2nd Christmas

It's hard to believe that it's Grayson's 2nd Christmas. I feel like I keep saying, "it's hard to believe" and "it's gone so fast" lately.  Maybe that's because what I'm constantly thinking. 

It was Grayson's 2nd Christmas, but it was very different from his first.  He was much more involved and engaged, but unlike what everyone says about babies and toddlers prefering to rip the paper as opposed to playing with the toys...as usual, Grayson marches to the beat of his own drum and he preferred the toys and wanted his toys opened immediately. It was hard to get him to focus on opening the next gift. But it was definitely a lot of fun to watch his excitement as he played with his new toys.

We started the Christmas celebration (as we always do) on Christmas Eve with our Christmas Eve gift exchange, new Christmas PJs, and our make your own pizza dinner.  Grayson played Santa on Christmas Eve and I must say, he may be the cutest Santa I know.

Christmas was great as always. We had a wonderful time with Jon-Christian, Grandma Alice and Grandpa Paul in town celebrating Christmas with us. While it definitely made for a full house, it's always great to have everyone here for Christmas.

A Trip to the Botanical Gardens

It's hard to believe that there is somewhere in DC as beautiful as the Botanical Gardens that I had not yet visited, but alas it was true. I had never been to the Botanical Gardens and feel as though I've missed a treasure for years now.

At the invitation of Theresa and Joe, we made our way up to DC to enjoy the beauty of the Botanical Gardens and grab some lunch. There are no words to describe how amazing the Gardens were. There was a great train display too that all of the kids seemed fascinated by...including the big kids (Wil and Joe).

After exploring the Gardens and taking lots of pictures, we made a quick stop at the Capitol Tree before heading over to Union Station for lunch.  Now, I admit that it has been awhile since I've done a lot of driving/exploring in DC and it showed...I am completely out of practice and had trouble finding the parking garage.  We also discovered that Union Station is not very baby friendly. Elevators are well hidden and you have to take at least 3 different ones to get from the garage to the food court..seems somewhat ridiculous.

Needless to say, this was a stressful event and a bit tense between Wil and I after he decided to try to negotiate the stroller down the escalator and nearly dumped the stroller and Grayson down the entire escalator. I was not pleased...after a few choice words, we were able to recover and enjoy the rest of the day, but were especially happy to leave the city that day.

Run to Me...

Gray has been walking a few steps at a time, but primarily running. Except today...today when I picked him up from daycare...he ran across the room to me...granted it was a very wobbly run, but it was a run! It was so exciting! I'm not sure I've ever seen anything so wonderful in my entire life!

A visit with Santa

Of course we had to take Gray for his 2nd visit with Santa. He actually did pretty well. No smiles, but no screams...he was just checking out this strange man who we handed him to...he might have been wondering what he did that deserved being given away to some strange old man in a red suit...little does he know that in a few years, he'll be very excited to visit that old man.

Christmas Photos