christmas in temple

we headed to temple thursday morning for the o'neal family christmas festivities. most of thursday was spent hanging around the house, wrapping a few last minute gifts and doing some christmas cooking and baking. grant and lance were responsible for a few last minute wal-mart runs and grant decided tanner needed an early christmas present and came home with this (last minute shopping for grant=early christmas for tanner so grant doesn't have to wrap it!). 

he loves his 4 wheeler...knows where all the buttons are to make it make noise and his feet are almost touching the ground...i'm sure he'll be riding laps around the house all by himself in no time!

grammy had also found a santa suit for tman-i have to say he made a pretty cute santa (even though he refused to wear the hat! every time we put it on him, he'd immediately pull it off. the few pictures we did get with the hat on were because he forgot about the hat for 10 seconds.)

santa tanner checking out the tree and the presents (and yes, all but like 3 or 4 of those presents were for him...can you say spoiled?!?!) and then sticking his tongue out at me as if to say-haha no way am i wearing that santa hat!

tanner got another early christmas present when ipop came home from work thursday night. ms. poole (one of his patients who LOVES him) had been by the office...as she does every christmas...and had sent gifts-lots and lots of gifts. you never know what ms. poole might send, but this year she sent ipop home with great gifts for t-man...a blanket, 2 stuffed animals, and the best part-3 different v-tech toys that he loves...and he was excited to have some new toys to play with at grammy's. he especially loves the steering wheel that makes all kinds of fun car sounds!

thursday night was a rough night (little did we know it was just the beginning of rough nights) for tanner. he was just worn out from all the christmas excitement and couldn't sleep. he woke up at 10 for a party in his pack n play and after rocking, singing, bouncing, swaying, etc for 2 hours, we finally got him down for the night around midnight. let's just say his 5:30 wake up call was a little too early the next morning!

christmas eve started with lance and ipop going on a jog...and then crazy lance decided he'd jump in the pool with ipop (ipop does this every morning...lance on the other hand does not!). as you can see, it was rather cold...

one of the MANY attempts at a family photo before the christmas eve service...

aunt taylor and uncle brian reading the christmas story to tanner

after the christmas eve service we came home and put tanner to bed. he decided he was missing all the fun and decided he needed to wake up at 8 for the party. he would not go back to sleep. we decided we'd try the whole entire bedtime routine again...about 10 pm that night tanner was busy playing and splashing in the bath. does this kid look tired to you?!?!? we even got him a second bathtub basketball set (gigi and pops had given him) for temple he loved it so much!

he finally went back to sleep...only to wake up around 5:45 the next morning! ugh! clearly the christmas excitement had gotten to him! i tried to tell him santa preferred bringing presents to little boys who SLEEP...if you don't sleep, santa can't come!

since tanner woke up so early, we ended up waiting to open presents until after tanner's morning nap...so santa ended up coming and filling everyone's stocking during nap time. santa generously filled the stockings with lots of fun presents to open and instead of us exchanging gifts with each other, we shopped for a santa pal family in temple. tanner got to shop for a little boy that was the exact same age as him...they even shared a birthday! tanner picked out a few cute outfits and then some blocks, a toy car, diapers, wipes and a fire truck (just like his ice cream truck) to give to ivan. we had lots of fun shopping and wrapping them up for him!

 

tanner must have been a REALLY good boy this year because santa and grammy and ipop were a little over the top! tanner quickly caught on to the idea of opening...tearing paper is FUN!

 a fun toy that spins and lights up (and of course says for ages 5+)...grammy thinks tman is advanced! and a new bib

  busy unwrapping...

and playing after grant put it all together (santa forgot to pre-assemble it!)

 opening a present from taylor and brian

 this is so much FUN! i love christmas!

 christmas lunch with family and friends...

and a friendly game of gestures (notice tanner snuggled up with grammy...he was EXHAUSTED but refused to nap!)

we got tanner to bed extra early since he was just exhausted from all the fun of christmas day...but it still didn't work in helping him sleep. he was back up, crying at 10 pm...and i was near tears as well! so we loaded up the car (thanks to grammy holding tanner and me, lance, ipop, taylor and brian throwing everything into bags and into the back of the car) and headed back home to dallas around 10:45 christmas night. yes, i left crying...i was exhausted from tanner not sleeping and of course my idea of christmas wasn't quickly packing up the car and rushing to leave christmas night. thankfully he slept the whole way home (he was asleep before we even hit I-35) and went right to sleep when we got home around 1:15 am. and of course he was up ready to play at 5:30 the next morning! it took us all several days to get back on schedule and caught up on sleep. i think the kid just likes his own house and his room with his crib!

on the flip side, it was nice to have a day or two with lance home so we could take down christmas decorations, start getting ready for tanner's birthday party (again, having a birthday so close to christmas...what was i thinking...bad planning!!!), and get shelves in an attempt to somewhat organize the christmas aftermath in the play room.

christmas was so much fun this year experiencing it with tanner...so much more fun with a little kid! i can't wait til next year!

christmas round 2

we headed back to rockwall sunday morning to celebrate with grandma and grandpa and the rest of the hutson family. let's just say this child is well loved and was overly blessed with lots of fun things!

opening goodies from grandma and grandpa with daddy

 a football!

 a cool tractor book from betsy...the wheels turn and he loves it!

 more wrapping paper to tear into!

 bath toys!

 tanner was pretty wiped out after the full weekend. we had been saving chris and kristin's present to open with them that afternoon, but tanner was just done. so we took it home and i had it waiting for him the next morning. you think he was excited?!?! what a fun thing to discover first thing in the morning!

and that concludes round 1 and round 2 (well really it was 3 rounds but i'll have to add pictures from saturday morning when he opened his fun presents from gigi and pops once i get them from gigi since i had no camera)!

christmas round 1

man, it's been a busy last few weeks...and it's not slowing down until after tanner's first birthday (can't hardly believe it's almost here!). yes this week i've continued kicking myself for having a baby so close to christmas...i told myself never, never, never...and now here i am the week after christmas scrambling to put his party together (that's a whole other post!). why did i do this to poor tanner (and to me-again, my mom always made this look easy-well she really makes most everything about being a mom look easy, and let me tell you friends...it.is.not!). ok, enough side track...got to blog about christmas before the birthday!

it all started thursday the 16th (well really thursday night has nothing to do with a christmas celebration but i have to blog about it before i forget). tanner went to bed as normal but around 8:30 he woke up crying which is fairly uncommon. usually if this happens he'll cry for a minute and go right back to sleep. well the crying went on for a little bit and then i heard a "weird noise" from his room. i had a feeling i knew what the "weird noise" was...the ever-dreaded throw up, but either way, it was time for the little man to be checked on. and yes, my mommy instinct was correct...the tman had his first tummy bug and had puked in his crib. what do i do-immediately call for back up! so lance deals with the bed while i snuggle with the little guy, who proceeds to puke all over me 2 times. i think this means i am officially in the mom club now. silly us, think he's done, so i run to shower while lance gives tanner his second bath of the night and get him in his third pair of pjs for the night. well tman wasn't well quite yet and puke 2 more times...once on lance (who i was very proud of...he actually did less gagging with the puke than he does with the dirty diapers!). but by 10:30 the puking was over...thankfully!!...and he went back to bed. he was pretty wiped out the next day, but that was ok...we had PLENTY of laundry to do (oh yes, i think i went through 3 pairs of pajamas and tanner had managed to go through every pair he owns...not to mention the towels, sheets and burp rags) to keep us busy at home!

ok so really now on to christmas! thankfully the tummy bug passed quickly and we were able to head out to rockwall friday night for christmas with lance's parents and chris and kristin. tanner ended up crashing really before the fun began so i don't have any pictures from that night...or the next morning when he opened his presents because genius me left our memory card in the chip reader at HOME instead of in the camera. oops! i realized the next afternoon i had the point and shoot in the diaper bag...major save there! we woke up saturday morning and headed to arkansas to celebrate christmas with granddaddy.

tanner got a drum full of other fun instruments...he's loving beating on the drum and shaking the egg shakers!

 he quickly caught on to the idea of unwrapping his gifts!

 i was excited about aunt regina's gift...had been wanting to get something kid-friendly for the kitchen...something to occupy the kiddo while i try to cook dinner. of course i thought maybe this would prevent all of the dish towels from being strung across the kitchen floor since he'd be so busy playing with the fridge magnets. wishful thinking on my part (the towels are still all over the floor), but he does love playing with the magnets too!

 a fun helicopter from aunt connie and cole!

 granddaddy unwrapping his book from tanner

 tman chillaxin in granddaddy's chair...

 giving audrey some kisses...she's a trooper for loving the slobbery sugars!

that wraps up round 1...round 2 coming up next!

Please have snow and mistletoe...and presents under the tree

well i can't really control the snow part but i do love having all the presents wrapped and under the tree...makes me feel like my christmas decorations are complete! yesterday i worked on wrapping a few presents during nap time and when tanner woke up he decided he wanted to wrap some too.

this is FUN!

and i'm done! i'll let you finish up mom!

taking the ribbon with him!

our tree with all it's presents ready to go!

and apparently tanner worked on wrapping last night while i was at a fun ornament exchange party...i came home and found 2 new presents under the tree...tanner might have had a little help from his daddy. but i have to say i was pretty impressed...lance has some pretty good wrapping skills (and he must think i might try to peek...the present is WELL taped!)

and even a birthday present for me! and i bought this green paper specifically thinking it could be both christmas and birthday paper...red bow for christmas, white or pink or whatever color for birthdays throughout the year! way to go lance for not wrapping my birthday present in the red paper!

and in other news...we took tanner to visit santa this weekend (yes i know he had already met him, but i wasn't there...so he got to visit with him again!). he did good...then turned around and was fascinated by santa's beard...and then got a little uncertain, but by that point we'd already gotten a good pic! we will definitely be visiting this santa again...they made it SO easy! you "get in line" online-just give them your cell phone number and they text you an approx. wait time. then they keep you updated via text. so we hung out at home, got a text that it was our turn (we weren't quite ready...but it's great-you can text them back and tell them you need more time...even specify how much more time you need!). as we pulled into the parking lot, we got a text saying santa was ready for us so we walked right up...no waiting! LOVE it...so glad santa is turning high tech!

 

and just in case there was ever a question who tanner looks like...um it's totally uncle grant!

(notice the beard...yup, there's the red that everyone always asks about!)