Have A Holly Jolly Christmas!

As soon as Stuart was done with the semester the Christmas fun began.
We wanted to have a Holly Jolly little Christmas of our own so
We delivered Christmas goodies to friends....

Technically the decorating happened before Thanksgiving

Saw the awesome Christmas lights at the park (pictures don't do it justice)

He was excited about the penguin lights since his favorite movie is "Happy Feet"

As you can see Kohen LOVED them! Most of my pictures were just of him running around checking everything out.

This is actually the park that Stuart proposed at exactly 3 years ago.
Little did we know we'd be living here and have an adorable little boy that would run around in that exact same park.

Gingerbread houses
Well ... sort of. See the picture of the ONE gingerbread house? Apparently I didn't see that side and thought there were three little ones. But when we opened it up we found out otherwise.
It worked out fine though (other than they were hard as a rock and not worth eating).
Stuart wants to start a new tradition of decorating letters for Santa but we'll let the kids vote :)
The picture with the candy-less cookies were compliments of Kohen. While Stuart and I were busy cleaning up, Kohen was busy sneaking candy off of the cookies. I don't think he cares which tradition we choose as long as there is candy involved. haha

The top right picture is mine. The middle two were Stuart's. (Just clarifying)

Christmas Morning
Kohen was great at not touching the gifts (or the tree except for a couple intentional episodes haha). But as soon as the present unwrapping began he kicked it into gear.

Side note about the blocks above: We had wanted to get Kohen blocks since he's at the age where he likes to stack and build things but I knew better than to get hard blocks that could be used to whack someone like a younger sibling further down the road. I didn't really care for small ones either even if they were soft because they would be more of a mess than stacking material. I saw online some cardboard ones that were exactly what I was looking for BUT I did not want to spend our whole budget of $30 on cardboard blocks (and not very many either). So I decided to find boxes around the house and wrap them in fun duct tape. I got three different kinds because I was having fun (nerdy) and I think it cost less than $10 bucks tops! Sweet! Except for when Kohen stood on a few. But hey, at least I didn't pay $30 on them :)

We knew we wanted to get Kohen something sport-wise since he LOVES playing soccer, catch... but went back and forth as to what. I have to admit, Kohen was a pro from the start at his new T-ball HOWEVER

..it apparently wasn't challenging enough because shortly after he began getting creative. Haha
He'd play with a tennis racquet, eyes closed, two balls, or any other ball he could find.

Stuart and I had gotten Kohen some dvds at the pawn shop for like a buck (sweet) when he was sick the week previous so we wrapped up the cases so he'd have more gifts to open. :)

Although Christmas is never the same as when you are a kid, it's a new kind of fun shopping for your kid, watching your kid open presents and of course have fun!