Well it has been a busy few days for the McLelland family. Lots and lots of pictures are coming your way!
Our church had a candlelight service on Christmas Eve. Caleb and Benjamin went into the service with Glenn and I which made things very interesting. Caleb did great, thanks to the
noise reducing ear muffs I bought him (picture coming) but Benjamin was another story. I guess a 2 year old isn't much interested in sitting still and listening to a sermon on the birth of Christ. I feel sorry for the poor family sitting in front of us, hopefully Christmas Eve wasn't their first visit to our church...they may never come back because of our crazy kid! I finally took Benjamin out of the service and into the hallway.
Here's Benjamin checking out one of the Christmas trees at church. Seriously, how cute does he look? And so grown up in that sweater!!
I've mentioned before that Caleb is very sensitive to loud noises due to hydrocephalus. And while he has gotten better as he has gotten older, there are still some situations where the noise is just too much for him. I bought these Peltor ear muffs recently and Caleb gave them a test run at the Christmas Eve service, which was quite noisy. The ear muffs worked GREAT!! They really help to reduce the sound, making it much more tolerable for Caleb. Just maybe I can take the kid to a movie now!!
Now on to Christmas morning...
Benjamin didn't really know what was going on. I think having a birthday so close to Christmas kinda makes opening more presents seem like old news. He mostly just wanted to eat breakfast! After a couple of pancakes and some eggs he was ready to play with his new toys!
Caleb on the other hand, was quite ready to open gifts!
I bought several Halloween costumes on clearance and they made for great gifts. One of the things in Caleb's stocking was a mini etch-a-sketch. The kid LOVES it!
This was the BIG gift, complete with a red bow!
When Caleb walked outside and saw it, he said "It's a JEEP!!" So cute. Benjamin keeps calling it a "hummer".
Of course it was in the 20's Christmas morning so Glenn and I were absolutely FREEZING. The boys didn't seem to mind though.
Benjamin sat in the Jeep with Caleb until he started to drive, then he wanted "out". I guess he didn't like Caleb's driving. Benjamin and Caleb also got some Lightning McQueen slippers.
Look at that smile! So happy driving his new Jeep. Seeing that big grin makes the 2 hours it took putting the thing together well worth it. Well Glenn was the one that spent 2 hours assembling the Jeep...I just put on all the stickers :).
Hopefully Benjamin will decide it's safe to ride with Caleb and I can get some pics of him sitting next to his "bubba".
Christmas afternoon we went to see Gammy, Grandpa Al, and Aunt Rachel.
There are no pictures of Benjamin opening gifts, I think he was just over the whole present thing.
Caleb got a really nice art set, with tons of crayons, markers, colored pencils, paint, etc. He loves it. Caleb colors daily so the art set was a perfect gift.
And he (we) got this....
Caleb's favorite thing to do at their house is play Mario Kart, so he (we) now has his (our) own Wii, complete with Mario Kart.
And today the boys had another Christmas with Grandma and Bill.
MORE PRESENTS!!
Benjamin got another Thomas the Train set. The boy officially has enough trains to keep him busy for a good while! He loves it!
Grandma and Bill knew that Caleb was getting a Wii from Gammy and Grandpa Al so they picked him up a couple of games.
Caleb wanted to try the Monster truck game first. He loves crashing into things so this is the perfect game for him. He would crash the monster truck into trash cans and just belly laugh about it. He was cracking himself up! Too funny.
Benjamin playing with his new train set.
So, all-in-all the boys made out like bandits this Christmas...and they haven't even had their Christmas with Grandpa Joel yet!! Good grief, what am I going to do with all these toys? We may have to add onto the house to make room.
I hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas as well.
