Have a good holly jolly Christmas

Shepard loved Christmas music this year. Particularly the instrumental "Sleigh Bells" remixed with "Santa Claus' Party" from the Elf soundtrack and "Holly Jolly Christmas." He kept asking why are they saying "Holly Jolly," and all I could come up with was "it means really good." So he sings it "Have a good holly jolly Christmas" now.
The WHYs are killing us. And fascinating. He analyzes EVERYTHING. From pictures in storybooks, "Why is the man driving that truck?" to weather "Why are the clouds smoky?"...to everything. It's non-stop. I'm doing my darndest to answer all of them patiently and with good age-appropriate facts. However, when he asks my why his pee pee has an "egg," I defer to the Husband.
I digress.
Christmas was mostly lovely. After a whirlwind few weeks leading up to the actual vacation (oh Lord, why was it so crazy!?), we were blessed to have a long span of days together with family. We even got our Illinois family for Christmas this year!!! Then, Shepard got a little virus just in time for Christmas Eve, Day and part of the 26th. He was barely sick all year, then got wiped out for the biggest 48 hour timeframe. Sigh.

Here's a photo recap.

Lego table!

Capturing both of us smiling with eyes open is like getting Bigfoot on film.

More legos

Grandma assists with present-opening

Christmas Day. Feeling ok enough to open a few gifts

Yay for presents!

Books with steering wheels!

Illinois family at Grandma's house

Gigi and Pops sort out the train situation

"Kindergarten toys!" from Harry and Suzette

All the blondies...

It seemed that the pile of presents was never-ending.

Melissa and I doing a selfie...for two. With elfie.

Go Panthers!

Look at our cool helmets!

Gridiron Cousins

All the Jones boys with all the kids

Three. The Movie.

It's epic-lengthed. Seriously. Way too long, but time is moving along so quickly that I don't want to skip anything and forget it. So, if you have 15 minutes to watch the sweetest little guy on the planet, here's your chance.

Can I have some "catch-up" with that?

Between my video camera being stuffed in a sofa and an over-full schedule of late, I've been remiss at posting some of Tidbit's videos. I'll start catching up now. I mean, you don't mind having Christmas in February, do you?

Here's Shepard with a Christmas gift, JINGLE the dog. Jingle has an accompanying storybook and iPad app, and responds when you read certain phrases with barks and such.

Thanks Aidan and Melissa!

Holiday Wrap-up, Part Two

(I have been "writing" this one for a solid week and a half. It's finally going up!)


After 8 straight days of little man feeling poorly, not even wanting a bath, barely eating goldfish and turning down ICE CREAM...he finally took a turn toward healthy. As parents, we were struggling mightily when our normally chatty toddler was just pointing and crying. We had tried every food that he loves--Bojangle's mac n cheese, Chick-fil-A nuggets, yogurt, bananas, applesauce, popsicles, ice cream, etc. I think he was finally ready to eat by Thursday though, and Jerod went to the Chinese place we frequent to pick up some "Chinese noodles" (aka Mai Fun noodles) for lunch. Kiddo scarfed them down. Mommy and Daddy jumped for joy. No sooner had he eaten a plate-ful than Gigi, Pops, Aunt Suzee and Uncle Harry arrived. Yippeeeee!

Gigi and Pops were able to score a great deal on a TRUCK for Shepard. Here is Uncle Harry, Gigi and Daddy figuring it out the night before...on the kitchen counter:

Pops is cheering them on from the sidelines.

Here he is seeing and trying it for the first time:




He wasn't 100% sure about the sound and thrust of the thing. He has sat in it a few more times. We're just going to let him warm up to it. I'm sure once he gets the hang of it, we won't be able to keep him indoors!

Holiday Wrap-up, Part One

We were blessed with a glorious two weeks off. Based on several doctor's opinions, we also chose to get Shepard's tonsils out. Ugh.

He wanted to nap in the den on the floor...sweet little thing.

 

Bless his little heart, he most likely caught some kind of "bug" at the same time as the surgery. Without going through a play-by-play, we had a full eight days of Christmas that involved forced medicine (every trick known to man or beast), begging him to eat/drink, a late-night/early-morning trip to the children's ER in Charlotte, begging him to eat or drink some more, fevers, worry, prayer...and Christmas gifts.

That about sums up our vacation.

Nap close-up

We were able to get down to Greenville for the Jones family Christmas, and seeing Grandma, the cousins and the gang did seem to cheer him up.

I think I have some pretty sweet videos of the kiddos opening gifts, but my video camera is currently MIA.

Grandma cuddles

He got some amazing gifts and seems to still like all of them. He hasn't quite taken to the Mr. Potato Head like I thought he would, but perhaps he just needs more eye and funny mouth options.

We were at Grandma's for Christmas morning, so his mommy-and-daddy gifts were ready. By this point, he had "gotten" the idea of ripping open the paper, and was ready to unwrap everything he saw.

He ate a cake pop! We were just excited he ate something.

"My own computer!"

Christmas morning cartoons

"My school bus!"

"Let's have a picnic!" (I was hoping that the plastic food would awaken his hunger...)

Chutes and Ladders!

All this present-opening has made me sleepy.

Holly Jolly

I used to wonder why my friends with kids always sent pictures of just their kids on the Christmas card. Now I know. Between the ages of 18 months and 3 ish, it's really, really hard to get a good picture of everyone together. And by hard, I mean near-impossible. It's not that I need everyone perfect and smiling, I just need HIM to be remotely still for more than 10 seconds.
So, there might not be official cards this year.

A few cute holiday pictures might have to suffice this season! We'll see.

Checking out the Rock Hill Christmas parade!

Pops gives Shepard a lift for a great view.

Watching the lights and people go by!

Decorating his own little tree!

Great job, Shepard!

Look Mommy!!! STOCKINGS!!!!!!

Hard at work at Mommy's desk.

I have no idea what he's thinking, but this is this year's official "Santa" picture. But I will say this look pretty much sums up his personality...curious, a little suspect of anything new, but still interested enough to give it a whirl.