Monday, December 31, 2012

Christmas 2012, Part 5

Some random gifts…








This turtle is actually a nightlight that shines stars and crescent moons all over the ceiling.  You can set it to display the stars in purple, orange, or green.  It's pretty awesome.



Magna-Tiles came highly recommended by numerous persons.  As you can see, they are magnetic building blocks that allow you to build some pretty cool structures.  So far, Peter has been extremely fond of building little mazes for his Hexbug Nano to run around in.  It works pretty well.







Christmas for Mom and Dad…

Breaking Bad is easily the best television series I have ever seen.  I gave Melanie the first four seasons of the show on Blu-ray.  Here, Melanie shows Peter the cover for season one, which features lead actor Bryan Cranston standing in his underwear and holding a gun.

The one book Melanie received from me rather than from Santa: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

Beautiful art, courtesy of Melanie’s parents.

Melanie’s parents must have heard that Santa was bringing us a doughnut cookbook, because they also sent along this doughnut pan.  Creegan opened it for us.  We didnt even have to ask!


One of my favorite Christmas traditions is receiving a calendar for the upcoming year featuring photographs of my beautiful family.  I call it a tradition, although this was only the second year this has happened.  I am hoping it is a trend that will continue.


Even though Eddie and Peter both owned scooters prior to Christmas morning, the new scooters have been a tremendous hit. For whatever reason, Peter absolutely loves the new blue scooter. (It is the exact same kind of scooter as his old green one, which Creegan has now adopted. The new blue scooter was actually meant for Creegan, but somehow they are both content to have it work differently than Santa had planned.) And Eddie loves having a Maxi-Kick, which gives him much more stability than his old scooter did. The boys have gone out to ride scooters twice a day every day since Christmas. It’s been great, although the PlasmaCar shown below hasn’t been too popular. Maybe Santa messed up on that one.

What a beautiful Christmas morning, don’t you think?





Christmas morning always involves lots of fun food. In addition to the fun treats Santa leaves in our stockings and on the dining table, there is our traditional Christmas morning breakfast, consisting of egg nog French toast and a medley of hash browns, eggs, sausage, and cheese. Yum!


Oinky gets in on the snacking.

Peter couldn’t figure out how to break his chocolate orange into sections. He decided to eat it like a regular orange instead.

Breakfast!

The handsome chef.

And his sexy wife, who cooked up the French toast this year around. Thanks, honey!

I should make quick mention of some of the gifts I received that did not end up in our photo collection: the limited edition Blu-ray of The Big Lebowski; the books The Second Comforter by Denver C. Snuffer Jr. and Lot’s Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women’s Quest for Authority by Robert M. Polhemus; an Amazon gift card from Melanie’s parents and some cash from my own parents; and a shoe rack.

The end! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Christmas 2012, Part 4

Creegan, Ben, and Melanie open stockings…


Creegan, Eddie, and Peter each received an ornament of their initial. Creegan seemed to think his would be edible. As they say, “C is for cookie.”

In addition to the lovely items shown here, my stocking included a chocolate orange, a can of cashews, a Snickers, a Whatchamacalit, and some awesome guitar-shaped ornaments.



Melanie received several books for Christmas (one from me, but three from Santa!).  Here is Melanie with Flunking Sainthood by Jana Riess.

A cool new necklace.



A friend who was moving donated a huge train set to us. Melanie and I gave this to our kids. They have played with it quite a bit so far.









Costumes for Christmas…



Super Mario for Eddie, from Mom and Dad.

Captain America for Peter, from Uncle Tom.

The Incredible Hulk for Eddie, from Uncle Tom.


Sometime shortly before Christmas, Edison and Peter discovered VTech Switch & Go Dinos. They both wanted one very badly. Melanie’s parents sent them for Christmas. Peter’s dinosaur is his very favorite Christmas gift this year.














Some other gifts from Grandma and Grandpa…






I absolutely love Creegan's expression here.


To be continued!