First Christmas

James celebrated his first Christmas today. It was a great day.

We started our Christmas celebrations on Tuesday night with the Carvers. James enjoyed opening presents and playing with them. He got a Little Tikes remote control that speaks 3 languages (now maybe he'll leave the real one alone) and a phone. He also came home from daycare on Tuesday with a 3 foot tall stocking filled with presents from Ms. Lesleigh and Ms. Crystal. He got a soft football, mittens, boo-boo pack, courdoroy overalls with a firetruck on them, and pajamas.

Yesterday for Christmas Eve, we spent the day at home after running an errand to the store for some additional dinner supplies. We celebrated Christmas Eve in the O'Brien traditional way. I cooked spaghetti and meatballs using my mom's recipe. We enjoyed our evening with the Grangers, the O'Briens, and the Suiters. James enjoyed his gift from the Suiters...it was a Leap Frog Leaps. We haven't figured it out yet. All we have figured out is it works using our DVD player. Barry was able to get the batteries in it, but we will have to read the directions to figure out the rest of it.

This morning Barry and I woke up to a quiet house. Sir James slept until 8:45 A.M., so much for being up early for Santa. We ate breakfast and then opened presents. James really got a hang of the present opening if I ripped a piece of the paper for him. He even tried to eat the wrapping paper. Of course, we spoiled him rotten. Our house looks like a toy store exploded in it. He got lots of toys from Santa, clothes from mommy & daddy, as well as Grandma & Grandpa and Uncle Sean & Aunt Mara, two new sippy cups for his juice to go in, new pacifiers, a book, and a new Baby Einstein DVD. James did a lot of sleeping today. We think he is growing. This afternoon we went over to Uncle Arthur and Aunt Gwen's house to have Christmas with them. We enjoyed dinner with them and then opened presents. James got two new toys from The O'Brien clan. He really enjoyed playing with them. We enjoyed seeing Egan and Quinlin open their gifts. Egan really has a grasp on this Santa phenomenon. After opening presents the boys all played for a little while. Arthur and Barry say that Quinlin and James had a crawling contest. They claim it was a tie. Neither one of them has gotten the true grasp on crawling yet, but they're working on it.

We hope this finds you all well. I will try to get pictures uploaded tomorrow or Saturday. We filled an entire memory card and then some in the last week or so. We also hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to a New Year!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!