Our Christmas 2012

I loved Christmas this year.  All of it.  Even Christmas day was just perfect.  We didn't have anywhere to go, and it was just us all day at home.  Not that I don't love having guests over during the holiday's.  It's just nice sometimes to enjoy just our family together.  Christmas day was very happy and very peaceful.  We did have my in-laws over on Christmas eve, but they went home when it was time for bed.  I spent the rest of the night getting stuff wrapped, and getting all the stockings put out.  It was great even though I had to stay up late.  I just love the excitement of Christmas eve and Christmas day.  We were very blessed this year.  I also loved all of our homemade gifts.  Everyone did such a good job coming up with ideas, and making them.  This was definitely the year for me to discover how awesome making and giving homemade gifts really can be.  The kids too.

Anyway, on with the pictures...

April's stocking pile:  sketch pad, bow and arrow, fleece sheets, and other small items

 Alexander's stocking pile:  pj's, cars and trucks, squinkies, rainboots, and lots of other little things.

Alex's first glimpse of his pile 

Aric's stocking pile:  bow and arrow set, legos, squinkies, sparkle markers, batman, starwars lego set, and some other little things.

Aaron's stocking:  Bow and arrow set, army boat set, we ski, electric motor kit for boat project, and lots of other little odds and ends.

Here they come!  Fresh out of bed, ready to see what they got.  I'm kind of amazed that they lined up in age order like this.  Not sure if that was planned.  Daddy was keeping them in the back room until I finished getting the front room lit up, and ready.

 

Yes, she got a banana.  Hello?  They love to get fruit in their stockings.

 

Some special homemade coupons for Aric.  He was very excited about these.

 I had April for our homemade gift exchange this year, so I made her this reusable chicken feed bag, and I finished her horse quilt that she started a long time ago.  I also added a special part of one of her old sweatshirts from 4H club to it. 
 

April had Aric, so she and I worked together to make this tie.  It ended up being mostly me, but that's okay.  She chose the fabric.  He loves his tie.

 

Some present favorites...

Aaron really wanted this science kit, he was so excited that he got it.

This present was Aric's favorite.  He didn't want to do anything else all morning except build this with Daddy.

Skylanders was for the family.  All the kids love it, and it is definitely a favorite now.

Aric loves his "bigger than himself" plane.

  When I'm wrapping presents I like to find odd containers to wrap them in to throw off the person who is opening.  April loved this, her Harry Potter Wii games in the diswashing tabs container.

Dad had Aaron for his homemade gift.  So, he made him a wooden truck that can haul his rocket.  The truck wasn't all the way finished by Christmas morning.  This is what it looked like.  Aaron absolutely loved it.  
 The 3 older kids got bows, but Miss April was probably the most excited.

Of course they wanted to try them out.  We were prepared.

We set up a little shooting range in the garage.  Our garage is definitely too crowded, but it worked for some close range practicing.

 

 The glow of Skylanders is something that we have been seeing a lot of since Christmas!  This was played a lot of Christmas day too.

Skylanders

We had a very nice Christmas