December 25th- Christmas!

I mentioned before that Jeremy wasn't able to finish the project he was working on with the flannel, so instead Jeremy built some balloon sculptures for the kids to go along with the presents that Santa brought them. From Santa, Nichole got a little Polly Pocket-sized set of Beauty and the Beast figurines with interchangeable outfits for Belle. To go with that, Jeremy built her a Lumiere candlestick with electric tealights attached to his candles.

Jr. got some little plastic animal figurines (Northwest animals and marine animals) from Santa, and Jeremy built him a balloon lighthouse. He put an electric tealight inside a round balloon but it wouldn't work Christmas morning. The lighthouse is still neat, though.

It was nice to have more time to get ready for Christmas this year. I was even able to crochet a little ball with a face and hair for Jr. and a little purse for Nichole. Jr. immediately started throwing his little guy around. Hurray for softness.

It was a nice day. We all had lots of presents to open and even when we thought we were all done, a few anonymous gifts came to the door.

We had a pretty laid back day yesterday, but it looks like we've got plenty of cleanup ahead of us this weekend. I think we'll slowly get around to figuring out where to put all the new stuff, but it will be nice to have the stack of wrapped presents out of Jeremy's office again.

I am glad that we focused on what Christmas is really about. We had a lot of reminders through the month of the love our Savior has for us and the love we can show for Him. I didn't feel guilty about having a day of opening and playing with presents. We are very blessed and we had a good Christmas!

Merry Christmas. Happy Boxing Day. Now to get ready for New Year's. Phew.