Christmas Day

It's Christmas Morning!

So, I'm not sure if the stockings were too small (probably) or we went a little overboard on our stocking-stuffers (also likely), but the gifts spilled out onto the floor.

Keith & I are (eventually) buying ourselves a tablet computer for Christmas, so we had to get our wrapping paper fix from the stocking stuffers.

Parker was just excited to be awake.

He got a few gifts, but he mostly enjoyed playing with mine, "ooh, look, a paintbrush!"

I did find him a little play cell phone at the MOPS Swap a few weeks ago.  It is without question his favorite gift this year.

After breakfast, we headed over to my folks house for a couple hours with the Hamilton Family.

My Dad made this awesome bunk bed for Nora's baby.  I think now Nora's baby has to find a friend so she can have sleep-overs.

Fiona got her own chair.  I guess she has a chair at daycare, so she's always looking for one at home, up to now, she's been making do with an old cardboard box.  I hadn't thought of getting Parker his own chair, guess that's something I'll have to be looking for in my thrift-store trips.

Christmas afternoon, we headed over to the Needs for gifts & dinner.  We had a great time, fantastic food, and lots of fun with friends.  None of which you'll see in my photos, since this is the only one I have of the entire afternoon.  I wasn't hosting, so I guess I was on a break.

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve with my Dad's side of the family.  Because we had to work around several church service times, we ended up doing a Christmas Eve lunch, instead of dinner.  It made for a nice, quiet evening.

We had all the little ones together, so we had four in the 3-7 year range and three in the 12-18month range.

Parker's cousin Sarah loved his rocking horse.

Cousin Sarah with her Grandma Kneeling (technically Parker & Sarah are 2nd cousins? I think?, not really sure, she's my cousins kid)

Dianne made Parker, Fiona, & Sarah these great fabric bowling sets.  So far, Parker's most interested in the ball.

The capes were a hit with the smallest of the Andrews clan.

Here's my attempt at taking a family photo of Dianne's family.  I took about 20 photos, I think these two are the best I got.

I got a copy of Photoshop for Christmas from my Dad, so I might see if I can create a photo with all four smiling (of course that assumes that I have at least one good photo of each of them, which I'm not so sure of).

In the early evening, we headed to our Church's Christmas Eve service.  We did a "candle light" service, but since we meet in a public gym, that many candles was out of the question.  So, we really did an electric-tea-light service.  It didn't have quite the same atmosphere, but in a church that is equal parts kids to adults, a no-open-flame policy didn't seem like such a bad idea.

Dancing

Parker has starting dancing when he's excited.  It really is about the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Santa Pictures Downtown

Keith's office had their annual Family Christmas Party, with Santa Pictures and rides on the Carousel.

Parker & I rode the bus downtown to meet Daddy, he had a grand time entertaining everyone on the bus.

Last year, we plunked Parker down in Santa's lap and he just smiled.  This year, he started screaming his head off before he was half-way into Santa's lap.  So, this was the best we could do.  I know it looks like Parker is looking at me in these photos, but in reality, he was staring at Santa distrustfully the entire time.

We also got to ride the carousel.

Parker was equal parts excitement and flat-out terror.  It was all fun & games until the horsey started going up and down.

But, all the terror aside, we had a great visit downtown.

Christmas Gifts!

Spoiler alert: I've got photos of Christmas presents below, so if you our your children want to be surprised, you might want to stop reading here.

I had big plans for making handmade gifts for Parker & his Cousins this year for Christmas.

What I did not plan on was hurting my back, followed quickly by a very nasty flu bug.  So, although I managed to make handmade gifts for (most) of Parker's cousins, Parker might have to wait for a hand-made Valentine's Day.

I can't take credit for the capes idea, Denise suggested that her kiddos might find capes pretty cool, but I had fun coming up with the designs.  I went pretty basic for the boys, and all-out for the girls.

An just in-case Nora's too old for capes, she gets a skirt.

It's not leopard print, but I think she'll like it.

Today's Failure - Felt Christmas Tree

I saw the idea for this felt Christmas Tree somewhere on the internet.  I thought, "I have felt, Parker would love this!"

And Parker did love it...

For about five minutes...

Which is about how long it took him to pull all the ornaments off...

And the tree from the wall...

Including all the tape.

The rest of the time it's been sitting in a pile at the top of the stairs.  For next year we'll need to come up with a new hanging method.  I've even tried encasing the entire thing in tape, that might have slowed him down (to about 8 minutes), but not for long.