visit my family. I have some really cute pictures of my kids with their cousins (my sister's three kids) but I'm 98% positive that my sister would prefer I not put pictures of her children on the internet. She's paranoid protective like that. Just trust that they're cute pictures. Other than those, I didn't take any others. Therefore, I have none to share with you. We spent a couple nights in NJ, did the gift-opening thing again, ate a ton of food again, and basked in the joys of being surrounded by family again. It was a great Christmas! I hope your Christmas was great too!