The McCleese Adventures: Catching Up

Wow...it's been a long time since I've blogged. Let's catch up a little bit. Of course we have to start with all things Christmas. It was a WILD one this year...we pretty much saw it coming since we have a 2 year old and five year old. Lots of fun! I'll start with some pics from going to see the Square in Canton all "dressed up" for Christmas. We went with Aunt Nora and my cousin Lee and had a ball (thanks for such a great time, you guys!). We will definitely try to make this an annual event. If you've never been, they put "the biggest Christmas tree in the whole world" (according to Will) up in the square, have several toy and animation museums with old and new toys many of which move and play music, etc. There was a carousel and train/firetruck ride around the Square. Definitely go see it if you've never been. Here are some pics of that:

At the base of the big Christmas tree

Riding the rides

Taking a spin in the "firetruck" around the Square.

Now let's jump on into Christmas. The boys had a great time and this is the first year that Owen at least had some idea of what the excitement was about. Because Will's birthday was earlier in December, Owen kept telling us it was about to be his birthday. We used that as the chance to explain that Christmas is Jesus' birthday...and Owen decided that was great. I got to listen to his sweet voice sing "Happy Birthday to Jesus" for weeks! I miss it!!! We also had a fun "addition to the traditions" this year when we added Jingle, our Elf on a Shelf. This is the first year we've done it and the boys LOVED Jingle. We've already written 2 letters to Jingle since Christmas asking him to please come back next year. If you don't know how this works, it's a little red elf that comes with a book. The book explains to the kids that Santa sent their family one of his elves for December and each night, the elf flies home to the North Pole and reports in to Santa. And let me tell you...this works like a charm. Each morning after Jingle's "flight back to Santa" he landed in a new place around the house. The boys would find him and ask about his trip, tell him good night in the evenings, etc. We obviously didn't do a good job of explaining to Owen that on Christmas Eve, Jingle goes back to live with Santa for the year...b/c the poor kid fell apart when he realized Jingle wasn't out anymore. Now, the one disclaimer for those of you thinking about doing it...there is much dismay over those nights when Jingle "forgot to fly home" and was found the next morning in the same place as he was the previous day. Setting the alarm on your cell phone as a reminder of the coming "flight" works well for this dilemma.

We started Christmas Eve with the candlelight service at our church, then headed down to Mamaw and Papa Wallace's house for Christmas Eve dinner and presents. Owen was so excited to finally get to open the presents he'd been looking at sitting under the tree for so long. We get the kids in bed, make sure Santa arrives and start Christmas Day EARLY. On several levels. We always have a big brunch here at our house with parents and grandparents, so I get up early getting ready for that. But we also have Will the Early Bird who can not wait for Santa to come. This year, we had an extra special Christmas since Karin (our "adopted family") stayed in MS and was with us for all the fun. This is where the second "Will the Early Bird" comes in, since he apparently woke Karin up at 3:30am Christmas morning and pretty much never went back to sleep (nor let Karin get much either...thanks for being a trooper, K!). Note that we had to wake Owen up to come see what Santa brought...and he was not very appreciative. We headed into the brunch and everyone had a big and grand time. It really was a fun morning. Owen, apparently getting a little overwhelmed with all the people, presents and the fact that he was still mad we woke him up early, decided to take his favorite toys and disappear into his bedroom and close the door. :-) He'd had enough! We rounded out our holiday by heading to Vicksburg that night to eat and do presents with Wes' parents and brother's family. That is always a fun and exciting time getting the 4 boys (we have 2 nephews, Andy and Kyle) together to play! Ok, enough talk...let's to pictures. I will do another blog post in a bit of funny things we've been hearing from Will, and there will be some Christmas funnies in there. But for now, we'll do the pics!