The Gifts & Reasons

Specially for Camille (7)
Can You Find It Outside?: Search and Discover for Young Art Lovers (book)
Can You Find It Inside?: Search and Discover for Young Art Lovers (book)
The Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (book)
The ABC's of Origami: Paper Folding for Children (book)
Namits Original Game
Potholder Loom
Sculpey Just For Me Children’s Activity Kit
Klutz Book of Knots (book)
Moon In My Room
Black Crusader Play Set

Specially for Danny (3)
Bear Counters (6 color, 96)
View-Master 3D 3-Reel Card Horses
Crusader Play Set (Gray)
Three Bear Family Sorting Activity Cards
Animal Croquet
Pattern Blocks - Wooden (250) in jar
Table Top Building Blocks Set (87 pc)
Wedgits Junior Set (15 pc)
Wedgits Starter Design Cards
Colors and Shapes Wipe-Off Book
Adventures in Odyssey- Bible Eyewitness Audio CDs
Adventures in Odyssey- Life Lessons 1-4 Audio CDs
Adventures of Sir Bernard Audio CD
*punching bag set- hopefully from an uncle

For both or family
Four in One (Badminton, Swingball, Tailbail, Volleyball) at Hearthsong.com
Gym-Dandy Teeter-Totter (big gift)
Playmobil Castle (big gift from grands)
Blokus Game
Puzzle Roll-Up JUMBO (3000 pcs 48” x 36”)
Material World: A Global Family Portrait
Storykeepers 12 DVD set - Bible stories
Ratatouille DVD
The Jungle Book DVD
Shiloh DVD & book
Billy Blanks - Tae Bo Kicks DVD
Gaiam Kids: Yogakids Fun Collection DVD

For Dh
TiVo, House DVD Seasons 1-2 (?), clothes, fabric steamer if I can find a good one for not too much

For FIL
Digital Picture frame with memory cards

For my parents
Dad- Flannel shirts from LandsEnd, gift certificate to Dick's Sporting Goods or Harley Davidson
Mom- Seven Brides for Seven Brothers DVD (or find a good set of her favorite movies), Home organization book, I really don't know!

Since homeschooling I've been working towards moving away from commercial items for the kids. This has been a task within itself because other gift-bearers see no reason why Camille should have a Barbie although I know she will like receiving it but will never play with it. Dh thinks the gifts above are purely educational which translates "no fun" but in reality- the kids will appreciate these items more than glitzy commercial items, at least I think so.

Camille loves art books and has asked specially for "find it" art books. She has been doing origami ever since we did it as a project for history and I've already had to buy more paper but she's doing the same origami over and over. The Nameits game- my goodness, if you've ever been in the car with her you'd appreciate playing more than "I Spy", "What Am I" and the "Rhyming Game" over and over! She saw the potholder loom in the Rainbow Resource holiday catalog and asked if she could do it too, same with the Sculpey Just For Me activity kit. Camille is forever tying knots, tying scarves, string, and whatever else she can to things so I figured a little guidance in how to tie knots would be fun- thus the Klutz book of Knots which is self-contained (thank you very much). Moon in my Room- Camille has been ga-ga over this since seeing it a couple of months back, she keeps pointing it out to me in stores saying she wants it. And finally, the crusader play set. She is more tomboy than girly-girl and loves to pretend fight with her brother. He's getting a crusader play set too. Pippi is because I liked her as a girl and I want to share her adventures with Camille.

Danny is 3 and a huge lover of all things that have wheels so he already has over 100 Matchbox-type cars, trucks, airplanes and trains. He also has a very nice collection of Little People and a dinosaur play set so he was more of a challenge this year trying to figure out what to get him that he needs for preschool but also for fun. He is probably the more spoiled between him and Camille being the youngest and easiest to please with his passions. Camille is a hard child for grandparents to figure out, they don't want to accept that she's more tomboy than she is. There really isn't much toys that Danny has that she doesn't play with. I've discovered lately that he loves listening to 'stories' at bedtime so the audio cds are to fulfill that little niche but I wanted something worthwhile to listen to. The Three Family Bear Counters are really for preschool but I hope to make these enticing to him and fun to play with. Lately Danny has been pointing out horses more than anything else, especially in catalogs so I got him a View-master slide of them.

The animal croquet is for both of them but I want to work with Danny on patience, concentration and hand-eye coordination plus get him outside to run him down! He loves his Melissa & Doug Pattern Board so the wooden pattern blocks are for this, as well as the Wedgits which has been such a hit here. He also loves wipe-off books which doubles as preschool. Danny loves dog movies and we've rented Shiloh from the library so many times I think we've worn the video out. Both kids loved Rataouille and since we're studying French, this is a perfect addition to our DVD collection and I loved Jungle Book as a kid (good reason to get it, huh?) The table-top blocks are architectural blocks so we can attempt to build places we study about or just have more fun with the blocks we already have.

The rest is self-explanatory: exercise videos to wear out the kids, and I want the kids outside more so the game set, tetter-totter help accomplish that. I decided against a trampoline, mini or otherwise. My kids, yowsers...

I think I did pretty good even if the other family members think it's too educational to be fun. I really can't wait for them to see the Playmobil Castle, they've drooled over it since last Christmas. See, Christmas is more about fulfilling hearts' desires for me than anything. If I didn't receive anything just being able to see my kids excited (over good stuff) would be enough for me.