Friday, December 28, 2012

Mr. Elf Shananigans, 2012

Mr. Elf made his appearance on December 2nd this year, and kept us entertained until Christmas Eve. The girls, Kaitlyn inparticular, had a BLAST finding him each morning, and found more humor in his antics than even last year.

Without further ado...

 Mr. Elf, 2012:


Arrival: Reading his Elf on the Shelf story


Bedtime story that night

First official morning. Kaitlyn and Austen thought this was hilarious :)

Kaitlyn's elf drawing


"Oh crap! Honey, could you run downstairs and move Mr. Elf before K goes down there?" Daddy's frantic placement.



Another Daddy morning. A mac n cheese throne!

Framing himself


Growing candy canes!

Photocopying his booty


Kaitlyn thought it was so cool that he had gotten into HER sock drawer and used one of HER socks for a hat.

And Austen, after seeing him in K's room the previous morning, was thrilled that he landed in the dollhouse in HER room the next!

I get many of these ideas from the internet, and this was one of them. I was going to skip it, but got desperate for an idea one night. The girls didn't know quite what to think...I just hope they aren't traumatized by magic elf pee.

He brought special peppermint kisses from the North Pole for cookies

 
My two cookie helpers...could they be any cuter?

He got into the cookies we baked -- yum!

Hangin' with his people...

Sleepover with the babies (sideways sleepover - oops!)

Yee Haw!

Kaitlyn thought this one was soooo funny. He hung their unders on the tree. Austen was not happy that he had taken her favorite purple flower pair.

He wanted a movie night with popcorn

 
And the finale: Mr. Elf colored the girls' noses red, and left them a CD to play. When we put it in the player, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer came on. Clever elf!

"KK, your nose is red." "No, YOUR nose is red!" Priceless ;)


On Christmas Eve night, Kaitlyn feel asleep with her head in her hands, staring at Mr. Elf (he had landed on her nightstand that morning). She was so sad to see him go. However, she got over it pretty quickly the next morning when she realized that Santa had been here. We can't wait for next December!

{We have fun with this particular Christmas tradition. The girls love it, and we love to see them loving it. This happens ot be one thing I do well at over this holiday...there are many other things that I DON'T do! ;) }

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Another Round

More pictures -- more later.

Out with the old, in with the new...

On the left is our "little girl" potty, which we are now giving to someone else since Austen is a big girl using the big potty. Good riddance, and I will not miss your short-circuit singing at 4a.m.

On the right is our family jade plant. Jeff and I started this from a neighbors plant, over six years ago at our townhome. It began as a leaf, and grew into this honkin' "Jade Tree." It was getting too big, so we took the plunge and parted with it. This wasn't an easy decision, since there was a Jeff plant and a Lisa plant, and was a tad sentimental. ;)

No worries...a new generation of jade has been started.



More from Kaitlyn's birthday party:




This series makes my heart melt for some reason. I love the expressions on her face, and she just looks...beautiful. Our gorgeous little redhead.

(She and I baked her chocolate cake together -- she felt pretty important :))











 
 
K and I went on a mommy-daughter date to the movie theater on her actual birthday. She was SO proud to be in the big theater, with her big cup-with-a-straw, and her popcorn. We saw Finding Nemo in 3-D. 
 
There hasn't been much time for crochet lately, but I whipped up this cute cup cozy a while ago. Not that I'll ever use it, but it was fun to make!


 

Kaitlyn's sweet friend, Makya, came and spent the day with us while her mama got some much-needed errand (wander aisles? That's what I do when I actually get to "shop" by myself, anyway...) time. The girls had a great time, and K needed the friend time...


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Monday, December 3, 2012

Posting the Happy

We had a very hard November. It seems to be following us into December, too. I somehow got it in my head that I couldn't post "happy" until I wrote about the hard stuff that's been going on. I'm over it. I'll write that when I'm ready, and right now I'm ready for a new outlook, and to get back into the Land of the Living.

A few to start, then more to come.






Happy December :)