Christmas and New Year Recap

We had a fun-filled holiday break here!  On the last day of school before break, SANTA drove Stephen's bus!!!!  Despite appearances in this picture, Stephen was actually really excited.  He also helped decorate some cookies to share with Santa, and managed to NOT spill sprinkles all over the kitchen this time.

We also met Santa at a local store.  We'd never gotten around to this childhood rite of passage before because we just never had time for it.  Stephen, as expected, wasn't upset at all, but wasn't quite sure what to think of this guy - he was a great looking Santa, though, wasn't he?

We also met a talking reindeer while we were visiting Santa, which was extremely amusing!

This year, Stephen really got in to doing the Advent Calendar, particularly the countdown aspect.  After we would choose the ornament for the day, we would count how many days were left until Christmas day.  And Stephen chose the location of most of the lower ornaments, as you can tell by the cluster of ornaments at the bottom of the tree.

We went to church on Christmas Eve, and Stephen was well-behaved as usual.  It's so nice to see him happy and engaged again, now that he's sleeping better!

We tried out a new location for our Christmas Tree this year.  I think I like it, even though we couldn't get into the cabinet behind it if we wanted to watch any movies.  Stephen helped us a little bit with the tree, but he was more interested in watching Christmas cartoons and movies while he ate dinner.

 

 For Christmas this year, Stephen accumulated a LOT of books.  He LOVES reading and being read to, and I think we're set on new books for many, many months!  The book he is looking at in this photo is a seek and find Backyardigans book (of course!).  He also got 3 new games (UNO Moo, Trouble, and Twister), some really cool handmade Backyardigans puppets, and some other fun stuff - it was a great Christmas!

We didn't do much for New Year's Eve, and Stephen went to bed at his normal time.  Given all of his sleep issues that he was having prior to surgery, he has still been catching up, and is ready to go to bed between 7:30 and 8 every night.  Now he is back at school, and enjoying his time with his friends and teachers!