Christmas 2014

Ah, the memories: staying up late not sleeping, waking up early, opening presents, getting the random not age appropriate gift. Wait, didn't everyone get those? Maybe it was just me, being the fifth of six, but it happened a couple of times when I was on the very young side.

My kids don't have all those memories just yet, but as they say: if there isn't a picture, it didn't happen.

Waiting on the stairs before Mom lets them down...

Perfect teenager gift: weapons for Gman (airsoft, with safety gear)

Kiwi was DYING for the largest stuffed animal

MrS and JW have loved playing with Star Wars Legos, now there are more

No one likes to share gifts, so plenty for both MrS and JW to play a huge battle

Christmas Eve Dinner

The best part of Christmas Eve is of course the dinner. We always make something tasty, so it is worth the wait and work. All the kids were so excited, and had tons of fun helping out. Now that the older ones are actually older, they can really provide help, and not just harm, right?

Assembling the Sour Cream Enchiladas

Take the picture already, Dad!

Christmas Prep

As is now our tradition, we assemble the Winter Village LEGO sets after Thanksgiving and into December. So these pictures are repeats. But, it is great fun for the kids to get to build a new (to them) set each year. The modern sets are really quite hard, at least the ones in this theme, so it offers a good challenge for both Gman and Kiwi. Kiwi was a major builder this year.

In addition, we did the LEGO Advent calendar (both Star Wars and Friends), and the Santa this year was Santa Vader. Naturally, he was the "Grinch" of the scene, not giving but taking:

Christmas Crafting

As is the norm since I was a kid, we have a mystery package for the kids. This is of course brought to us by the best Aunt/Great Aunt in the world. It is fun to find out what random items might be in the package: candy? crafts? wall/window clings? This year it was crafts:

Oh, so many stickers... we made a very long chain from paper decorated with many, many stickers.