Christmas 2012

Well I'm a little late writing this, but I wanted to make sure I documented this past Christmas with our Cashew. This Christmas season was most memorable because Anlon is really starting to understand what we are celebrating. When asked why we celebrate Christmas, he would say "Baby Jesus was born." He asked to read "The Nativity Story" (which we bought before his first Christmas) all of the time, and has memorized most of it. He would finish almost every sentence or say the entire sentence when we got to certain parts.

 This short video isn't the best as he was super tired and not quite himself, but I thought I'd still include it.

 

Anlon enjoyed helping decorate our tree (although what he enjoyed most was taking things off!). He really liked looking at our different ornaments from over the years and hearing the stories behind each one.

One special memory from this Christmas was the Happy Birthday Jesus party that our church had. Anlon made an ornament that we'll keep forever, had lots of fun with a couple of his best buddies and enjoyed a yummy cupcake (well all of the icing :)

Another highlight was the train ride we took to the North Pole. (Florida Railroad Museum) We drove to Parrish about an hour away and went on a 30 minute train ride (complete with Christmas lights and carolers) to a winter wonderland with children's activity stations, yummy treats, and Santa Clause. We really haven't talked too much about Santa since he's not the center of our Christmas celebration. But we thought it would be fun to have Anlon meet him. He liked the bell ornament Santa gave him, but wasn't too sure about Santa.

It was a late night, so he passed out on the way back. Although he was tired a lot of the evening, he talked about the train and all that he saw for days after. 

The next morning we left to spend the weekend before Christmas with my mom and her husband Nick. It was a very special time. Anlon loves his Nana and they had a lot of quality time together. And he really enjoyed playing with "Mr. Nick". They gave him a classic Radio Flyer tricycle and he loves it!

We went to a really fun Christmas event while we were there. Anlon met the Abominable Snowman, rode a train through the woods, explored the elf village and had a blast in the children's playroom. 

The one challenging aspect of our time there was Anlon's very poor sleep. Although he had his own bedroom and everything he's used to having to sleep well (except his own bed), he struggled each night to go to sleep and stay asleep. On Christmas Eve morning, he woke up at 3 am and finally only went back to sleep for a brief time after watching one of his favorite shows on Vipul's ipad. Of course, as soon as we returned home he slept like an angel.

We headed back home in time to attend the Christmas Eve service at our church. We decided to keep Anlon in the service with us and he did great (it didn't hurt that he was exhausted). 

We continued our tradition of spending Christmas morning in our home. In fact, this year we were able to spend all of Christmas day at home. We made pancakes together, opened presents and relaxed. He loves his new train table - our gift to him.

The day after Christmas we left for a family vacation to Orlando. I never thought we'd enjoy vacationing in Orlando so much, but it really is an ideal place to travel with children since there are so many kid-friendly resorts and fun things to do. We wanted to have one more get-away while it is just the three of us. We took Anlon to Sea World for the first time and he LOVED it. It was a really fun trip, except for Anlon's poor sleep. I think we'll be more home-bound for awhile.