Merry Christmas!

Hello! Luckily we have a snow day, which means church is cancelled. Not much to do, so I have some time to post some pictures of our wonderful Christmas Day yesterday. Here are the kids on the stairs, waiting for the OK to come and see their loot. Lizzy was generally confused and upset for quite a few minutes.

Here's Samuel putting together his "Rescuing Dobby" lego set. I was pretty excited that we only ended up with one small lego set this Christmas. I find legos very stressful, they take forever to put together and there are always lots of tears when the fall apart, which in our house usually happens within the first 48 hours.
Whatever frustration I escaped because of the lack of legos was made up for with these lovely girl toys, SQUINKIES. I hate these with a vengeance. Let me rewind way back to our Virginia Trip, 2009. Beside the indoor pool of our condo, there were some quarter-accepting-toy-machines that had these little tiny ninjas. The boys (thanks to donations from cousins Ben and Andrew) kept buying more and more of them. I hated them so bad and couldn't wait to secretly throw them away, which I did. Well, these are EXACTLY like them, only they are cute little bunnies, kittens, and babies. It's not so much the little figures that I hate, since our toddler is past the "everything in the mouth" phase. It's the stinking bubbles that contain them. The little "gumball surprize" house and the "teapot set" gets jammed unless the little squinkies are in their bubbles. In fact, I hate the gumball surprize set too because it only works when you put in one of ONLY TWO plastic coins included. You have to really press the coin in, turn the handle to the RIGHT, only once, then it MAY OR MAY NOT dispense a little bubble with the rubbery plastic toy inside. Very frustrating for children and adults alike. Lizzy is a pro and getting them all out of the bubbles, but then getting the toy back into the bubbles is very challenging. I'm pretty smart, and I consider my fine motor skills quite excellent. And still, sometimes it takes me a good couple of minutes to successfully encase a squinkie in its bubble properly. Then it goes back into the gumball surprise container, and the process starts over again.
Here's the little desk made especially for Lizzy by Santa himself. No elves helped at all.
Santa found a rockband set made for our PS2 set, so that was pretty darn cool!
I know it's boring, but I asked for a new electric skillet. Mine was so badly worn out, one of the legs had to be reattached every time it was used, and the cord heated so hot, I was sure the house was going to start on fire unless I got a new one soon. So here I am with the old one, posed over the garbage can. I am sure my babysitters will be even more relieved, since I often have quick meals that are heated up in the skillet on voice teaching nights.
Here's Lucy with her pillow pet, so cute and less frustrating than all the Squinkies. We were so lucky Santa found a cheetah (maybe a leopard, but a cheetah to Lucy). I have only seen one cheetah, one time, and never since. Thankfully Santa must have seen that one at K mart and grabbed it for Lucy.
Here is Lizzy at her desk. She didn't get much else, because as you can see she doesn't do much else besides draw things with her markers. Paper optional. And replacing lids on markers is a dumb detail a true artist should not be bothered with.
Mason with his ATAT Walker. It's very cool, the boys have played and played with it.
This picture tells the story. I think we may just have to "lose" this toy and all its pieces. Very soon. Like before 2010 is over.
But then maybe not...how cute is this little girl with her little artist hands around the pieces?

Matt playing with the ATAT walker.

OK, this was the best of all...two WW2 helmets and grenades. Very fun.

Merry Christmas everyone! I'll post more pictures of all the snow, we're having a wonderful day! Oh, and PS..yes I made the jammies!