Christmas 2010

Yeah, I realize it's June, but since I have a couple months off I can try to catch up. This was the first Christmas where F sorta got the whole Santa Claus thing. We decided to use the Elf on a Shelf to amp up the magic of the season, but F wasn't all that into it. Beforehand, we told F that Santa was going to send us an elf, so he could watch over him and let Santa know if he was being good. We told him he could name the elf and tell him what he wanted from Santa. When we finally put the elf out it took F a while to notice it. Then was time to name him. I REALLY wanted F to pick his own name without suggestion, but I failed to make this clear to Mark, so he threw out a few names (Peter, Jimmy, Bubba). Guess which one stuck? Yes, we had an elf name Bubba. We read the book and F seemed into it, so that night we moved it to another spot. I had to remind him in the morning to look for it, which proved to be a theme over the next 2 weeks. The idea that Bubba was reporting back to Santa never really seemed to be a big deal for F, so there was no tearful goodbye on Christmas Eve. Hopefully next year he will be more into it.

We asked F what he wanted for Christmas, and he said an orange jeep like Molly's. His favorite color is still orange, but it is impossible to find an orange jeep so we settled for red.

Luckily, we have a big field that he can ride to....unfortunately, there are quite a few mailboxes between here and there.

He's getting better at avoiding them, but he often forgets to keep his eyes on the sidewalk and drives while looking behind him.

We got to experience our fist Christmas show put on by a bunch of 3 year olds and it did not disappoint. They spent half the time waving to their families in the audience, but it was adorable.

The girl on F's left got completely freaked out when Santa showed up to give out candy canes. She tried to hide behind F, which he did not appreciate and kept pushing her off him.

I have to preface this by saying I hate fireworks! I saw a kid nearly blow his hand off when I was a kid and it scarred me for life. So when Mark said he wanted to get fireworks for new years eve for him and F, I was not pleased. He promised they were safe "baby fireworks", and wouldn't last long. Luckily, they are not as cheap as he remembers and he is thrifty, so he only got a few. I kept my distance and held my breathe while taking these pics.

In true boy fashion, he thought is was awesome!