Christmas Vacation

Christmas night was exciting.  We all waited for Santa to arrive and, in the middle of the night, I was able to sneak this picture after Santa paid his visit:

More of the presents (Eric's pile on the left and Evan's on the right):

Evan still didn't quite "get" what Christmas morning was going to be.  He woke up and, upon hearing that Santa had come, he promptly asked to climb in our bed and watch Thomas.  This was fine with us as it gave us time to get ready for pictures/video.  Here Evan is starting to open some of his presents:

Eric seemed to care more about the tree than his presents:

Evan was most happy with all of the cars that he and Eric got from the Cars movie:

 The post-opening shot:

Just after lunch, we packed up the boys and jumped in the car to drive to NJ for the Weiss family Christmas.  The tree here was more crowded than ours at home with gifts for all 4 kids:

Eric dressed for Christmas day:

Matthew and Evan nicely sharing the Schaller family's new iPad:

A rare family photo:

We returned home from NJ late on the 26th to begin the week off of vacation with a very exciting task - potty training Evan.  We followed a 3-day method, going from diapers straight to underwear.  I think we had 9 pee-accidents by noon on the first day.  However, by the end of the third day, he was pretty much good to go for pee - including at night.  The poop, however, is another issue because it scares him.  We were able to get him to poop on the potty but only if we caught him trying to go in his undies.  I'm sure he'll get there soon enough.  Today at his first day back to daycare he had no accidents - we are so happy!  During that 3 day training, we were not supposed to leave the house. However, on the third day, we were blessed with more snow.  And you can't keep a kid out of the snow.  So here he is helping his daddy shovel:

The rest of the week went so quickly. I can't believe how quicly 2012 flew by.  We have lots of exciting events to look forward to in 2013 - looking forward to documenting the photos here in the coming year.