Fun Christmas Day, Icy Christmas Night

Favorite Eli phrases from Christmas:

"I'll play with it"

"Let's open it"

"I shut it!"

He said those those things over and over... it was really cute.

A few more pictures from Christmas Eve:

Davey gave Eli a manatee stuffed animal - Eli of course loves it and had to sleep with it last night and tonight. It's cute hearing Eli try to say manatee.

My parents, Davey and Gram all spent the night at our house last night, and woke up around 8 a.m.


Below - here we are on Christmas morning opening stockings. We started around 10:15 a.m. and it was nice to have already showered and be ready for the day. I'm sure this is the last year we'll have this luxury - as Eli gets older, we will be back to opening gifts in our pjs :) We spent the next 2 1/2 hours opening presents in a relaxing way.

Eli had fun opening gifts and was very deliberate about enjoying each one.

I gave Gram a cake carrier (wrapped in the package she has on her head). My parents gave her that purple/yellow scarf from Emerson College.

Aunt Babz sent this stuffed Thomas train pillow - Eli loved carrying it around and talking to it.

This was the year of the trains - we gave Eli some Thomas trains, some Ikea trains and track, and my parents gave him a few trains too. He LOVES "choo choos" and we had fun playing with them later in the day.

Eli and my dad right before dinner

Davey and Gram

About to start dinner - we had roasted chicken, stuffing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, asparagus, and salad. We made a yummy drink to go with it (Squirt, Cran-rasberry juice, and rasberry sherbet mixed together) and it was delish! I felt like I was going to pop when it was over.

This is part of our mess of holiday cards on the radiator - Eli loves looking through them and especially enjoys pointing at the cards with photos.

Davey gave Eli this Elmo piano book - this was also the year of Elmo-related toys. We gave him a stuffed Elmo (not a talking one) and Elmo sticker book, and my parents gave him an Elmo board book. Eli loves Elmo so much! ("Ha ha!" is his name)

Later - Eli and Bumpa (my dad) reading books together

All in all, it was a great Christmas. The biggest part of Ben's present to me is he is going to paint the third bedroom this weekend (it's currently a VERY bright yellow, which I really dislike). I'm still trying to figure out what the new color is going to be.

Unfortunately, the day ended on a sour note...my family was getting ready to head home, so my dad went outside to get their van and pull it up to the door. All of the sudden we heard a yell, and Ben ran to look outside and saw that my dad had fallen. He had walked down the alley, which was basically a big sheet of ice, slipped, and hit his hip and shoulder pretty hard.

So...the night ended with a trip to the ER. My dad fractured his scapula, or shoulderblade. Luckily, his hip is fine and he didn't break his arm. He'll wear a sling and probably be in a lot of pain, but it could have been much worse.

Here's a video with some highlights from yesterday - you'll hear lots of "I'll play with it"


Eli's Christmas 2008 from Sarah on Vimeo.