Anyhow, I’d like to show you a few pictures from Christmas morning – mainly of the gifts I created, along with a few other pictures that just looked cute, exciting, fun, etc… and I didn’t want to leave out.

So, for Michael I made a marble maze.  This took quite a bit more time than I originally planned, and I have quite a bit of scraps of lumber to show for it (tries 1,2,3,…,10,… etc… all failed).  Not sure if you can make it out from the picture – but it’s a two sided maze and the marble drops between the two sides via holes in the center.  Object is to get it from one corner to the other.

I had originally planned on making them all mazes, but the time spent on Michael’s was soo long, that I modified my design for Trevin and Ian… their mazes are made from their names, with a hard plastic top to keep the marble in (rather than the way Michael’s is — with the marble still accessible to the touch.

For Kaylee Ann I made (with help — not enough time!) some socks with beads on them.  I actually just sewed the beads to some purchased socks.  Kaylee seems to like them though!

I ran out of time before I got to Spencer’s gift — but as you can see from the Christmas morning picture, a simple sticker is enough to keep him happy :)

Enjoy the pictures!

You’ve likely noticed the pictures of the lazer tag guns — they were a sure hit (thanks Grandma / mom!).  Michael was also (still is) very very excited about his skateboard Santa gave him… look at that grin!

After we got the kids to bed, I brought out an enormous supply of legos that I had acquired via freecycle (check it out if you don’t know what freecycle is). I washed them all – which took quite some time, but after I was done, we had a huge supply of legos that I’m sure will get much use out of them from the kids (and me) over the years to come.

Here’s a few shots from our activities:

The kids had a blast unwrapping hershey kisses for the cookies. I’m sure more than one got eaten ;)

Jill and Brianna making peanut brittle — turned out quite good!

Quite the process to clean tons and tons of legos ;)

Look at all those cookies — we made 340+ cookies when all was said and done. Most of which went to several families and friends that we know.