Christmas Day

Christmas morning (thankfully) didn't start as early as I had feared. ::grin:: I had told the boys they had to stay in bed until 6am. I didn't want to be up at the crack of dawn this year. B bounced in to our room at 6:15 whispering as loud as he could (so he wouldn't wake us up maybe?) "We got a PS2! We got a PS2!!" Needless to say, he was pretty happy about that!

We actually had to go wake up the little boys. Normally they are the first ones out of bed so I found this amusing. We jumped right in to opening the gifts. The only ones under our tree were the ones that we actually had given to the boys. Except there was one each for them from my friend Tammy's children. She chose very well in that regard. N & J each received a new engine for their Geo-Trax train set & B received a Bionocle.

B loves Calvin & Hobbs. Barnes & Noble had these hard cover books for a great price in their discount section so I snagged one for him. I think that made him pretty happy.

I made a scrapbook for my hubby. About nine years ago we had a large family reunion on his side of the family. His grandmother & her sister were very much in to genealogy & his aunt brought a bunch of old photos to display. She offered copies to anyone who wanted them. She had them all numbered so we just had to give her a list. A little while later I received the copies. They were only photocopies on regular paper but they came out rather well. She even took the time to tell me who everyone was and that made it easier to label it for him.

I only managed to get up through 1985 done for him, but I will work on finishing it his weekend. I have the rest of the photos organized, cropped & mounted on white cardstock (my new favorite method of scrapbooking) so the pages should come together fast.

He really liked the gift & I finally had to prod him to finish looking at it later as the boys were beginning to get a bit inpatient with him. ::grin::

In a moment of creativity, I decided I wanted to make fleece and flannel blankets for my boys. I had been given my grandmother's old Singer sewing machine. I thought it a good first project. I only had to do straight seams. That can't be all that hard right? Well, I'm also a first class procrastinator. ::sigh:: My sister ended up coming to my rescue. She sewed ALL of the blankets for me & even managed to get all of the boys ones done before Christmas!

N's was done early though. I had bought the fleece & flannel after Thanksgiving during Joann's sale. They only had one type of Thomas fleece though. My sister had another style so we swapped out a set. That way N & J ended up with different looking blankets while still being Thomas blankets. B ended up with a space themed blanket. His room is done in that theme & he really likes it. I still can't tell you what theme I did for my hubby & myself. Yes, she's even sewing a blanket for us. However, she is taking her time on that one. Once it's done, I'll let you know. Hubby reads the blog & I don't want to give away everything!

My sister was fantastic about the blankets. I'm really hopeless with sewing. I'm hoping to get better & learn, but I really messed up B's blanket. I had started to pin it together for her but I should have cut the flannel in half to make it big enough to fit the fleece. I didn't. I cut the fleece to fit the flannel. It would have ended up as a throw rather than a twin size blanket which is what I had hoped for.

My sis ended up going back to Joann's once I had handed off the blanket materials to her. She bought more fleece & flannel AND batting (I had planned to use an old sheet) & put together a twin size blanket for him. I know she spent extra time & money on this for me. I have a great sister. After the new year I'm heading over to her house to help her "Clean Sweep" some rooms in payment. That should be interesting! ::grin::

N holding his Thomas blanket. It's backed with red flannel.

N & J were given a lot of Thomas items this year for Christmas. Their train mania has not lessened at all. N will be seven in April & J four next month. Their Uncle Richard thankfully helped them open all of the boxes of goodies. That is my least favorite thing about children's toys.

A really fun gift that the boys received from their great-grandfather (who lives next to us) is this yellow garden wagon. He bought it for so they could get wood from the barn easier. They are currently using a wheelbarrow & it takes them awhile to fill up our pile outside our trailer. I was happy as it will allow for easier trips to the lake this summer. I had been thinking about getting some sort of wagon for the summer. We own a right-of-way access to the lake but it's about a 1/2 mile walk away & I don't want to drive typically. I also didn't want to have to haul everything down that we'd need to hang our for a time or have tired kids whining the whole way (uphill!) home. This wagon will make it so much easier!

Then my hubby, MIL, & Mom all chipped in & got me THIS! Woo-Hoo! I've had a Kitchen-Aid on my wish list now for a couple of years. After a lot of chatter on the SHS Yahoo group I knew I would want the professional model so I could make more than a couple loaves of bread at a time. My hubby didn't believe that I really wanted a red one (I did) so he picked out this gray one instead. It was a complete surprise and I was quite happy with it.

All in all we had a great Christmas weekend.