Christmas 2010

For Nathan, highlights this year include:

Lights

Nathan had been looking forward to Christmas since Thanksgiving. He had been asking Daddy when we could take the tree and Christmas lights. Every time we went shopping at Target, we would have to stop at the Christmas lights section. Nathan would carefully inspect each light and it's plugs. If there's a broken light bulb on any of the display lights, he would find it. We let him choose a new light to buy to add to our lights collection and he chose a little penguin. He's been dragging it from room to room, so not sure if it'll last to see next Christmas (a foot and nose has fallen off already).

Because Nathan liked lights so much, we actually paid to go see the displays at Vasona Park. He didn't enjoy that as much though because we had to stay in the car, so couldn't get close to lights. What Nathan really wanted to see was how the lights were plugged in, instead of the lights themselves.

Santa

I love how Nathan totally believes in Santa. He has asked me several times how Santa gets on the roof without a ladder, and whether we need to leave a ladder out for him. One book that we've been reading is Olivia helps with Christmas. In that book Olivia sticks her nose up the fire place looking for Santa (and ends up with a dirty snout.) She also cuts off the top of the Christmas tree to make a smaller Christmas tree, which Nathan thinks is hilarious and would laugh out loud every time he sees the page. On Christmas eve, Olivia leaves a plate of cookies and cup of milk for Santa before going to bed, and that is exactly what we did this year. Nathan even helped me right the "4 Santa" card. Instead of cookies we left a few pieces of chocolate bars instead (Nathan's idea). Later that night James drank the milk and I ate the chocolate. I intentionally left the empty wrapper on the plate for N to find.

Presents

It's always hard getting toys for N because his main interest is plugs. He got given two radios this year (one from Nana and one from Vavo) and those were big hits. We even brought a radio on our road trip to San Diego and he plugged it into every outlet in every hotel that we stayed at. James and I got him a construction toy that lights up, which both him and Evan enjoyed playing with. We also got him a real easel since he's been very into drawing lately (can sometimes draw on the doodle pro for 30 minutes at a time). He's also learning to write and often asks me to teach him how to write something. So this year he helped me make thank you cards. I took a picture of a "thank you" that he wrote and reprinted it. He was very proud of his creation and even came with me to the post office to mail them.

Road trip to Legoland

We went for a road trip to Legoland during Christmas break. The trip took 5 days total and we stayed in 3 different hotels. Nathan was super excited every time we check into a new hotel. He would look at every single outlet and start unplugging all the lamps and alarm clocks. We had to stop him after realizing some of the alarm clocks didn't have batteries in them, so he ended up resetting the time. Even days after we got back from the trip, he would still remember which hotel had which outlets. A conversation we had in the car earlier today:

N: I miss the hotels. Can we go to another hotel?

J: Why do you like hotels so much?

N: I like the sideways outlets. Two hotels we went to had sideways outlets. One behind the curtain, and one ...

J: You know we have a sideways outlet at home too, in our backyard.

N: But I want one in every room!

(I hint that maybe daddy can put one in Nathan's room)

J: If I put a sideways outlet in your room, would you sleep in it?

N: No.

Legoland itself was quite fun as well. On the first day we didn't get to do much since by the time we got familiar with the park, all the big rides had lines of 30m+, and no way Nathan can wait in a line that long. On the second day we got to the park early enough to get on any ride we wanted. Nathan's favorite was this dragon roller coaster because in his own words "it goes at an angle". He rode it 5 times in a row!

While on the road, Nathan slept a lot and also kept himself busy with the iPad (he's addicted to this Electric Box game) and Doodle Pro. He likes to have me draw the outline of a Christmas tree and he then adds lights and plugs to it.

Overall a great Christmas and New Year's break. Today was N's first day back to school and he was super excited to go back. He missed his friend Jacey and I think she missed him too.