We had a great time this Christmas!
We had fun with Papa putting up the tree...
Beginning the opening of the presents...
The book _Where the Wild Things Are_ from Aunt Colleen and Uncle Eric! I love educational gifts! (We've read it about 10 times since then... They both love this one because there are all kinds of voices I can do when I read it...)
We decided we felt bad that Rowan was missing out on the action. We decided to go wake him up!
Rowan was so funny. We ususally had a gate around the tree to keep him from pulling it over and eating the glass bulbs, but we took it down to put the presents around the tree. He didn't care about the presents. He was really excited that he could finally touch the pretty lights! :)
He was having so much fun with his hammer! Cute.
Rowan loved looking at his tigger wrapping paper. He kept walking around going, "woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" tigger-style! He was a little sad about tearing the paper... :)
Another thing we did was get an aquarium and 4 fish from Grandpa Darrell and Grandma Mary! 
Their names are as follows:
Ingrid had a list she sent to Santa this year. Here it was:
1. A yo-yo. (She saw an episode of Arthur where they were playing with one, and she decided she needed one!)
2. puppets from the Baby Einstein DVD (she had a DVD from when she was really tiny, and we recently got it out for Rowan. There's a part with puppets, and she wanted those puppets badly!)
3. a princess skirt to match her "tippy" shoes (she has these dress-up shoes that have heels on them--she calls them "tippy" shoes because her feet tip up in them...)
We were so excited that Santa was able to find all of those things!
Santa found the "yo-yo ball" that comes back up automatically and the puppets both on Ebay! The princess skirt I found through Kindermusik. It came with a book & CD about a little girl, Tressa, who has a baby brother and she saves the day after "taming" her teething baby brother with her magic wand. Perfect for her. Of course, she got all kinds of other things.
Rowan just liked looking at the Winnie the Pooh/Tigger wrapping paper. He opened ONE present--an Elmo in a boat for the bathtub--and didn't care about the rest! I finally got him to open a fire truck that lights up and rolls by itself, and then he played with those two things. The other present he liked was this toddler hammer/nail set where the nails are actually worms that pop up and hide when you hit them with the hammer. We had to wake him up!
So, anyway, here's a picture journal of our Christmas, starting with the early December decking of the halls:
We had fun with Papa putting up the tree...
Mama and Ingrid put up the Nativity scene...without Baby Jesus for now...and we recounted the Christmas story...
Here's Ingrid with our Christmas Stockings. She's a literal little girl...apparently. :)
Here's Ingrid putting up the Baby Jesus in our Nativity scene--he wasn't born till Christmas morning! :) We did this before we opened any presents. Jesus was our best gift!
Beginning the opening of the presents...The book _Where the Wild Things Are_ from Aunt Colleen and Uncle Eric! I love educational gifts! (We've read it about 10 times since then... They both love this one because there are all kinds of voices I can do when I read it...)We decided we felt bad that Rowan was missing out on the action. We decided to go wake him up!Rowan was so funny. We ususally had a gate around the tree to keep him from pulling it over and eating the glass bulbs, but we took it down to put the presents around the tree. He didn't care about the presents. He was really excited that he could finally touch the pretty lights! :) Ingrid got one of her puppets she wanted!
He was having so much fun with his hammer! Cute. Rowan loved looking at his tigger wrapping paper. He kept walking around going, "woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" tigger-style! He was a little sad about tearing the paper... :)Rowan and his Elmo boat
Another thing we did was get an aquarium and 4 fish from Grandpa Darrell and Grandma Mary! Their names are as follows:Ingrid's fish is named "Bobby" (Named after her 2 imaginary friends, Bobby Sewell and Bobby Nervous...Don't ask. We don't know...)
Rowan's fish is named "Ish"
Andrew's fish is named "Bengal" (Ingrid can't remember this one, so she re-named it "Spikes". Not sure why...)
Mine is named "Anna Karenina"
Thanks, Grandpa Darrell and Grandma Mary! It makes us think about feeding fish off your dock in Minnesota this past summer!
So, the day after Christmas, Andrew said goodbye to the kids and I took him to Washington, DC to the airport to catch an airplane to Chicago and then to New Delhi, India! He's going to meet his friend Ram who co-founded the ArTRAN (http://www.autismtheatre.org/) network. Ram visited us this past Spring to present on his work with theatre and autism, and now Andrew is visiting him there and giving trainings and presentations on his work with kids with autism here.
He left home Thursday evening and just got to Bangalore this morning! LONG trip and 3 nights in different airports and a 10 hour delay from New Delhi to Bangalore... But I just heard from him today that he was fine--just exhausted. Internet is finicky there, and he doesn't have his laptop, so we're all waiting on him to send pictures when he can figure out how... He said he's got a little culture shock right now, but reading between the lines, he's anticipating a real broadening of his worldview and expecting the trip to change him for the better. Not sure how it couldn't! :)
If you would like to follow his trip (somehow or other, we'll figure out how to do this...), visit his blogspot at http://indiaautism.blogspot.com/ ! Prayers for all would be appreciated... He'll be back January 15th! We miss him, but we're so proud of him for taking this leap and being brave enough to do this. Can't wait to see what he's seeing!!!
Next: NEW YEAR'S EVE!!! Stay tuned for a Rowan/Isaac photo shoot with their new matching Christmas outfits... :)
No comments:
Post a Comment