Christmas 2012

It was nice to stay home this Christmas.  Home in our little, partially finished basement apartment (and storage area, as you can see in all the lovely pictures).

I had high hopes of making a nicer Christmas post, including good pictures of the handmade gifts, but it's already February, so I'm going with a Christmas morning photo dump.

Josh loves the Little People Nativity.  Of course Baby Jesus is his favorite.

Nope, that two-wheeler is not for Josh.

Before opening presents, we read the Christmas story in Luke 2.  As you can see, we didn't do a Christmas Eve pajama gift this year.  Eliza isn't even wearing PJs, just a random assortment of clothes...

... which is why I had them open their robes first.

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The kids are always cold at breakfast, so I decided to make them robes.  I was excited to see that they fit (though Eliza's is on her a little wonky here).

Among other unpictured gifts were baseball mitts and a T-ball thingy.

For weeks before Christmas, Eliza was telling me that I was going to love the present she made for me.  She could hardly wait for Christmas to come so that I could open it.  She talked about it daily.  She got some fancy costume-y trim from my fabric stash and had Mike help her safety pin it onto a shirt.  It went across the front and down the middle.  I kind of looked like a present, but I wore it proudly all of Christmas day.  She asked me over and over if I liked it.  I love that she put so much heart into a special present for me.  That reminds me... I've been meaning to surprise her and wear it again.

I am not a stuffed animal person at all.  I think I have made an unspoken vow to never buy a stuffed animal (they seem to magically appear on their own, in quantity).  Eliza had expressed interest in a pillow pet, so I decided to make the kids pillow pets that matched their robes.  They LOVE them.  Caleb's is a bear.

And Eliza's is, you guessed it, a zebra.  Of course I don't have good pictures of them (and I'm not waiting another month for myself to take pictures of them for this blog post).

Eliza has been asking for a journal, so I made journals for both Caleb and Eliza.  Until they learn to write, I will be their scribe as they dictate the entries to me.

Caleb has been obsessed with flashlights ("fashlights") and headlights for a long time.  He always wants to use ours to look for things in dark places or to find things that are lost.  He was thrilled to get his very own "changing headlight" (it has a red, white, and blue light).

This is another handmade gift that deserves some good pictures.  I made Eliza a sewing kit.  It turned out pretty much adorable.  She told me later that day that it was her favorite present.  I will take pictures and post about it sometime in the future.

Another handmade gift we gave them (that we didn't take pictures of yet) was a doorway puppet theater that turned out pretty cool.  Mike was going to make Caleb his own tool box, but came up with a better idea (thanks to running short on time).  He wrapped up some wood and included the gift of time and mentoring. A few days after Christmas, Mike and Caleb worked together to make his tool box.  I'll post pictures of all that later.

Josh had fun opening presents.  Most of his presents were toys we already had, but had been in storage for the past year or so, so he had never seen them.  He was thrilled.  He was also excited to play with the new blocks from Grandpa Monte and Grandma Melinda.

After breakfast, while Josh was still trapped in his seat, the kids gave him the chocolate from his stocking (which Santa intended for his Momma to eat).

Eliza in her robe, on her bike, with her new sewing kit.

Mike (and the kids and I) made four bases with wheels to go under the four 55 gallon water barrels that Mike's mom has in the basement.  She has had them for years, but has not wanted to put water in them until she could move them.