Christmas Morning!

Brad had to work Christmas morning, so the kids had to wait until dad came home to open their presents.  They just played with the toys Santa brought them.  This year Benny received Hex Bugs from Santa and Timmy received the Cozy Coupe.  After dad came home, the wrapping paper was flying!

Benny wrote a note for Santa.  He drew a picture of the cookies that we left for him.

 Benny really wanted a snow globe and he received one.

 Thanks to Lego Star Wars, Benny's favorite Star Wars character is Boba Fett. He received a Boba Fett alarm clock for his room.

I received some new toys for the kitchen (a rice cooker, a stand mixer and a new baking dish).  Brad received a Christmas tie from the boys, a Cubs sweatshirt and dress shirt from me.  We had a great Christmas and we hope you did too!

Christmas with Family

The Saturday before Christmas, Lisa and the boys went to Jill and John's house in Decatur, Il to celebrate Christmas with Lisa's family.  Brad could not be there because he had to work.  We had a lot of fun.  The kids received a lot of fun gifts.  Looking forward to doing it next year.

Look at that pile of presents!

 What a festive fireplace.  Jill bought stockings for all of us.

 Timmy being held by his favorite Uncle, Uncle Steve.

 Benny opening one of his many presents, a hooded towel in the shape of a monkey.

Christmas In Chicago!

On Brad's last weekend day off, we ventured into Chicago to take in some of the holiday sights.  Our first stop was the Willis Tower (previously known as the Sears Tower).  Timmy fell asleep on the ride into town and therefore slept through the elevator ride to the top.  Since my last visit to the Tower (which was many years ago), they have installed plexiglass sky boxes in the observation level that extend out over Wacker Drive. That was pretty cool to stand there and see the street below. 

 Timmy finally woke up just before we were ready to go back down.

Next we headed over to the Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza.

 The wonderful tree!

 It was very crowded and we had to wait in line for what seemed like forever, but the hot chocolate was worth it!

We ended our evening by having dinner at the Walnut Room in Macy's.  It is the first restaurant in a department store.  The store itself was amazing.  There were 7 floors dedicated to shopping.  We had to wait for our table, so we went to visit Santa on the 5th floor.  This was the third time the kids had seen Santa (first time at a store at the mall and the second time was for photos at the mall).  After dinner we went up to the 8th floor (the restaurant was on the 7th floor) to look at the tree that was in the center of the restaurant.

Playing tic tac toe while waiting for dinner.

Playing cars while we wait for dinner.

 Looking at the tree!

 The Tree!

 We ended up getting home rather late, but we all had a good time.  We are looking forward to exploring other fun things next year!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Heilenman Family! We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a safe but Happy New Year!

A Boy and His Trains!

We have a little boy in love with trains. On Christmas day, he insisted on having every Thomas train car in his bed. Since then he is only allowed two.

We have converted our loft area from an office to Benny's play area. As you can see, we had to set up all the track. We have since scaled it down, but it still takes up most of the room.

Christmas Cookies

I decided that Benny and I would make Christmas cookies this year. We made the dough from scratch. Benny helped put in the ingredients. He had fun rolling out some dough. Here he is sampling his dough.

Once the cookies were done, I put on some icing and he was in charge of sprinkles.

Silly boy!

During the days leading up to Christmas, Benny serenaded us with versions of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph. Enjoy!

Snow Pictures

Here are some more snow pictures. I think we had at least 8 inches when it was all said and done. We actually had a white Christmas. Here are the poor snowmen that line our sidewalk. Here are our deer eating snow.

Our little sledding guy seemed to be caught in a snowdrift.

I thought this picture was neat. The snow kind of makes the bush quite illuminated.

More Christmas pictures

I bought Benny a toy phone so he could practice talking on it so when family and friends call, he will be used to talking. Boy can this boy talk. We can sometimes pick out what seems like a word. Here he is with his Leapfrog school bus.
Here is a better view of his mower.

This is megablocks fire truck that he had picked out a few months before Christmas. I took advantage of the fact that he has a short memory.

"Santa" brought Benny Rudolph. When you press Rudolph's ear, his nose glows.

Christmas Pictures

Benny had fun opening up his Christmas presents this year. The only problem was that he wanted to play with each toy instead of openning up another one. We had to start hiding the opened ones so he could open more. Thank you to all who sent presents. Benny really enjoys playing with them.

Here he is trying to unwrap a present.

He really wanted to get at those cars.
Here is the duck we bought in Leavenworth for him. He loves to make it quack.

Moomie and Pop Pop bought the Eagles' jersey for Benny. As you can see, it is a little big right now, but hopefully next fall it will fit better and who knows, the Eagles might win the Superbowl.

Grandma and Grandpa gave Benny this mower. He really likes pulling it around the house.

Santa and Benny

Benny was excited to see Santa this year. He liked all the lights and Christmas tree decorations. He did really well until the photographer tried to tickle him to get him to smile. Benny went from smiling to crying in less than a second. The pictures say it all.

Benny Pictures

Here are some pictures I took of Benny the last few days.

He still likes to play peek-a-boo with the curtains. Here he is checking out our Christmas Tree. He has been very good with it. I am quite surprised.

Here he is kissing his reindeer stocking. He did this all on his own. I did not ask him to do it.

We now have a portable gate at the end of the stairs. Benny likes to climb up on the first step and yell for you if you have been upstairs too long.