Santa Came!!!!

Well We set our alarm for 6am hoping to beat the kids up and lay on the couches until the got up. BUT at 10 till 6 Emma got up and let us know that Santa had been to our house. So we got up and celebrated, looking at everything, opening everything and emptying out stockings. We played hard until 9am then sat and watched the Disney parade. We had fried chicken for lunch and played outside, then we ALL took good naps!!! When we woke up we went over to a neighbor's house for a neighborhood Christmas dinner. We had a wonderful day celebrating Jesus' Birth!!!

Preparing for Santa

On Christmas Eve it's kind of like a baking fest at our house with the Jesus cake and cookies for Santa. The kids had already decorated some at our friends, but they wanted to do more. We put the cookies, and our elves on the fireplace for Santa to get with a mug of sweet tea ( we know by the time Santa gets to our house he's tired of milk) aka Jeff hates milk. The adorable aprons were a gift from the Pelfrey's. The kids loved them and I know we will be able to use them for years (thanks Pelfrey's). After we read the story of Jesus and put out our cookies for Santa we went outside and threw our reindeer food on the roof. I tried to get Emma to put it on the grass and her response to that was,"mom, if we put it on the ground the reindeer will pull the sleigh off of the roof trying to get the food." Oops! I wasn't thinking through the details!!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

One of our fun traditions is baking a cake for Jesus' birthday. The kids love making it, blowing out the candles and especially eating it.

Christmas Eve Cookie Party

Some good friends of ours invited us over along with other friends and some of their family for cookie decorating and a light dinner on Christmas Eve. The kids had a blast decorating and eating the cookies.

The Elves last few days

We have had such a great time with our elves. Since they arrived they have done so many things. One morning we found them playing in flour making snow angels. Emma says that Ty's was making a snow nativity(I don't think she gets the whole snow angel thing, but I thought that was cute). One day they left candy for Emma and Ty to share and one morning they even left gifts, with the stipulation that they had to give them to someone else. Here, Ty's is playing the guitar and Emma's was hanging in the tree. Santa left us a note saying they loved to celebrate baby Jesus' bday and sure enough, the morning of Christmas Eve they were reading the baby Jesus story and playing with the nativity. The elves have been a blast, but Santa had to take them back with him until next year. I'm sure by then they will have some crazy things to do at our house.

Party Party Party

We had a day of Christmas parties around our house. Emma and Ty's school and Mdo parties were on the same day. For Em's we made gingerbread houses and ate bkft. For Ty's we had lunch and made reindeer food. Both had a wonderful time.

The Elves have Arrived

Emma's Kinder. teacher gave us a wonderful website and idea. (elf-magic.com). Each year her class writes a letter to Santa asking for some elves to take care of. He sends them elves and the elves watch the kids during the day and do mischievous things at night. So Emma wrote Santa a letter asking for an elf at home. He wrote her back telling her that he would send her two, a boy with blonde curly hair and a girl with brown pigtails. He then sent another letter saying they should have arrived and to name them. He told them that they could be mischevious, but they also liked to serve people (Jeff's idea). They loved to celebrate Jesus' bday and to read them stories about Him. So on Tues. our elves arrived and Emma and Ty rode around with them in their shirts, so the elves could see. Last night Ty's elf got on his toy train and Emma's got all tangled up in some ribbon and was riding our roller coaster. Tonight ,as you can see, they were servants and helped mom out by making the kids lunches for school and mother's day out. It has been so fun to see the kids react. I'm sure you'll get to see more of the elves at work!!!

Continuing to Celebrate

Mimi and Papa came early for Christmas so that we could celebrate before Christmas instead of after, and we celebrated every minute they were here. They came in on Thurs. and the plan was to not open gifts until Fri. night. However, we ended up opening one Thurs. night, one Friday after school and then finished up after making our gingerbread house on Friday night. By the way, both kids got a guitar and loved every minute of performing.

Christmas with Kidz Praize

At our church the little kids choir time is called Kidz Praize. The kids absolutely love it!!!! They get to sing, dance, play instruments, etc. They had practiced these songs for at least 3 months and we even got a take home cd to practice. As you can see, Ty started off sitting by his friends and then one by one some of his friends left crying from the stage. Ty decided this was a good idea and came to see us. Then he decided he would rather sit by Emma, so 1/2 way through he went up to the top and told the girl beside Emma to scoot over he wanted to sit there. It made quite an impact on the audience and we all laughed. Emma, who still wants to be in musicals and plays, says it makes her nervous to be up there and usually never smiles!! In all they had a great time and got to wear pjs to sing in (the theme was "tell me a good night story about Jesus"

CHRISTMAS TIME!!!

Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. We started a little early this year by going and visiting Santa the day before Thanksgiving, and then now, as one of our new traditions we put up our tree after our naps on Thanksgiving. Both Emma and Ty were both ok seeing Santa, after crying in years past, and they had a blast putting up our big tree and both of their little trees.