Christmas Break

For about two weeks leading up to Christmas, I would ask Connor each night if he wanted to turn on the Christmas tree.  Every time he would say "YES" and take off running into the dining room.  As we would light up the tree he would say "WOW" and start reaching for the lights and decorations.  He actually did really well and never even pulled anything off of the tree and never opened any presents.  He's been fascinated with Santa, snowmen, deer, "baby Jesus" and anything related to the holiday season so it's been really fun to show him things and have Christmas decorations around the house.  AOL hosted a screening of the new Disney movie "The Princess and the Frog" as their holiday party this year.  It was great because kids were welcome and the raffle benefitted St. Jude's Children's Fund.  We took Connor and didn't expect to actually make it through the movie, but he watched about 30 minutes of it and fell asleep, so we got to stay for the whole thing.  The next evening we took a drive to see Christmas lights in Farmers Branch.  Connor enjoyed all of the "lights" and pointed out many of the characters that he recognized such as "choo-choo", "bird", and "Sa-tee".  Christmas was on a Friday this year and Brad and I both took the whole week off.  We were able to get some last minute shopping and wrapping done and spent a whole lot of time together as a family.  The weather was pretty nice (for December) on Tuesday, so we took a drive up to the Gainesville zoo.  It's a small zoo, but has quite a few exotic animals such as giraffes, zebras, a camel and bears, farm animals such as cows, horses and goats and some that aren't usually seen at a zoo such as a wolf, fox and bobcat.  There is a wooden walkway all the way around the zoo, which has a few wide open areas with picnic tables.  We had a picnic lunch overlooking the giraffes, zebras, antelope and Connor was able to run around like crazy chasing them all from side to side. 

He also had a great time feeding the goats and the elk.  Of course, he didn't want to get too close so he would hand me "food" (rocks and sticks, which I replaced with actual food) to feed the goats and there was a long feeding tube for the elk that Connor enjoyed sending pellets down.  I don't think he realized that the elk were eating the pellets at the other end, but he had a great time putting them in the hole. 

The zoo has a nice park that has swings and a castle-themed play area.  Connor enjoyed swinging, running and playing! 

Since we were leaving for Houston on the morning of Christmas Eve, I made Christmas pancakes on Wednesday morning.  They didn't turn out too bad for my first try, but I think I'll turn down the griddle a little bit next time.  :)  Later that day, Connor received a gift from Holly, the lady he stays with while we are at work, so we let him practice opening presents. 

On the morning of Christmas Eve, a blizzard was on it's way to the DFW area.  Yes...the first white Christmas since 1926.  Since we were heading to Houston, we wanted to make sure we got out before it hit, so we left early on Christmas Eve.  It would have been great to see and I've been enjoying looking at lots of pictures from friends, but we definitely didn't want to drive in it.  We got to my parent's house in the afternoon and Connor enjoyed looking at all of the "Sa-tees" and playing with a lot of my old Little People toys. 

He opened one present on Christmas Eve (our Cashion-family tradition) and then went to sleep while Santa visited Grandma and Grandpa's house.  He isn't old enough yet to understand, but that didn't stop him from appreciating what Santa left in his stocking and under the tree. 

We left Houston in the afternoon on Christmas day so we could be home for Christmas at our house that evening.  We opened a few more presents and more stockings.  Connor actually took the time to play with each of his presents instead of just ripping off the paper and moving to the next one. 

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!