Christmas in the desert is portrayed best by my favorite music video of all time, "
Don't Shoot Me Santa" by the Killers.
We had a great Christmas this year. It's always hard spending Christmas away from family, but we made up for it by having some friends over on Christmas Eve. The kids went wild and it was so fun. Christmas morning was fun this year because Tommy was so excited about his presents. He wanted to play with each of his toys as soon as he opened it up. Needless to say, it took a little while to get all those presents opened. We got through it by opening up two or three of Tommy's presents and then letting him play with those gifts while Ben and I opened up a few of our gifts. It was really fun and we are so grateful to everyone who gave us awesome gifts and who otherwise contributed to making this Christmas great.
Christmas afternoon we went for a walk and played at the park. It was about 70 degrees outside. We ate our traditional Christmas casserole for breakfast and our traditional Christmas pizza for lunch and dinner. We got to Skype with our families and hang out at home all day. Somehow we managed to down about 18 Snicker's Nutcrackers in about 3 days. Christmas evening we went for a drive and looked at Christmas lights around our neighborhood.
Here is a video of Christmas morning:
Here is Mommy helping Tommy open presents. Notice how Tommy has a book and some cars in the other hand from presents he previously opened:)
Again with the toys in one hand and trying to open another present with the other hand. I love how he is balancing the football against his cheek in order to optimize how many toys he can hold at once.
I think I counted two cars in one hand and a firetruck, a football, and Wrinkles in the other hand. That little boy had an absolute blast playing with his new toys and lining up his new cars on Christmas!
Below is a picture of Tommy and Daddy swinging at the park. Tommy doesn't like the baby swings anymore. He insists that he sit in a big swing and he does pretty well holding on. He is really entering the "I want to be big" stage right now.
More of Tommy playing at the park. He was doing a pretty good job climbing up this ladder.
My mom got to come visit us in February and we had such a great time! Tommy loves it when Grammy Nancy comes to visit. He gets a constant playmate who gives him undivided attention and incredible amounts of love. We hung out at home a lot this time and read books, blew bubbles, and played in the backyard. It was a great week and we only wish that Grammy could come visit more often.
We went to the park in Estrella one morning and had a great time. It was warm, but not hot, and Tommy had a great time playing in the sand and testing out all of the park equipment. He has become quite the climber lately and does really well climbing up ladders and climbing walls on his own. We even got to feed the ducks!
You have probably noticed that Tommy is wearing the same shirt in many of these photos. That is his truck shirt and he loves it as much as he loves Wrinkles. Once it gets dirty I have to hide it so that he doesn't try to wear it. He also loves his fire truck shirt.
