Christmas

This year we tried out a Gingerbread village. Fun idea, but somehow it was a big flop this year. Instead we made houses at our Phelps Christmas party and here is where the real creativity came shining through. Darin was super proud of his Smartie house especially designed for his gummy worm family. (His is the house on the right)

Here are Daniel and Rylie's favorite Christmas presents-- they both got a sleepover set. Daniel hasn't slept in anything else since. He carries it around with him everywhere.

Daniel got this new suit for Christmas (for $3.50 at JC Pennys mind you-- yeah, I'm a great bargain hunter). The only problem was that the first time he wore it we realized he only had crocs and running shoes. So he now has new church shoes too to go with it.

For some reason this year I couldn't get myself to pull out our Christmas ornaments (I think I was a little afraid of someone swallowing a small ornament) so instead Daniel helped me make snowflakes and Poinsettias for our tree. We all loved it. Daniel also added miscellaneous items that he would either draw or make in preschool. It was very eclectic by the time it was actually Christmas.

Christmas morning Daniel actually beat us downstairs. We were woken up by Rylie at around 8- and were surprised to find Daniel missing from his room. I quickly ran and woke Darin up and then rushed downstairs. Luckily Daniel had only opened 2 presents by the time we arrived-- so no huge catastrophy, but I do think in future years we will need to put out booby traps.

Rylie loved opening up presents. She rushed from one present to another ripping them open. Daniel on the other hand lovds to explore each present he got. If we left it up to him, Christmas would last a week not a day. He would pull out a new toy and just play with it completely uninterested in his other toys until he had figured it out. I love the differences of kids.

The funniest thing this year was that all of Daniel's big gifts were busts. We ended up taking back his preschool computer, his Dinosaur village and his car racing set. They all were just cheap and not fun to play with. The winners were his Color Wonder 3-D coloring set and his K-Nex.