Christmas Eve Festivities (Part 1)

This was the first year Scott and I were both off for Christmas Eve. It was so nice! When Gaines woke up, I told him "Merry Christmas Eve!" He immediately asked to open a present. Amazing how quick kids can catch on to the presents thing. Scott and I had been back and forth on whether to wrap anything for Gaines to open early. We wrapped three things that we were debating on whether to save for springtime holidays. But we are as bad as kids. If we have it, we want to give it. 

Gaines went to opening...slowly. Every inch of paper had to come off, and he had to hand each piece to us. Scott told him to just throw it down. But he couldn't. Poor thing. I go back and forth in my head...have we created this 'monster' or if some of it is really just in his blood!

First, we gave him a train station to attach to his train table. I measured before buying it to make sure it fit. And we had one track length that matched. Well, of course its not that easy. The latching ends were backwards and we couldn't just face it the other way because there wasn't enough room to the edge of the table. So my ever so sweet and accommodating husband took the entire track off this past weekend. We laid it out so everything would fit and re-nailed it. Transfer after gift opening was seamless! :)

  

Second, we gave him the "Steam Station" game. Its an app on the iPad, but we could only play one little section without this docking station and game cards. I want to be really careful about video games. I don't want Gaines to play them all the time. But we have already hooked him to the iPad. For the most part, we try to find educational apps and games. At 2 years old, he is really good at working it. This app has 'seek and find' game where you have to find the objects they ask for on the engine cards and a 'relay race' game where you have to put the engine cards in for each relay race and another 'find the engine' game where you hide the cards around the room. Its a little more interactive. He has loved it so far. 

Last, we gave him a new rocket ship puzzle. He has become obsessed with rockets this year. And we definitely need to start updating our puzzles for some more challenging ones. He approved.