The 2009 Holiday Season

So much for my New Years resolution to blog more regularly! Maybe my resolution should have been to shower at least every 48 hours! LOL. I have come to realize that Rylan totally dictates my schedule from meals, to showers, to free-time (if any), to errands and everything in between. Unfortunately all those things come before blogging on the priority list...so you'll have to settle for as often as I get a chance. :) Since my last post was from Halloween, I obviously have alot to catch up on (which is a warning that this will be a fairly long post).

All during the fall we talked about how excited we were to celebrate Rylan's 1st holiday season. Although Halloween was fun, as an 8 month old Rylan was not really able to participate in the festivities. Thanksgiving and Christmas, however, were a different story. Since Rylan has been eating table food for awhile now, he was able to eat Thanksgiving dinner with the family. He ate a little of everything, including turkey, green beans, potatoes, mac & cheese, rolls and even a little dessert. While its safe to say that half of his meal ended up in his high chair, he did a good job eating all of his food. He even fed himself most of the time! After dinner we watched the football game, took a walk, and watched Rylan take a nap on my lap (so sweet). It's always good to catch up with family!

After Thanksgiving, we started preparing for Christmas. We were eager to see Rylan's reaction to all the decorations. Rylan was in awe of the tree! He really seemed to love the lights, as well as the presents and the stockings. During the month of December, we made and effort to take Rylan to do "traditional" Christmas activities, including looking at Christmas lights, visiting Santa and singing Christmas carols. One of Rylan's favorite Christmas activities was going to "Prairie Lights" in Grand Prairie, TX. "Prairie Lights" is a drive through light display with over 4 million Christmas lights! Since we were driving super slow (like 2mph), we took Rylan out of his car seat and held him in our laps with the window rolled down. He loved it! He looked like a puppy with his tongue sticking out, lapping up the breeze. While he was a fan of the lights, he was not as kosher with Santa. He screamed, to be more exact. Maybe he'll like him a little better next year.

With so many family members in town for the Christmas holiday, we were a little stressed about how we were going to accommodate everyone as well as celebrate our own family Christmas all in one day. Yet, it turned out that there was no need to worry, as Mother Nature determined our Christmas Eve/Christmas Day plans. It started snowing on Christmas Eve around lunchtime. We had gone to lunch and were heading to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for Christmas morning breakfast (which I don't suggest doing on Christmas Eve--it was a nuthouse) when the snow really started picking up, so we headed home. As the day continued, the snow kept coming and by nightfall we had around 4 inches.

Since we live an hour from where our parents live, we decided that trying to drive to Christmas Eve service might not be the best idea. Instead, we stayed at home and lit a fire, watched SMU whoop Nevada in their bowl game, read Rylan the Christmas story, baked cookies for Santa, listened to Christmas music and went to bed at a decent hour. The next morning we awoke to the ground covered in white! It was beautiful! The first white Christmas in Dallas since before I was born, and it happened on Rylan's 1st Christmas! It was very special. I made a breakfast casserole and we sat together and opened our stockings and presents at a leisurely pace. Once the sun was out and the snow began to melt, we headed to Paul's parents house and then my parents house. Rylan was a trooper and made it through the day relatively happy, but without a nap he was pretty exhausted by dinner. We made it home around 11pm and we all crashed. It took several days to unpack, open and sort through all the presents. Half of Rylan's room was covered with Christmas goodies! We had a mountain of cardboard boxes on our fireplace for at least a week.

Now Rylan has all the toys that little boys should have. Trucks, balls, trains, you name it! It's amazing how much more active he became after he had all these toys to look at and crawl after. Once all the toys were in his room, he pulled himself up every morning to stare at them. Unfortunately, he was also teething at Christmas, so in addition to pulling up, he completely chewed up the side rails of his crib. The perfectionist side of me was a little upset, but the mom side of me is happy to have a healthy beautiful little boy that is able to chew on his crib. Some things are just more important.