I am the baby that says "Neh!"

**Warning**
Extra long post dealing mostly with baby's first Christmas follows!



Whew! What a weekend!

TC was off on Friday (and doesn't have to go back to work until January 2nd...there are several government holidays that they don't get so they can get a whole week at Christmas!) and his parents got here that afternoon. We had a great time visiting and had to gasp at the number of gifts they unloaded. But then we remembered that there were going to be six adults (the 15 year old counts as an adult, right?) and X-man. So, we guessed that wasn't too bad. We had asked them to not go crazy with the gifts for X-man...for what it was worth.

After TC's parents unloaded the car, they said that they had something from ^starshine. I had special asked for an ornament from her for X-man's first Christmas ornament because I thought a handmade one (even from someone else's hand) would be way better than one from the store.

She asked me what design I wanted and I had a pretty good idea. When I was growing up, my sister and I had the same favorite ornament. It's a 1976 Hallmark Spinning Santa ornament. It's cheapo plastic that looks like old cracked wood and the santa in the middle spins around. I wanted to find one on the 'bay and buy it, but for the beginning bid prices, I decided against that. I did send ^starshine a link to a picture and she said she would replicate it as best she could.

I couldn't find a picture of it so you could compare the two, but maybe my sis will tell you what a fabulous job she did...



Of course, this doesn't look exactly like the ornament of my childhood. I think that it might even be better than that one. I cried when I opened it because I know how much heart ^starshine puts into her art and the fact that she had made something so special for X-man based on something that I found so special was quite touching.

Friday night TC's sister and niece got here (and brought another trunk full of presents) and after they rested a bit (X-man was already asleep) we had birthday cake to celebrate several birthdays: TC's dad was that day, TC's is Thursday and mine was at the beginning of December.

TC got a Trivial Pursuit: Totally 80's game so we played that before we went to bed. It was really hard! Much harder than I was thinking it was going to be.

Saturday was just loafing around the house. TC and his dad did run to County Line to pick up our dinner that we'd be having on Christmas. And TC's niece and I baked cookies for Santa. X-man helped by chewing on one of his spoons while we baked.

Sunday we went to church and that added some drama to the day. TC and I had to be there early since the jazz band was playing so we decided to take X-man's breakfast (fruit and oatmeal) to church with us and TC's parents would feed X-man and then take him to the nursery.

Only mamma forgot to actually put the breakfast baggie in the diaper bag. X-man had a meltdown in the nursery because he was hungry (they didn't think to try the bottle since it was 9:00 and he usually doesn't take a bottle until 10:30 or 11:00). They paged TC and since X-man was fussing, he was snotty. The head of the nursery assumed he had a cold and said he couldn't stay there. So, X-man got to sit in church with TC's family and he did a really good job. Thankfully he didn't seemed too traumatized so I stopped worrying about causing him so much stress.

Sunday night we got to go to the Christmas Eve service at our church. TC and I have been going there for 8 years and had never been to a Christmas Eve service. We were always at his parents' house our my parents' house. And it was our pastor's last Sunday before he retires. It was a really special night.

Monday morning was the opening of presents and boy were there presents...



That fun walker/ride toy is for X-man from Santa.

X-man and TC's niece ended up with the most loot. I think my favorite gift of X-man's is this great squishy firetruck. The engine noises and sirens are not annoying at all, and actually pretty quiet.

X-man's favorite toy is the lid from a gift from ASH's mom. He's been licking that cardboard lid since "he" opened the present.

He wasn't much into opening the presents, but if we could get some paper torn for him, he'd pull the paper off to eat it. Nice.

Monday night, ASH and her sister came over to visit. We enjoyed visiting with them and X-man even played with them for a little bit. ASH brought us an awesome present...Cranium Pop 5. This game is great! I've never played any of the Cranium games, but I'm assuming it's pretty similar in the "how to play" as the other ones. It's a pictionary-meets-charades-meets-sculpting kind of game. I was laughing so hard I was crying when TC used the purple playdoh to sculpt a fanny pack. He thought it was bad that he was sculpting a butt, I thought it was bad that I guessed it was a butt!

And then I had to go and guess that TC was charading "I have no pecs on my chest." It was supposed to be "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus."

Everyone went home this morning and now the house is quiet and our living room is overrun with toys. From where I'm sitting I see the firetruck, a drum, a top, a bug pull toy, and phone pull toy and a Thomas the Train book.

He did learn to pull up to his feet in the last two days. He's getting really good at it, too! And he's started saying "neh neh neh neh" which just cracks me up!

I think X-man enjoyed his first Christmas and next weekend he gets to spend his first New Year's with my parents. And in just a short time after that will be X-man's first birthday.

Am I ready for that?