Christmas with the Relatives

Christmas Eve we went to my parent's house, Christmas Day we went to my Grandma's house. We opened our gifts at home after my Grandma's house, but that's a different post (hopefully tomorrow) due to the number of cute pics I have. ;) 

Dawson was very excited to go to Grandma's house and to see his Auntie. He didn't realize we were there to open the gifts. I told him we were going for Christmas, but since we've been talking about Christmas all month and he doesn't understand the concept of days yet, he just didn't get it. So we had supper and we started in on the gift opening. I told Dawson it was time to open presents and he said no, he just wanted to play on Grandma's computer. So we started with other people, hoping he'd see what we were up to and get in the mood for it. He did finally come over and open his and enjoyed it.

Gabriel, with the help of my sister, opened his Vtech Helicopter. He loves it!

 I think he was most excited about the huge box and the idea of climbing on it. Dawson claimed this shopping cart as soon as my brother assembled it! Gabriel is still a bit short for it and it's a little tippy, but I'm sure he'll love it once he's tall enough. This morning he was wanting to play with it.

 Dawson got an echo michrophone.

 I couldn't get him to hold still, but this was a Cars 2 book for the Tag reading system.

 Opening box from Grandma

  Leap School Reading Game for the Explorer (which he hadn't opened yet)

 A puppy! This one walks and barks like a really hyper thing. Both boys love it. Dawson likes making it walk off the edge of the table and Gabriel had tons of giggles everytime it barked at him.

 Gabriel found his auntie's present and decided to climb on it. My dad does many wood projects, so there's always fun things to climb on.

 True to an almost 1 year old, he found the bow more interesting than his toy for a while. :)

 Someone found it amusing to tie the puppy to Gabriel's pants, so he crawled away and the puppy followed and barked.

 Then he had to stop and see what the barking is about. He did it a few times and was really having fun with the puppy. This isn't a gift, just one of Grandma's toys. Right after this he crawled over to the stairs and climbed up 3 steps. He hasn't gotten the opportunity to try out steps before. He really had no problem at all, I'm sure he would've kept going had there not been a person sitting in the way. He's really on the move these days!

 After gifts were all opened, my brothers played the Wii for a bit and Dawson had fun watching. They sure make Dawson look short! Matthew is slightly over 6'4.

 Christmas Day! We got to my Grandma's house and Dawson was happy to be there. I was going to get a picture of the tree and Dawson jumped in front of me. I told him to say cheese and he did this instead. I love seeing him so excited! Especially since earlier before lunch he wasn't doing so well. This was our first time to her house without Tyler and he realized he had nobody to play with and do his usual routine things with, so he had a meltdown and was upstairs sobbing. I finally got him to calm down with some cuddles and he said he's sad. It took him a while and he decided he wasn't hungry after that, but he did finally get excited when it came time for presents.

 Gabriel opening his. He loves the paper. It is (of course) the best part about presents at this age!

 It's yummy too, he was quite bummed when I wouldn't let him eat it all. He did however eat 2 small pieces of cake. He didn't even let me break them up before he attacked and scarfed his first piece down. He's getting quite good at handling food himself.

 Curious George coloring book! He recently started liking that show, thanks to the pbskids website.

 Dawson was posing for me on the stairs. The first one didn't work out, it was blurry. He came to see his picture like he always does and I told him it didn't work and to go back and try again. He did! It's so nice having him a bit more cooperative these days. I've gotten many blurry pics over the last couple years!

 Gabriel was so happy and cute pretty much all day. He really likes having extra people around.

What we brought home from my Grandma's. I do this mostly so I can look back and remember what came from where. :)  I got the picture collage frame. Dan got chocolate and Transformers. Dawson got Toy Story, coloring book, airplane and zebra. Gabriel got a mirror bug toy, 2 pairs of socks and 2 jars of puffs.

Our gifts from my parent's house. We did a sibling exchange of just 1 person each this year. Dan got Fast & Furious 3 & 4, the Firefly series and Serenity, which is the related movie. Never seen the series, but they say it's good. I got a food processor, nail polish dryer with polish, fuzzy socks, t-shirt and bath/body set.