Merry Christmas - 2009

Tonight we celebrated Christmas with Ricky, Stephanie & Tanek. I feel like we have been celebrating Christmas for a whole month and it has been a wonderful, fun, warm, with lots of love, laughter, friends and family. It started out when Richard, Heather and girls came for Thanksgiving. We celebrated Christmas together before they left. That was a lot of fun. Then we have had so much fun at Disney seeing all the Christmas decorations and lights, parties and get togethers with friends, the children's musical at church, and then last Sunday night our Carols, Candles and Communion and seeing Tanek sing as an angel in the 3 year old choir in church. It has just been a very very special Christmas season. Just so many happy warm memories. I hate to see it come to an end. Tonight we had our traditional Mexican dinner. Then we opened our gifts. Tanek was so excited to open this big gift. He has been watching it for the past week with anticipation of what it was. Each day this week when he opened one of his 12 days of Christmas gifts, he talked about this "big rectangle" gift that he would get to open on Christmas eve. Sharing Christmas with children is just the best. Seeing and anticipating Christmas through the eyes of a child just gives it so much more meaning.

Here he is standing in front of the gift that was taller than him. He was so excited to find out what was in it.

It is an Easel and you wouldn't necessarily think he would be that excited about it, but he really did like it. He loves working with letters and learning things and he was very excited about this.

He couldn't wait to try it out.

He is quite a fan of Handy Manny and was quite happy with a Handy Manny. Ricky thinks it is a doll (which didn't make him real happy) but it isn't a doll. It is Handy Manny and his tools. Tanek picked this gift out himself. He loves Handy Manny and calls him a lot about having him help fix something.

This gift is from Meme and Gramps and he was very happy with this. Mega blocks of the "cars" characters. He is still very much a fan of Lightning McQueen and all his buddies. He was very anxious to get home and start playing with all his toys.

He also received a dvd movie from Aunt Kim, Uncle Dan and Garrett, Chandler& Morgan. Some of his favorite people. He will enjoy watching this.

Papa opening his gifts

Ricky and Stephanie opening their gifts.

After the gifts were opened we had birthday cake for Jesus' birthday. Tanek played the Happy Birthday tune that Micky plays on top of his Christmas tree. He sang Happy Birthday to Jesus.
This year he has really been able to understand about the true meaning of Christmas and that we celebrate Jesus' birthday. It was neat to have this on top of his tree that played Happy Birthday because he would keep playing it and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus.

Standing in front of the Christmas tree.

This is the cake that Tanek and his mommy made for Jesus' birthday. Tanek picked out the cake and frosting and he talked about it all week that they were going to make a birthday cake for Jesus' birthday.

He rather liked the chocolate frosting

After dinner and dessert and all the gifts were opened, Stephanie and I took Tanek to Melrose to see the house with all the lights. It was so pretty and she got some good pictures of him there. This is the first time I have actually walked around in their yard and it was really pretty. It made my yard look like it only had a few lights in it in comparison. He enjoyed seeing all the lights. Then we came back and took some pictures of him around some of the things in my yard.
It is hard to see him right next to the nativity set.

Tanek and his mommy swinging

In front of Santa's sleigh

With Mr. & Mrs. Clause

A Happy little boy getting ready to go home and play with his new toys and get ready for the big day tomorrow when he gets to open his other gifts from his mommy and daddy. Can't wait to watch him do that. He is so happy and so much fun. It was so sweet after we were all through opening our gifts he climbed up on my lap and gave me a big hug and kiss and said "Thank you Nana, I love my gifts". Now that will melt your heart.

I have so enjoyed this whole month with all the fun and celebrations. I truly hate to see it end. It was so nice to have everything decorated before Thanksgiving so that we could have a whole month to just enjoy the whole season. It has really been a special Christmas. I feel like we really celebrated the true meaning of Christmas and it has been great.

The 12 Days of Christmas!

When my first Grand-child, Kirsten was just little I wanted to do something to make Christmas last a little longer and have a fun time of anticipation of it. I started the "12 Days of Christmas" with her. Each day for 12 days before Christmas she got to open a small inexpensive gift from us. She enjoyed it and we enjoyed knowing she was getting to do this. Before too long we had another grand-daughter and the 12 days grew into 12 x 2 days. It was fun to know that two grand-daughters were getting to open a gift everyday for 12 days before Christmas. Even though we were not close enough to watch them open their gifts we would hear about it. Now we have 4 grand-children and so now we have 12x4 gifts. It has probably been more fun for me than for them, although I think they do enjoy it too. Now I start early and try to find each of them a gift that I think they would like. These are not expensive and while they are young it is easy. Now we have a teen-ager so it takes a little more imagination to find something inexpensive for her. I am on the look out all year round to see what I can find. This year the girls were here for Thanksgiving so they got to take their gifts home instead of them having to be mailed. I love thinking about what they are opening each day and if they like it. I do get to watch Tanek open his and he is always excited about it. He looks forward to it everyday and I look forward to watching what he will choose to open. We just have 3 more gifts to open and then on December 24th he opens all his gifts from us. We give him 3 gifts because that is the number of gifts that were brought to Jesus. His parents give him 3 gifts. I like that he is learning about the gifts that were brought to Jesus too. Today after church he came over to open his gift. Here are a few pictures of him opening his gift.

Today his gift was play doh. We will have a lot of fun with that tomorrow making things out of it.
He is always happy with whatever gift he gets. This Chrismtas season has been so good. We got to enjoy having our family here from Maryland for Thanksgiving and we celebrated Christmas with them then and having a 3 year old around everyday has really made Christmas so special. Seeing Christmas through the eyes of a child really makes it special. Tonight he will be an angel and sing in our Christmas service. He hs been practicing his songs and is excited about it. I can't wait to see him. Christmas is such a special time of year. I love everything about it. Especially the real reason for the season which is the birth of our Lord and Savior. So Merry CHRISTmas everyone. I hope you and all your family have a wonderul day and the whole season. I am SO thankful that God gave us His salvation and next to that family especially Grand-children. How Blesed we are.

Hotels at Disney

We stayed at "All Star Movies" this time. We were in the Dalmatian side and they had so many cute decorations. Tanek loves the Dalmatians and we have just recently watched all of their movies, so this worked out really well.

We went to the Wilderness Lodge and that is really a neat place. Very pricey but very nice. They had really neat decorations and the outside was so pretty. It looks like a very big mountain lodge. They even have a geyser that we saw go off. Their decorations were very rustic.In front of the geyser

Tanek walking across the bridge

A very large Christmas tree in the lodge

The geyser erupting

Tanek and the totum pole

Then a ride across the lake to the Grand Floridian

This place is beautiful and very elegant

They have a large Gingerbread house.

The most beautiful lobby and Christmas tree

More Christmas at Disney

These two pictures of Tanek were taken at Hollywood studio's. He is looking at the lights and then the snow started falling. You can't see it in the pictures but there was just a light falling of snowflakes. So pretty.
He was trying to catch the snowflakes.

This is some of the decorations at the Magic Kingdom. It was so pretty all lit up.

Cinderella's castle. The fireworks. So many ways to view the castle. Covered in lights it looked like diamonds all over it. It changed to so many pretty colors. It is probably my favorite place on the Disney grounds to look at. I love that castle. Day or night it is just beautiful.