christmas came early...

for one lucky little boy! Since we are leaving later this week for the quad cities, we decided to have an early christmas for Colin this weekend and let him open some presents. We also quit slacking and put together his two big presents from us, which have been sitting in boxes in the garage for the last month.

I give you: the indoor toddler slide, and the happiest little boy on earth!

His friend Sophia has a similar slide at her house, which may explain why his first word upon seeing this one was simply, "Mine."

And, I give you: the auxiliary kitchen in our breakfast nook.

We decided that since Colin loves to "cook," and most of his beat downs at daycare occur over the play kitchen, we'd get him his own in the hopes that he'd play with it while we were cooking, instead of hanging on our legs and whining. It worked!

Colin immediately took every one of the dishes and food items, and stuffed them into the oven. Clearly, he has inherited my organizational skills.

He also kept pretending to fill cups with assorted beverages (our choices were "milk," "yellow juice," or "purple juice") and running across the room to feed us. Haha!

I will be honest. When we opened this box and saw the 10,000 plastic pieces involved, we almost returned it. I am SO MAD that I didn't get a "before" picture, because you wouldn't believe it (I was too busy freaking out to take a picture). But when Colin got up from his nap and saw the kitchen, he said, "WOW!" and we both agreed that (and this face) made it all worth it.

He also received, among other things, a golf set from Mike and a bowling set from Grandma and G. He spent most of the day trying to combine the two sports. Perhaps he is aware his mom and Auntie Lynn received college credit for those two classes. Liberal arts education!

The bowling pins were a huge hit!

Except.... his technique could use a little work.

I can honestly say he loved every single present he opened today! Thanks Grandma and G!