holidays over

now with all the muli-day gift giving extravaganza over, out little boy was quite exhausted!  we took the day after to recover and just rest.  as you can see, ledger took his rest time very seriously.  he grabbed a gift from everyone and hunkered down for some relaxing tv time.  a pillow from us, a blanket from mema, and a friend from auntie jill- he is all set!  now the hardest part will be to just stay awake...

christmas with the brinks

another favorite thing for ledger at christmas time is to have our special get together with my side of the family.  he always loves to spend time with his silly cousins!  diana and i always have a great time too!  this year we continued the relocation from last year and jill had the festivities at her place.  i'm thinking this is the new tradition now because there are just too many people to have it at mom and papa's place anymore.  jill's basement is so much bigger than mom's living room, which is much needed with all the kids running around!  chad and miyuki were there as well, so it was great to see them again too.  we had a delicious meal and then got right to it- the prizes!  but not before a couple glasses of slush...
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prizes, prizes, and more prizes!

the next several hours involved the opening of presents, or as my family calls them, prizes.  we took a really laid back approach to opening gifts, ledger would open one and then we would play with it for a little while, enjoying the prize and having fun with it, and then head back to the tree for the next fun gift!  we didn't have an outrageous amount of prizes for him or anything, but it did still take the entire morning to get through them all.  i don't think we finished the last gift until almost noon!  needless to say, ledge had an amazing time and loved all his gifts.  diana and i each got each other a little something too, so it was fun for the whole family!
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christmas morn

the big day was finally here, the day ledger had been eagerly awaiting for, oh, 10 months now?  its christmas!  surprisingly he didn't even wake up early or anything!  diana and i woke up around 8ish and had to go in and wake ledge up. as soon as he realized what day it was he got really excited and popped out of bed and ran to the tree- 'can i open them ALL?!?' he excitedly asked.  yes, buddy, all of them!  he was so thrilled that we got right to it, didn't even take showers, as you can plainly see from my hair in the picture...

santa's treat

it being christmas eve and all, ledger's first concern was about santa!  now, diana and i have never pushed the story of santa on him.  before he was even born diana and i had a talk about how we would deal with santa for any children we might have.  i was firm in the fact that i do not want to lie to my child, so i wasn't going to pretend it was real.  i didn't grow up believing in santa so that fib was never a part of my life.  diana grew up on the other side of that and wanted our boy to have some of that magic in his life like she did.  i've stuck by my conviction, but ledge really loves the santa thing, so we go with it.  he has asked several times if santa is real and my answer for him has always been 'he's as real as mickey mouse', and that's been enough to satisfy him.  one of the things he really wanted to do on christmas eve was to leave a cookie and milk out for santa.  no problem little fella, i am kinda hungry anyway...

christmas eve prize

t'was the night before christmas and all through our house a little boy was excited- and just couldn't wait for the big day!  with all the gifts under the tree, we told him that he could open one of his gifts early.  ledger was super pumped!  we had one picked out that we knew he would love, so diana grabbed it and let him dig in.
he opened a playset we got him for his hexbug.  it has tubes and stuff to make the bugs go upside down and all around.  he tore that thing open so fast he could hardly catch his breath!  it also came with a hexbug, so how he has two of them.  this thing kept him entertained for about two hours!

buggin' out

one of the gifts ledger got for christmas in detroit was a hexbug.  he didn't ask for one or even know what it was, but as soon as he opened that gift from his auntie barbara- he was hooked!  if you don't know what they are, they are little bug looking toys that you turn on and they wiggle around.  there's not much to them, but ledge was loving it!  when we got home he played with it for the rest of the night, building obstacles for it and watching it do its thing!  diana and i knew that we needed to pick up some more hexbug stuff for christmas!

detroit christmas

with some of diana's family living in detroit, we got the invite to spend a night or two with them for christmas.  ledger was really excited to see his cousins liam and garrett!  diana had been to visit them once before, but i had never been able to go along with them so i was excited to see their place.  jared and katie live in the older part of detroit with really big old houses.  they have been restoring this one for the past few years and i had been wanting to see it for a while.  we had a great time seeing everyone and getting in the christmas spirit with them!
(more pics: 1, 2)