Despite J and I not buying Christmas presents for our kids or each other we all still manage to be spoiled silly every year.

Some of my favorite gifts this year included a new Sonicare toothbrush, a beautiful vase with the ASL alphabet on it, and a denim shirt.

SJ got a snowsuit just in time because it snowed Christmas night and there is several more inches falling tonight.

Z got an explorer kit and naturally the kids made a spaceship out of a cardboard box. They drew all over it with crayon including some detailed drawings of the control board. It’s already been busted and taped back together once. You have no idea how much enjoyment I get from watching them play with a box!

Z also got a puzzle of Ellis Island, because he LOVES New York City and the statue of Liberty. We started putting it together and the only problem was it is a 500 piece puzzle. I could have just said we’ll save this for when you are older, but no I got sucked into some geeky puzzle world where I was absolutely obsessed with completing it, which was not easy. I worked on it for two days. I don’t know how many hours total. I need to have a confession time for the things I said to the kids if they tried to touch the puzzle while I was working on it, or touch the table that the puzzle was on for that matter. I am not joking! J joined in for the last 50 pieces (which I will admit were the hardest because they all looked alike) I warned him to let me do the last piece, but he started to do it anyway and I screamed so loud the neighbors were probably like “did you hear that?”. Yeah, he got a kick out of that. 

As far as gifts we gave, I found this cool pizza wheel that looks like a circular saw for my brother

 and my sister in laws reaction to this wooden box that J made for her was priceless.

It’s all been so much fun, but my favorite gift exchange for the year was from Z to SJ. He saw a commercial for the Dora Pony Land Adventure a long time ago and he always thought SJ would love it, so he saved up all of his chore money to get it for her for Christmas. We had a picture of the toy hanging on the fridge and he’s been working toward purchasing it since October!

She loved it and needless to say I am so proud of his generous heart. This year’s Christmas wrapped up beautiful memories for me that I look forward to reopening for years to come.