Last of Christmas + A Funny Story

I am working on taking down all of the Christmas decorations around the house so I figured I would update the blog as well. I need to take down the Christmas decor on it as well! It was a wonderful Christmas. So much fun and so much joy. But I am sort of glad to get back to "normal" life! I thought I would put up some pictures of all the Christmas decor for the year and my cool cookies that I made. Just so we would have a record of them. I promised Matt I would not buy any more Christmas stuff (at least for several years) and so far I have held to my promise. We will see how long it lasts.

So funny story... Starting last Friday Ben developed a limp. We were never really able to figure out what was wrong. He just limped around for about 3 days. He wasn't able to run but didn't seem to be in pain so we weren't too worried. Saturday night we were brushing his teeth and his paci fell to the ground. We just continued to brush his teeth. I look down and he has picked up his paci with his toes!!! And it was his "limp" leg. The boy has amazing dexterity. He always has!! I couldn't believe he could pick things up with his toes. I think he may need to join the circus one day! Or it could be that the boy is just so attached to his paci that he had to have it! That is one of the first things on the agenda for 2009...getting rid of the paci. Any suggestions??

More Christmas!

It has been a busy few days! We are all very tired at this point. Christmas was so much fun with Ben this year but it is nice to get back into a routine. Poor little guy got a little overwhelmed by it all. We had a total of 5 Christmas celebrations with family (not counting all the friends we saw and hung out with). Ben didn't get to bed before 10 any night for the past week so he is a little worn out.

It was such a blessing to be able to celebrate the birth of Jesus! Here are some pictures from it all and I will tell everything that went on with the pictures.

We had a relaxing day at home on Christmas Eve. We then went to the vesper service at church. It is nice to have some time to focus on the true meaning of Christmas. Then we have a tradition of delivering blessing baskets from our church to the 7th floor of the hospital where Matt works. It is nice to give back a little. Then we went and picked up some Chinese takeout for our Christmas Eve meal!

After our Chinese dinner we had a Happy Birthday Jesus party. We read the Christmas story and then Ben got to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and have some cake!

Christmas morning came along with Santa!!! Here is Ben checking out his toys!

He really enjoyed everything he got from Santa and from us! At first he wasn't to into opening the presents but he got more and more into it as the holiday went along.

He got lots and lots of Little People stuff which he loves!! Although his favorite 2 gifts were the toothbrush in his stocking and a $2 place mat I had gotten him at the last minute. Next year toothbrushes only!

We enjoyed a nice breakfast together as a family after we opened our gifts!

Ben's big gift was a train table (if you didn't know.. I have only been talking about it for months). Matt and I were so excited for him to see the train table. We saved it until the very end of Christmas morning because we figured he wouldn't play with the rest of his toys if he saw the table. We took him into the study were the table was. He just sort of looked at it and started playing with it. No reaction at all. It was like it had always been there. Oh well. I still don't think it has sunk in that it is his!

By this point Ben is getting tired already. We had a major meltdown that included throwing trains and tracks! Even though it was all fun I think it was very overwhelming for him. It will be months before he is able to play with all his new toys. And he keeps going and pulling out old ones to play with!

We had Christmas with the Eckley family at lunchtime on Christmas. Mema and Opa and Uncle Brett and Aunt Joanna came over to our house. Mema and Opa got Ben an awesome motorized golf cart that he can drive! He loves it!

He is still perfecting his driving skills but he works hard at it!

More presents!!

More Little People!

The Eckley Family Band

Ben totally buried in presents, wrapping, and bows!

We enjoyed some nice time going to the movies on Friday and seeing old friends. Then on Saturday we got up and headed down to LaFayette and Auburn to see my grandmothers and extended family. It was great to get to see everyone and spend time hanging out!

My grandmother got Ben a kitchen set. He loves it!!! He is going to make a good husband one day!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas season! We are looking forward to 2009 and all it is going to bring!

East Family Christmas

We had the East family Christmas a little early this year. Andrew and Kelly were in over the weekend from NC so we had our celebration on Monday. Christmas is whenever you make it so we had a perfect day yesterday! We played games which is our favorite thing to do. Then we ate the traditional East family dinner of lasagna! I love my mom's homemade lasagna! Then it was gift time!! Ben had so much fun opening all of his gifts. Granna & Grandaddy as well as Kelly & Andrew went way overboard! It was great. Ben loved it all! It is so much fun to get to spend time with family and celebrate.

Yep my dad does have a black eye!

Check out all the presents!

I love our stockings at my parent's house! They are so pretty!

Ben got into it all so much more than we imagined he would.

So the E initial flag was the gift of the year. We all got it for each other without knowing it. Good thing we all have the same initial.

Busy Saturday

Saturday was a really busy day for us (really the past week has been super busy for us)! We went out to celebrate Christmas with Matt's grandmother at her house in Rogersville. She is German so it is always a fun experience for me trying to understand what she says. Ben had so much fun playing at her house and checking out the river! Great-grandma got Ben a real working choo choo train for under our tree. Ben loves it! He has spent hours watching it go around and around!

Then we went over to our friends the Weller's house to celebrate Hatcher's 1st birthday! It was so much fun to see him play with his cake and open his presents. Ben had so much fun playing with his friends!

Then Ben went over and spent the night at Granna & Grandaddy's so we could go hang out with some friends! It was a great day. Very busy but great!

I love this picture. There is one of Matt about this age at this exact spot with his grandfather. It is very special. Ben loved checking out the river and throwing rocks!

4 generations of Eckleys! I love that Ben has gotten to know so many of his great-grandparents!

The boy loves trains! He has figured out how to work the remote and everything!

Eating cupcake at Hatcher's party!

Checking out the new toys with Hatcher!

Christmas Flashback Friday

Here are some pictures from last Christmas...

Santa's Village

I can't believe it is only 10 days until Christmas!! YEA!! We are getting really excited. All the fun festivities have started. Lots of parties over the weekend and a great Christmas concert. But we did the truly Christmas experience here in Huntsville on Friday and went to Santa's Village. It was an interesting experience. It was about 32 degrees outside so a little chilly to be checking it all out (and Ben wouldn't wear a hat or gloves). It was very crowded but still fun. Ben enjoyed seeing all the lights and festive things. We saw live reindeer which was neat. They had a snow machine which was fun. It was a little overwhelming for Ben at times but he did great. We had to wait in line for about 40 minutes to see Santa so that was a little rough. We didn't know how Ben would do with Santa but when we got up to him he did great. He just sort of looked at him and even gave a half smile for the camera. So not too bad! The best part was when we were waiting in line to see Santa... it was really a cramped line and we smelled something horrible. We thought for sure Ben had a dirty diaper. We were laughing and making a big deal about it. Then when we got home he didn't have a dirty diaper. So the guy in front of us had "cut some cheese" and we were going on and on about the horrible smell! Oppps!! It was rather funny! Here are some pictures: