Riley handled the tree pretty well. He wasn't very interested the first couple of days, then all of the sudden his new skill of "finding matches" got the best of him. He started pulling ornaments that "matched" off at the same time. There were 2 that were his favorites, so they were worn out by the time we took the tree down. The only other near 'mishap' we had was that he loved the ribbon I had wrapped around the tree, so he started this nasty habit of grabbing the ribbon at the bottom of the tree and pulling! OMG! Since it was at the bottom of the tree it didn't pull it over, it just moved the tree a few inches! He's STRONG like an OX! So I finally figured out I would just wrap the bottom row of ribbon back around and hide it on the backside of the tree to avoid us having to call "TIMBER"! And Mommy and Riley having to cry!! He did walk around with glitter on him for the entire month of December from playing ornament match every day though!
Once the tree was complete, Christmas started early for Riley. The 1st presents under the tree were from his Great Aunt Shireen. Obviously, she's a lot better at getting her shopping done early than Mom is! In fact, I think we received her presents before I completed the tree!! They were under the tree for at least a few days before Riley all of the sudden noticed them the first Saturday night in December while Kelly and I were sitting right there with him. Out of the blue, we looked over and he had picked up a present and pulled it out from under the tree. We were interested to see what he'd do with it so we just let him go. It took a little while and some assistance, but he got it open. The funniest thing was that he knew what it was before he opened it! He carried it over to me still wrapped and said "book", which is what he does when he wants me to read a book to him! It was a Merry Christmas book, so it was the perfect one to choose to open early! ;)
The next weekend, he did the same thing with a stuffed animal from Grandma & Grandpa Sterne. He carried it around the house wrapped for over an hour tossing it around then picking it up, he'd even put it back where he found it for a few minutes then grab it again. Then we finally had to prod him along to help him open it. The cutest thing was that he put the wrapping paper "back" in the same exact place he took the gift from once he was done opening it. Then he just went about with what he had been doing before like he never even opened a gift!
I know this could be a BAD habit to form, but I'm pretty sure he's not going to remember that I let him open presents early this year next year! And we had to see how this "opening presents" was going to go!
Here's another present we let him open early from Emily (his Nanny) and her family. He LOVES it! OMG! I mean LOVES IT! It cracks me up so much! It's an adorable little Toy Story sofa that's just his size! At first, he just opened and closed it (it's a sleeper sofa you can fold out). Then he sat on it and I pushed him around the house like it was a ride! And finally, I SWEAR (I can't make stuff this funny up!)! one day he came took the remote off the coffee table, then went and sat on his sofa and pointed it toward the TV pushing the buttons! I almost peed my pants!!! Kelly was at work, but he was TOTALLY mimicking Kelly! Kelly is Mr. TV! Riley and I can stay home all day and never turn the tv on, but as soon as Kelly walks through that door - it's like he can't function until the tv is on! I swear! There have been times when he's actually turned the tv on before he's greeted us! In my mid to late 20's, I lived without a TV for over 3 years, but I'm pretty sure Kelly would not be able to survive that! Drives me MENTAL for the tv to always be blaring in the background on videos I make of Riley, but Kelly's gotten pretty good at pausing the tv or muting it when we get the video camera out now. I think he's tired of hearing me complain about it!
My other pet peeve is a bunch of "stuff" in the background of a picture, but with an open house like ours - I've just learned to live with that. Unless I want to spend all my time "cleaning and straightening up" instead of hanging with my boys, I'm going to have to get over it! As my Mom said growing up our house is "lived in". Keeping my house spotless is a lot less important to me than spending quality time with Riley! I'm sure the background stuff will still bother me years from now when I look back at pics though! Maybe I can "photoshop" the backgrounds out in my spare time! Yeah right! What's spare time?!
Riley opening his sofa - do you see how "large" the piece of wrapping paper is he tore off! This was actually the LARGEST piece he tore off the entire time! Kelly and I had to assist or we would have been here 3 days waiting for this present to get opened!
He's thinking this is just the right size! Now I'm really like Daddy! I LOVE it!
The Sunday before Christmas we celebrated at my cousin Brandi's house with my Mom's side of the family. I already posted a video of the kids all dancing from that celebration, but here are some more photos of Riley have a BLAST with all his cousins! I can only imagine the trouble they'll get into together for years to come!
Riley saying "Gitcha Gitcha Gitcha" to Lessa Kate which is Riley speak for "I'm going to tickle, tickle tickle you like my Mommy & Daddy do me"!
Riley & Ross - Ross had a Cars sofa like Riley's Toy Story one. They had a lot of fun "horsing around".
More horsing around!
And more with the balls of course! They were the MAIN EVENT of the day!
And some more...
And more horsing around....
More ball fun!!!
And more....
And more! Look how rosy red those cheeks are from all this playing!
Kinlee never would have seen this coming, but luckily for her Riley was more likely to throw it over the back of his head than forward!
Those balls were worth their weight in GOLD for the entertainment they served this day!!
They ONLY picture we have of him "not on the move" the entire day!!! He took a very short break to open gifts.
This was the 1st Christmas in my ENTIRE life that I didn't spend Christmas Day at my PawPaw's house! For real! When I was really young before my sister was born, I even told Santa to bring my gifts to my PawPaw's house because me and my cousins would all spend the night there every Christmas Eve. Our tradition was to go driving around looking at Christmas lights with my MemMaw and PawPaw while our parents took care of business getting ready for Christmas day! ;) I totally get that NOW! ha! I handled this being the 1st Christmas I didn't go there pretty well. Things definitely change when you have your own kids, and it's important to Kelly and I that we have our own family traditions with Riley. And I don't really want one of those to be him seeing his gifts from Santa then having to pack up in the car and drive somewhere for lunch, etc. That's just not fair to him, so we've already made the decision that all Christmases will be spent at home from here on out. If any of our family wants to come here to celebrate with us, they are more than welcome!
So this inagural year, GiGi and my Granny (my Mom's Mom) came up to celebrate Christmas with us. They came up on Christmas Eve. Luckily, the left early in the day to come or they may not have made it at all! For the 1st time in my life, we had a white Christmas!! And the "blizzard" blew in on Christmas eve. They said at some points, they couldn't even see the car in front of them! Glad they made it safely!! Once they got here, Mother and I ventured back out to the grocery store to buy all the goodies for our Christmas lunch. By the time we were headed home, we were slipping and sliding! I couldn't even see the lanes on the road! I've never seen it like that here!
On Christmas Eve, Mother and I made homemade chocolate peanut butter cups just for Kelly. Anything with peanut butter is one of his FAVORITES! I told him they were one of my favs growing up, and he said they were just as good as I described! Melt in your mouth yummy!! He couldn't get over the paraffin thing though! That totally freaked him out!
This also started the string of comical mishaps we had doing our 1st Christmas lunch at our house! First, my Mom broke the lid to the slow cooker as she got it out of the cabinet. We improvised with foil though. Then my Mom & I went up to put Riley to bed, so we told Kelly to yell at us when the timer went off on the oven so we could take the cornbread out we were making for the cornbread stuffing. Well Kelly's friend Will called, so he got 'sidetracked' and forgot to tell us! The cornbread was supposed to cook 20 mins. It ended up cooking almost 40 mins by the time we came back down and saw it!! Thank GOD it wasn't totally burned! A little on the "well done" side, but not a total loss! If it had been, we wouldn't have had dressing for Christmas day because everything was closed at this point!! Crisis averted once again!!
The 3rd food mishap was when Granny accidentally added cold water to the green beans in the slow cooker the following morning before the rest of us got up- it basically broke the bottom perfectly out of the slow cooker! Luckily, we had more green beans we could cook though!
But the BIGGEST mishap of all was Granny falling during the night! She ended up looking like we had beat her by the time she went home! She told us she fell when we got up, and she had 1 bruise at the top of her head. Then when we were sitting eating lunch later, I sat across from her and noticed that her entire forehead was swollen even down between her eyes!! Kelly said he couldn't see it, and I was like she's 73 years old and she doens't have 1 wrinkle on her forehead right now! Then he could tell!
Later that day we were all watching "It's a Wonderful Life", Granny got up for something then we she walked back to the sofa I looked up and she had 2 black eyes!! It was SPREADING!! The following morning, her eyes were so swollen one of the wouldn't even close all the way!!!
She was a total sport about it though! She laughed about it as much as we all did! I never would have laughed if she hadn't started it first!! It was so bad, the following week - she took one of her sister's to the Dr, and they thought she was coming in because her ENTIRE face was black and blue!!
Now to Christmas morning! Kelly and I asked Santa if he would mind delivering almost all of Riley's gifts even from us, GiGi and PawPaw & Shelia after we got a glimpse into Riley's present opening tactics! We would have been here a week opening presents! And Riley doesn't have that much patience! Trust me!! I didn't even get one picture of ALL his presents. I think I got them all on video, but not camera.
Here was his table of "little" presents Santa delivered.
His favorite of the bunch - the classic popper of course!! He got this down pretty quickly!
What has since Christmas become his definite favorite is the Basketball goal! He LOVES it! Actually, I think he just loves to hear the crowd cheer everytime he makes a goal!! Santa delivered this from PawPaw & Shelia.
Riley Sterne with the dunk!!
Daddy, GiGi and Granny cheering him on!! He even claps for himself after he makes the basket too! Oh so cute!!
I think he may be Steve Nash though! He almost likes getting the assist by bringing the ball to you more than actually making the baskets! In the background is one of his "Santa" gifts - the Bounce, Spin and Learn Pony. We ended up returning that gift to Santa b/c even though it's supposed to be through 3+ years of age - our little man is BIG so he looked like Shaq riding that poor pony!
His other Santa gift was the Kangaroo Climber!
I think he likes it!!
Sure looks that way!
He wasn't too sure about going down the slide at 1st, but he's got it down now! Right now I have to put him up on the platform and let him sit to slide down the slide to me. He doesn't know how to climb up on the platform yet and isn't confident enough to slide without someone there to slide to. I'm sure he'll get it soon enough though!!
And of course, he wants to climb up the slide rather than slide down it!
This is a picture of the size of the piece of wrapping paper Riley would tear off and bring to me piece by piece! Now you see why Mom & Dad asked Santa for the favor of delivering other gifts too, huh?!
He did have gifts from Grandma & Grandpa Sterne and Great Aunt Shireen to open though, so Dady helped him out!
"Book" as he would say from Great Aunt Shireen. I have it on video, but he actually turned through every page of the book when he opened it.
Jungle Popup book from Great Aunt Shireen. This one will have to go on the shelf to only be read with Mom & Dad, or all the animals will no longer be living in the jungle! :)
My sweet little man on his 2nd Christmas!! OMG! We love him SOOOOOOOOOOO much!!!
Despite all our mishaps, our inagural Christmas lunch turned out PERFECT! And I made (with GiGi's help) my MemMaw's Cornbread dressing for the 1st time ever and it was perfect too!! I was so excited! That dressing is my all time FAVORITE holiday meal! Kelly's too now! Now we won't have to fight over the leftovers as much as we did before! Especially since we have to share with Riley now too b/c he LOVES it too! You should have seen the recipe my MemMaw had written, it didn't even have AMOUNTS on it! That's where my Mom came in helping fine tune the recipe and fill in the blanks!!
Then we all watch It's a Wonderful Life, then played with Riley and his toys more once he woke up from his nap. Then Kelly and I went to see Sherlock Holmes while GiGi and Granny watched Riley. Unfortunately, I literally slept through the entire movie! I think mainly b/c I could finally relax once everything was over! A successful Christmas! However, I have no idea how I would have gotten everything done if I hadn't been off since the 14th. Hopefully, my job won't be as crazy for the last 6 months of the year like it was last year and I'll be able to get stuff done earlier rather than later!!
