We showed up at papa's house on the evening of the 23rd. Aiden didn't skip a beat with him and they started playing right away.
We started off Christmas Eve by going to my dad's retirement party. He's been a St. Petersburg Firefighter for 32 years!! We got the boys all dressed up after naps and headed over to the fire station. Aiden was excited to see the fire truck and drive it.
Eli did not want anything to do with driving it and preferred the arms of mommy and daddy.
Hoyt family photo with my dad.
After the retirement party, we went to visit a friend and then went to church service. Aiden had to stay with us during church and he did pretty good. Thankfully we had to the whole row to ourselves and Aiden kept busy taking out the offering envelopes and then putting them back. After Christmas Eve service at church, we went over to Aunt Becky and Uncle Bill's house. They have new floors that look really nice. Unfortunately, Eli tipped over someone's glass of water but thankfully it was a plastic cup and just water. It was so great to see family. The boys loved just driving to the house because they got to see Christmas lights along the way.
I'll be posting some more pictures soon of the response of Aiden and Eli to Santa. I need to figure out how to get the pictures I have saved from the video I took with my flip. Aiden was scared but warmed up to Santa and then did okay. Eli didn't seem to mind.
The boys absolutely love the jet launcher and jet that Santa gave them. The jets make all kinds of noise and it was so cute to watch Aiden move it around like it was really flying.
Here is the infamous train that Uncle Bill always has up. He got a new train last year and it's the Polar Express train. It's pretty neat. You can see shadows of people inside and the train even lets off smoke. Aiden could watch it all day. We finally changed Eli into his pj's. While Aiden was trying to watch the train, Eli decided to crawl over to him and give him a head butt and hugs. While it's adorable to watch, Aiden doesn't understand Eli is being nice and he gets mad that Eli is touching/pushing him.
Even though the boys went to bed 1.5 hrs later than normal, that didn't keep them from getting up at their normal time on Christmas day. Aiden got a scooter and green car from Santa while Eli got a bunch of pop-up houses and tunnels.
It took some convincing, but Aiden finally decided to eat some breakfast. I think he would have opened all his presents if we would have let him. We let him open Santa's presents and then he had to wait for the rest because Eli was starving to death and couldn't wait to eat.
After we had some breakfast, we went back to the tree and opened some presents. Eli opened a cool train from papa first.
Eli got a sing-a-ma-jig and he likes it. Aiden can't stand it. It's a little doll that has a scrunchie glued to it's face for the mouth. You push it's belly and it sings and its mouth moves. It's pretty cute and Eli loves to stick his hand in its mouth as it's talking.
Aiden got his first Hot Wheels track. In fact, after he opened it, he didn't open anything else for quite a while. He was very content playing with just that track.
Eli got his own little race car set. The cars go back and forth down the ramps and he seems to like it. So does Aiden.
Aiden got the Candy Land and we all played it. He actually did pretty good. A few more times playing it and I think he'll have it down. Now the main obstacle is to not have Eli destroy the game board and move the pieces while we are trying to play.
Our family picture by the tree for 2010. Aiden was still sleeping and rubbing his eyes.
Eli is fascinated by cameras, remotes, and other things he's not supposed to have. Papa put one behind his back but little Eli knew and went back to try and find it.
Aiden had a blast playing with his new Hot Wheels tracks. We put both tracks together and he was in heaven. You can see part of the tunnel system in the background. There are about a half dozen tunnels and about the same number of houses/huts. The boys loved playing in them. The awesome thing is they fold down into a big bag for minimal storage.
Eli had fun walking around touching all of Aiden's stuff which Aiden didn't like. I think Eli would rather climb on people and get loving than play with toys most of the time.
He did get a music set and he seems to like that. However, so does Aiden.
Aiden had fun marching around with the drum. I'm trying to find the advantage to Aiden liking everything Eli gets and I think I have to use the "sharing" example and make sure Aiden sees how much Eli is sharing his things.
The is one of the many houses that is part of Eli's Santa present. Brad flipped it over and they were using it as a tv screen. Aiden is making a call to Eli with his pretend cell phone.
We got outside for a bit tried out Aiden's new scooter for a bit. He likes it although he was still favoring/protecting his left leg. I think he's just had a pulled muscle or something because now he is doing much better.
Lots of balls came with the tunnel/house system. Everyone has seemed to enjoy playing!
Aiden decided to share some banana with Eli. It was so cute to watch. Aiden would take a bite and then he'd let Eli take a bit. What good sharing. I hope that trend continues.
Eli was loving on papa and giving him lots of snuggles.
Aiden got some pretend vegetables in his stocking. I would have never guessed it would have bought hours of entertainment for him (thank you $1 bins at Target). He served up lots of vegetables. I'm hoping I can get him to try some new veggies too.
We went and saw nana in the afternoons after naps on most days. After Christmas day, everyone was sick and we couldn't really visit with anyone. We did go to nana's though to give her some gatorade, crackers, and soup. We also had a few things we wanted to get done. Eli had so much fun with Bronco.
Aiden and nana looked at photo albums for a bit. Aiden loves looking at old pictures although he still doesn't understand that he was a baby once. He thinks all babies in pictures are Eli.
We went to visit my sister and her boys on Monday evening. Her oldest son, Grayson, is pictured with Eli. He was so sweet with Eli and Aiden.
This is all of us. Aiden, Mom, Eli, Grayson, Graham, Erin (sister), and Grant (aka Ray). It was fun to see them all together. Aiden had been missing playing with friends so he especially had fun.
It was great to see my dad and actually visit for a while. The boys love their papa and enjoyed spending time with him. My dad watched the boys a couple nights so Brad and I could go out after they went to bed.
Aiden got a remote control car from Aunt Erin and was enjoying playing it. I thought it would be too hard for him to understand but he's doing a great job with it.
Eli got a train and some Mega Blocks from Aunt Erin and the boys and Aiden was very excited for them to get out of the box.
We had fun just goofing around. Here is papa playing spider man. Eli wasn't so sure what to think about that.
I put the mask on and all Eli wanted to do was poke my eyes.
On the last day we visited nana, Eli was SUPER grumpy and Aiden was tired and a little grumpy. Eli hadn't been sleeping well and was waking Aiden up pretty early. Aiden also didn't want to say bye bye to nana. We told him he would see both nana and papa in another month or so.
We were originally going to leave on Wednesday afternoon but decided my dad would watch the boys at night after we put them to bed and Brad and I were going to a movie. After a few extremely very fussy days and about 10 days of diarrhea, we called Tricare and were told to take him to urgent care or the ER. We ended up taking Eli to the ER at All Children's Hospital in St. Pete. They were so great there. It took a little over an hour from when we arrived to leaving. I was shocked. They triaged us, sent us to a room, the dr (not nurse) came in and examined him and talked with us, registration came in, nurse came in for meds, and we were discharged. It was awesome. He ended up having a double ear infection, bacterial eye problem (he had tons of yellow eye discharge), and we are trying to find out why so much diarrhea. He is staying hydrated which is great but we still don't know why. They did a culture to test for Giardiasis but it takes 72 hrs for the test to be done so we are still waiting. It could also be a milk allergy so we have taken him off milk until we figure out what's going on.
Eli was actually in somewhat of a good mood before the dr came in because he had all new surroundings to investigate. He's trying to stick his finger in the internet connection in the first picture.
We made it home safely yesterday early afternoon. Aiden was so excited to be home and play with his OLD toys here. It was too funny. Today they went back to daycare and I am getting stuff unpacked. Brad leaves Jax in a little over a week so we are treasuring and cherishing every moment we have together. Brad is back at work but he does get a 3 days weekend I think.
As you can see in the second picture, Aiden wasn't too excited to see him and hid his face with his hands (that's what he does usually when he's scared).
In the picture where Aiden is peeking through his hands, Brad asked him to look at him while taping.
Finally, I was told this picture of Eli in his gown with it open in the back was too cute. I am happy to report is starting to feel much better and his eyes are back to normal. Not sure his ears are fixed yet but we still have another week of antibiotics left.
