The Johnson's: Dec 22-28: Merry Christmas!

Did anyone notice how quickly Christmas arrived after Thanksgiving?! Whew. It has felt like a marathon in the Johnson household, trying to "convert" our mindset from Thanksgiving to Christmas! It is especially difficult to get in the Christmas spirit, in my humble opinion, without cooler weather and snow! For the past few weeks, the temps here in Orlando have been ranging from the 60s to the upper 80s. You go from wearing jeans and jackets one day to shorts and tank tops the next. It's very disconcerting, to say the least!

We've had a very busy week getting ready for Christmas, having Christmas and then cleaning up after Christmas!! We did get to see Kelli's Aunt Margaret and her husband, Guy Robert, for Christmas dinner; it was wonderful to catch up and visit with them and let them see how big both Erik & Elin have gotten. Since I goofed up and took too long to download my pictures for last week's blog - yes, it is finally posted - I'm going to keep this week's post short on text and long on pictures!!

It was very fun this year to open presents with Erik. He definitely understood the whole concept of presents representing new toys. However, we encountered an unexpected issue of Erik wanting to stop and play with the toy he had just unwrapped (or noticed) rather than open the next package. It took us three days to open all his gifts!! Some of his favorite toys, in no particular order, are his balance bike (a bike without pedals), his workbench & tools and his stomp rocket (we've had to fish some of the rockets off our crown molding and off the roof already). He has been running between all three of these toys; at times, he can't seem to decide which he wants to play with first! Elin was able to tear into some of her packages - her real intent was to get some wrapping paper to suck on. However, she has been persuaded to play with the toys that were inside the paper! Her big gift this year is a Little Tikes Activity Garden that has a phone, mailbox, door & doorbell, clock, etc. She loves to sit inside the 4 walls and survey her domain! Erik also likes this toy and will try to climb in with her.

Elin is still perfecting her crawl this week; she has a bit of a wobble, but she can move forwards and backwards now. She is turning out to be very determined! When she sees something she wants, she will try to go after it with all her might. Erik's legos and Little People train set are her favorite targets. Elin ended this week by perfecting her sitting-up technique. She has been able to get from her tummy to a mostly-sitting-up position, but it has always been haphazard at best. Sabbath morning, I walked into her room to find her sitting bolt upright in her crib, pleased as punch with herself. Erik remains a favorite person of Elin's - he can get her to smile and laugh faster than nearly anyone else!

Erik is having a blast with his Grampa and Gramma here. He goes non-stop from the moment he wakes up (thankfully, he does sleep in until 7:30 or 8 AM most days) until we force him to go to bed around 8 PM. He does still take an afternoon nap every day that lasts 2.5 - 3 hours. That is such a wonderful time of day!! Erik's language skills are continuing to grow by leaps & bounds. He is talking in complete sentences and comes up with new phrases nearly every day. He is a complete sponge and wants to replicate whatever he sees someone else doing. Some of his recent phrases are (sorry, if there is a repeat from a prior post in here):

1. Open Presents?
2. No, no, Elin, 'at's naughty!
3. Dada, wanna play tools with me?
4. Mama tooted. Say "excuse me", Mama!! (He did this to me last night after HE tooted!! When I exclaimed in horror, he corrected himself and said "Erik tooted. Sorry")
5. Erik dirty; Erik need take shower!
6. Erik no like it! (He uses this one whenever we try to get him to eat a new food item!)
7. Erik want 'nack! (He tends to drop the starting "S" on a lot of words)
8. Dear Jesus, Amen.
9. Erik Awake!