Merry Christmas!

Once again we had a wonderful Christmas day. Tyler snuck into our room at 5:13 this morning and excitedly whispered to me that Santa had come. He also told me that he could see that some of the reindeer food on the back steps had been eaten, but he couldn't tell about the milk and cookies. Of course all that info was followed by, "Can we open presents now?!!" We managed to hold him off until 8, but I'm not sure how much sleep he actually got in those 3 hours.

The kids are allowed to open their stockings before breakfast. We also let them exchange gifts with each other & us. Santa's gifts get opened after breakfast.

The kids bought each other pencils (without knowing what the other picked out).

Tyler bought Ron a tape measure key chain. Danielle got him 2 pins (a football helmet & a red, white, and blue ribbon). Tyler gave me a pretty bookmark. Danielle gave me a butterfly pin, a bookmark, and a blue beaded necklace. They were so proud of the gifts they picked out for us.

I put together a basket of art & craft supplies for both kids. We got the credit for these gifts, the rest were from Santa.


Santa found an angel costume 75% off after Halloween and thought it would be great for dressing up. Danielle loved it.


Tyler's snap circuit set.

Danielle made the sand art bottles that were in her craft basket.

Her #1 request this year was for a special 23" doll in a very specific Christmas dress.

Tyler's #1 request this year was for a Chaos Tower. It's won several awards and is also approved for use in homeschooling physics curriculums, I believe. Don't tell Tyler it's educational, though. He and Ron spent at least 4 hours building it today. They followed the instructions this time, but there are so many different ways this could go together. Tyler has plans to rebuild it horizontally tomorrow.