Christmas

Christmas was spread out over 3 days for us this year. We started on Saturday night with the Castillon family party. We had dinner at our house ... fun to have everyone at our house! Paxton and Hunter (his cousin) were the gift box and present helpers. We wrote down a gift we would give Jesus this year and put it in our gift box ... a little heavy for Pax to carry but he did a great job. We all draw names and so we opened presents. Tyler mostly enjoyed the wrapping paper, bows and boxes. Paxton was excited for his new transformers from Hunter and remote control car from Grandma and Grandpa. Hunter and Pax raced their cars all around the house.
Christmas Eve we went to church in the morning and then headed out to Grandma Shepard's house (Bryce's Grandma). The kids reinacted the nativity and Pax chose to be Joseph. He was insistent that he needed a hook or he wouldn't look like Joseph. Luckily we found Grandma's cane and it did the trick. We also opened one small present there and this was the present that we got the best reaction from. He got green Ramone from cars and was yelling, "It's green Ramone! It's green Ramone!"
(Paxton and his cousin Kolter)

Then we headed to the Castillon party with Bryce's dad's family. Santa always comes to this party and Paxton was so excited to see him. He thanked him for the presents for Tyler since Tyler was screaming ... he didn't like Santa this year. Thanked him for his own presents and loved getting his picture taken with him. Then when Santa was getting ready to leave Pax said, "I need to ask Santa something." He ran up to him and asked him if he was going to stop at his house tonight. Santa said, "Yes. You need to go to bed early tonight." Pax came back and told us that we couldn't read books tonight because he had to go to bed early." If only that really would have worked. He couldn't fall asleep for a LONG time since he was so excited and then we finally brought him to bed with us since he kept waking up ... dreaming that he was on the naughty list and Santa skipped his house, wondering if Santa had come yet, etc.

Finally, it was Christmas and Pax was so excited that Santa had ate the cookies and drank the hot chocolate he left him. This is the face Tyler makes everytime we pull out the camera. He was still so content to just play with the boxes.

On Christmas we just played with all the new toys and then went to Aunt T's for dinner with Bryce's mom's family. We got a picture of all the Castillon boys.(Paxton (3yrs), Tyler (10 mo.), Carson (5 mo.), Hunter (5 yrs), Kolter (almost 2 yrs)

Christmas Excitement

This year was fun with Paxton being so excited about Christmas. He LOVED Santa this year and took any and every opportunity to talk and sit with him. Tyler didn't like Santa and only sat with him once. He screamed the whole time.

Paxton also loved the story of the nativity. It was fun to listen to him tell the whole story. He would even remember what the gifts of the wisemen were most of the time, gold was usually the one he forgot if he couldn't remember them all.

Paxton loved helping to wrap presents and having a secret that he couldn't tell. I was sure he would tell his cousin what he had got him but he never did. He was so excited to see if he liked what he had picked out for him.

10 months

Once again the month has sped by and Tyler changed so much. He is our little chatterbox saying things like mom, dada, baba (bottle), etc. He definitely knows what he wants and does what he can to get it. He cruises around the furniture and is a little monkey. He is going to be a climber just like Paxton was. He has learned to climb the stairs but always looks at me like, "won't you let me do this alone?" I can't since once he has tired of climbing he just turns around and makes a dive for the ground, regardless of how high up he is.



His two favorite places to play are in Paxton's room since his toys are much more interesting and the bathroom. We have two doors that MUST stay closed, the bathroom and the baby gate door to the downstairs. Pax is the door monitor and is always closing the gate, even when Tyler is asleep and in no danger of falling down the stairs. The bathroom however is a hard one to remember since he usually runs in and is in such a hurry to get back to play that he just forgets to pull it closed. Tyler has a bathroom door radar. He seems to know when its open and heads straight there. He gets so frustrated when its closed just as he is getting there.



I love seeing the boys interact. They play so well together and Ty follows Paxton anywhere. Tyler has started trying to hand us what he is playing with or eating. I love seeing that he is excited about something and wants us to know about it.

Croup

We have been having a sick couple of weeks. Paxton, Tyler and I have all had a cold. We were all pretty much better besides a little cough so we headed to Salt Lake last weekend to finish our Christmas shopping. We had a fun time. Pax sat with Santa and would have stayed there all night. He doesn't have anything specific that he wants ... just some toys, maybe a few trucks. So hopefully he doesn't come up with something between now and Christmas since we're done shopping.

Sunday night Tyler went to sleep at 8:30 p.m. and woke up at 12:30 a.m. screaming. Totally not like him to be screaming or to have woken up by 12:30 so I went in to get him and he could hardly breathe. I went running with him to our room and woke up Bryce. Ty was struggling to breathe and we wondered if he was having an asthma attack or something. Thank goodness Bryce's parents are living with us for a while and we could just wake them up as well. They thought he had croup and they were right. We called the doctor and he told us what to do and to bring him in first thing in the morning. After he was awake for a while his breathing wasn't so labored and he was able to go back to sleep. What a scary thing!

Turns out that the croup didn't end up being so bad. He's had a little bit of a cough but nothing like it was on Sunday night. The worst thing was that he must have had a stomach virus as well because he spent 24 hours throwing up everything. So thank goodness today he is feeling good ... nearly back to normal, just a little more tired than usual.

I love healthy days!