Simply Radiant: The Stuff

I feel kind of silly posting about the things we got for Christmas because who wants to read about that, but since this is our primary family record I want to share the highlights for each of us.

Larry and I were so excited for this Christmas with Creed that we both agreed we'd rather spend more on Creed than on each other. In fact, the budget was so limited we decided not to buy a Christmas tree this year and spend that money on Creed too. It was so worth it because he was so excited about everything he got and he still is busy playing with all his toys.

When Creed was born, Larry and I started out with totally different theories on toy buying: I would rather spend more money on a few quality items that we know Creed will spend lots of time with and we won't hate looking at while Larry would rather buy tons of inexpensive items that total to keep Creed busy as long as possible because he has so many things to play with. Now that our little house is beginning to fill with hand-me-down toys from friends, I think I'm beginning to win Larry over to my side.

We've been carefully watching Creed at friends' and taking him to play at toy stores to see what captivated him most and we came up with three must haves: a play kitchen, a toy vacuum, and a wooden train set. I was determined to find a play kitchen that wasn't plastic, wasn't pink, and wasn't too big and lucked out finding this Land Of Nod Kitchen at a Downeast Home Outlet. Creed loves it too much and is a little possessive of it when other kids are around so I'm hoping that wears off soon.

Of course he had to have some play food too so I tracked down this set my friend Mary Ann also had when we were little. I love it because it's hard plastic and all the pieces velcro together so you can peel them and then chop them.

Then we bought this little wooden train set that is bringing Creed lots of joy

And no, we did not go out and buy our one year-old an Ipod, but we got a free one with our Mac back in the fall so we loaded my old Nano with all of Creed's music and bought him some head phones so we can have a little break from some of his favorites. I think he's brought it to me about 50 times since Christmas to ask me to play the Hot Dog song from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Larry's only Christmas request was a set of Lincoln logs (although Santa also thought to bring him some much needed long sleeve shirts)

We draw names among my siblings and my brother-in-law found this beauty for Larry because of Larry's love for all things Willy Wonka. It makes Creed cry whenever he puts it on!