Jonah's second Christmas

I wish I could relive yesterday over and over again. Our little Christmas yesterday morning with the three of us was so perfect, and I hate that I can never have back the Christmas when Jonah was 18 months old. I hope I remember how sweet he was, how excited he was over the tiniest of presents, and how he'd sweetly say a long, drawn-out "yea!" after every gift he opened. At first, it was hard to get him to come over to the tree to see what Santa left him. He had an Elmo doll sticking out of his stocking, and he did not like that! He is still scared of that Elmo. We'll try to inconspicuously throw it in with toys he's playing with, and he just throws it away! It'll grow on him. He always liked "Elmo-mo," as he calls it. But something about that one creeps him out for sure. But he loved his big-boy table and chairs that Santa brought him, and he insists on sitting at it a lot.

We went over to my parents' house at lunchtime yesterday and celebrated with my parents, and Blake and Amy and Nathan and Maggie. It has been so much fun watching Jonah with his cousins. He wants to do everything Nathan is doing! If Nathan's playing cowboys, Jonah is wearing his cowboy hat. If Nathan's pretending to be a lion, Jonah is on the floor, growling right along with him. And he and Maggie are finally paying attention to each other....although they are always very suspicious that the other one is going to take away the toy they are playing with, so they remain guarded around each other. But Jonah was showing them and everybody lots of love all day long, hugging and kissing. I enjoyed it quite a bit! He usually doesn't take time out of his busy schedule of playing to be that affectionate. He must just be very grateful for his presents! =)

We had a Christmas Eve service on Sunday morning that we all went to...it was "family-friendly", whatever that means. The three kids all went into the service with us, and Maggie and Jonah didn't last long at all. We were THAT family....the one with the crying kids that didn't want to sit still at all. We were on the second-to-last row, but the people on the row behind us were laughing at us the entire time. It was exhausting. Thankfully, grandparents eventually took them out and entertained them in the lobby. My aunt Joy asked us if we wanted to go with them to the "family friendly" service they were attending that night, and we quickly responded that we would not be attempting that again!