Hardy Highlights : Christmas 2012

We had a most wonderful Christmas this year!

We were visited by the cutest Christmas carolers:

Natalie, Emily, Alyssa, and Amanda Workman

Unfortunately I had to go to Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve (crazy!) but if I hadn't I would have missed this awesome group of kids from the high school band just out playing Christmas music for the fun of it. They didn't have a guitar case or hat out or I may have thrown in a dollar or two. :)

I don't know the others but the one on the far left is Zach Winegardner, the other assistant organist in our ward.

We stayed up late Christmas Eve to put the finishing touches on Kelsey's Christmas present. I had gotten the idea to convert an end table into a toy stove from Pinterest and I really wanted to do that for Kelsey. Daren ended up helping me a lot with it so I really appreciated him for that.

Finally done and it was only 12:30am!

We got to bed late but I could still hardly sleep because I was so excited for the next morning. I felt like we got everyone something that they would be very excited about. Natalee had asked for a pink BB gun, which is what we got her. Haylee wanted an archery set, but I was pretty sure she was going to love the camera we got her. Mackenzie wanted a flute but that was pretty much out of our price range. We decided to surprise her with a second parakeet-the "purple" one she had been admiring at the pet store. (It is actually mostly a blue and white but has a light purple area on its back.) I knew Kelsey really wanted her own kitchen because she had been playing with one at a friend's house and said she wished she had one. We also got her some toy food and dishes to go with it. Nathan was getting a basketball hoop and I just knew he was going to love it because he has so much fun with balls. We got Avery a couple of toys that she will really love in a few months, and I made her her very own fleece blanket.
I woke up around 6:30 and noticed the light was on. I panicked for a second that I was going to miss the look on their faces. It turned out Natalee was the only one awake. All the other kids were still asleep. She had already peeked at her stocking and was reading a book. Actually, their stockings this year were pretty empty. They were disappointed and they let me know it. :) I probably shouldn't find ingratitude amusing but sometimes they say the funniest things when they are grumpy. I think Natalee and Haylee were grumpiest because they knew it was just me and not Santa. But in my defense I did have the flu the last few days before Christmas this year and that's my usual "figure out the stockings" time. But they were very happy with their gifts so they stopped griping about their fairly empty stockings. :)

Nathan got a dinosaur pillow pet.

Daren was so worried that Mackenzie was going to be disappointed about not getting a flute that he made one for her out of PVC pipe.

Haylee was so surprised and excited by her camera! I love that I caught this look on her face. :)

Daren almost surprised me with this loom set. He will not leave receipts laying around next time.

Daren bought himself a gun for Christmas this year.

This is the fleece blanket I made for Avery. If I'm lucky she will end up loving it as much as Nate loves his doggie blanket.

Nate's gift is almost as tall as he is.

Once the box was unwrapped he went back to playing with Kelsey's toys while his sisters worked on getting it out and setting it up for him.

Once it was out of the box he loved his basketball hoop!

He was so excited every time he made a basket.

Mackenzie immediately fell in love with Violet.

As usual, we had the kids draw names for each other. Kelsey bought Haylee these glow in the dark stars to put on her ceiling.

Mackenzie knew Natalee loved her Peace sign necklace so she gave it to her.

I got my first (and only) Vintage Pearl necklace. It says "Blessed Mommy" on it and has two tiny feet stamped in the middle. I submitted some cute pictures of my necklace to them and they used one of my pics in their blog so I won a $25 gift certificate!

We found this blank white tea set and knew it was perfect for Mackenzie. She has wanted a tea set and she loves art!

Stripes and Violet became fast friends and nothing makes Stripes more unhappy than someone taking Violet out of the cage. He was a fairly quiet bird until he got a friend. :)

Grandma Moffitt made this adorable apron for Haylee.

My mom started this quilt for my grandma years ago but stopped working on it for a long time (I think when she got called to teach seminary?). She surprised my grandma with it this year and it made her cry.

We ended our wonderful Christmas day with Nate trying to climb the Christmas tree (?) and tipping it over crashing to the ground. We ended up losing some ornaments. We had several glass bears from a set my Grandma Moffitt gave to Daren and I early in our marriage for a Christmas gift. Unfortunately we lost almost half of them. I think there were 12 and 5 were broken in the fall. I was sad because they were a special gift from my grandma. But I'm grateful we still have some of them and I suppose this is another first we got to experience from having an adorable, rambunctious boy in the house. :)