Merry Christmas!

The week leading up to Christmas was pretty great. I made gluten free gingerbread so the kids could make houses and invite their friends to come make some too. Thursday, when all the house making was planned, there was a huge snowstorm (white Christmas!!) so the party was pushed back to Friday… and not as many kids could come. Zach couldn’t let the pieces go to waste, so there is a huge house sitting on our table waiting to be decorated with the candy we keep pilfering from the bowl. Will it ever happen? Who knows. The gingerbread is pretty tasty, but is much better with the frosting. I’m hoping, for my sake, that the candy and frosting make it on to the house.
The kid sized houses:

Ezra’s

and India’s.

While trying to photograph these, I discovered my main camera body is not working. The shutter fires (maybe) and the mirror flips up (I can hear that), but there is no detail in the file created. Probably the shutter isn’t firing or there’s something terribly wrong with the sensor. These are taken with my back-up body. Man, I sure hope this is a quick and easy fix.

Anyway, this year’s favorite gifts are pictured below. Mostly the home made ones. I’m a little biased towards them.

Zed kept asking for Zombie Underwear… whatever that is. So the older kids and I made some for him. Freezer paper fabric painting sure does come in handy. He wears these over his diapers for now, since he still refuses to sit on the toilet. Why or why is he so difficult?

Harry Potter has also been popular in our house this year. Zed kept asking for a black HP wand, since the one we have is light brown and not HP. So he got his wand and a pair of glasses that hopefully won’t break as easily as the more “real” ones. He had no idea how cool a hat and scarf could be until his Grandma made and sent them to him. He is a true Hogwarts student now… or USC fan.

While living in Australia for a month and watching a large amount of tv, mostly Ben 10, Ezra grew quite fond of the show. So India and I worked on this Omnitrix for him. I saw a few online that boasted holograms and moving parts. All things buit to break and disappoint. So I thought we should make one and make it simple. So that’s what we did. If this thing breaks, I can fix it.

India loves legos, so that was her favorite gift this year. Ezra and I had planned to make her a friendship bracelet kit, but she received a pretty cool clipboard from her teacher at church (with a skier on it). Instead we just got her floss and scissors. Kind of a cop-out, but all these home made gifts were being made at the last minute.

The last photo is of the kids opening their gifts from Aunt Teri. While in Australia we visited the Chinese Garden where the kids dressed up in traditional Chinese clothes. They loved it. So Avatar, especially with the staff. Since then they’ve asked for Chinese dress-ups. While looking online for something to purchase Teri called to ask what she could get the kids. I told her what I was working on and she offered to make them for me! So cool!! The kids love them and have been wearing them around the house. All except for Zed. He must be convinced that his is a cool color. What 2 year old is picky about clothes?? Mine! Maybe I’ll get all of them to wear them and take a photo. Also, maybe I’ll put up one of the shots from the Chinese Garden that inspired all this.