'Twas 6 Days After Christmas...

And I finally got to my Christmas recap.  It was a really busy, and sickly (for me), Christmas season around here.  I started off the month with a trip to Portland to visit Nanette and less than two weeks after I got back, we threw a Christmas party at our house.  It was pretty much all Rob's friends from work that we invited and a lot of them showed up.  It was open house style with lots of food and drinks and I was so busy, that I didn't even get a picture of the house during the party.  You would just see wall-to-wall people though if I had gotten the chance.  It was a good time and I'd like to do it again next year but Rob was so worn out, he said we could do it in about 3 years.  We'll see.  I did a lot of decorating around the house and I have two favorite projects.  The first one I didn't get a picture of either.  I am bad about that.  I got the inspiration from Pinterest to do an advent calendar out of a over-the-door shoe organizer.

Source: modernparentsmessykids.com via Shelby on Pinterest

This one is a lot cuter than mine.  I will have to see if I can spruce mine up for next year and make it look like this one.  The other thing I did that I loved so much came from another pin.  I got so many compliments at the party on it too, which was great.  On our gallery wall, I swapped out the photos I could change with all our different Christmas card photos we've taken over the years (that part was my idea) and then the ones that I couldn't change, I just wrapped them up to look like giant Christmas gifts.

It was kind of a lot of work and definitely took a lot of wrapping paper and ribbon, but the result was totally worth it.  The whole house was totally decked out because I love to decorate and with the party I had a good excuse to go nuts but these were my two favorite things.  And we took everything down this weekend so that is all the photos I have of that.

We had a lot of fun on Christmas morning.  Santa brought Rex a "space station" that he was asking for (actually it is a space shuttle and launch tower) and Wyatt got a V-Reader so he will stop stealing his brother's all the time.  At least that is what I was hoping for and now we have two so there are a lot less fights over that toy.  They got all kinds of things from us and family and friends- pretend camping gear, Mobigo games, boats and trucks of all kinds, books, clothes, puzzles, play food and cooking stuff and more that I can't remember right now.  Because it was a LOT.  Here are some photos from that morning.









I have to point out the matching Christmas elf pajamas.  This is the one time of the whole year when I insist on dressing them the same and I will keep doing it as long as I can get away with it- they are so adorable!!