The tree

This picture cracks me up. Every year without fail Corbin finds the New Years Eve party supplies (placed in the same box as the Christmas stuff so that I can remember where it is!) and puts on this same exact headband while decorating!




Dave's reading to the kids the Elf on the Shelf book

We ate cinnamon rolls after we decorated (everything we do in our family involves food...seriously) Each of my kids has their own set of Christmas dishes that we bring out after Thanksgiving. My mom started the tradition with Trevor and we keep it up every year.

Finally...SweetieFry

We finally made it to SweetieFry and we were not disappointed. The owner said he was still tweaking a few flavors of ice cream, but the ones we had were good. Mmmmm...ice cream and a basket of chili cheese fries--YUM! :)

Christmas Shenanigans

I woke up Sunday morning to the kids singing the 12 days of Christmas. We started decorating for Christmas Saturday night and got out all of the Christmas books. They found our book of the 12 days of Christmas and sang it at the top of their lungs. It was so cute. After church they pretended to be Santa Claus, reindeer and penguins. I think I'm going to love this Holiday season.

Creative ideas for your Elf on the Shelf

I found some of these last year and wanted to share. Hiding the elf can get redundant, so here are some ideas to spruce it up for the kids. I thought they were cute:

15 fun creative ideas

I think you could get all the ideas you will ever need from HERE

Last year we had the kids write their letters to Santa and give it to Trickster, our elf. Trickster then delivered them to Santa and in the morning Trickster had a letter from Santa to the kids. We've also put a bunch of candy wrappers around him and had him riding our ceramic chicken that we have in our kitchen.

The Polar Express

So, Black Friday started out different for me than it did for most people in the U.S. I don't go shopping on Black Friday. I am not that crazy, or die hard. But, I do clean. And clean we did...all....day....long. Yeah, the kids were loving it, but I need a good deep clean before I can even think about setting up for another holiday season. So, we cleaned and made cinnamon rolls.

That night the kids opened up presents-- new matching CHRISTMAS PJ's! (Dave really dislikes the whole christmas pj thing because now he has too many that he never wears)



The kids put their PJ's on and then we took them to the railroad station. We were going on the POLAR EXPRESS!

They hopped aboard the Polar Express, drank hot chocolate and ate cookies, saw the North Pole and Santa's elves, heard the Polar Express story book, sang Christmas Carols, did a PJ parade down the train aisles so all the kids could show off their pj's and then each child was visited individually by Santa. He gave each child a silver bell. It was so cute.
THE TRAIN HAD JUST ARRIVED...


THE KIDS WERE GIVEN THEIR GOLDEN TICKETS...



BOARDING THE TRAIN...

THE CONDUCTOR PUNCHING THEIR TICKETS...




HOT CHOCOLATE AND CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

ARRIVING AT THE NORTH POLE. HERE, THERE WERE A BUNCH OF ELVES SINGING AND WAVING AND SANTA RODE BY ON HIS SLEIGH


SANTA MET WITH EACH KID INDIVIDUALLY AND GAVE THEM EACH A SILVER BELL.


ONE OF SANTA'S ELVES READ THE BOOK, THE POLAR EXPRESS TO THE KIDS BEFORE SANTA CAME. WE SANG CHRISTMAS CAROLS ON THE WAY BACK TO THE TRAIN STATION.

It was so fun. The first thing that came out of the kids mouths (seriously, all three of them at the same time) when we ended our train ride was, "Can we do it again next year??!!" I am so glad they had a good time. And I am so glad Trevor (my oldest) still believes in Santa Claus to make the experience even more fun!

Ashlyn asked Santa for a cat. Santa gave me a look. I looked helpless. Santa told her that maybe he would give her a stuffed animal cat instead (which really made me laugh because of this previous story!: ) and then he told her maybe next year and she said ok. Two things I'm conflicted about, 1)I felt bad that Santa squelched her wish (even though he was probably doing me a favor) and 2) I don't really want to get a cat...but I know she would LOVE IT! Ugh. Why can't cats be non-allergenic....and mess free. :)

Bring on Christmas!

I love Thanksgiving. But I am mostly in the practice of celebrating both Thanksgiving and Christmas at the same time, and my kids totally dictate this. They started listening to Christmas music at the beginning of September, and then shortly after started a countdown until Christmas and then wrote their letters to Santa 3 weeks before Thanksgiving came. They are excited and who am I to stifle that?

I ADORE this picture of Corbin. His expression is priceless as it captures the true wonder and awe of kids at Christmas. Corbin is meeting Santa on the train ride Polar Express.

Thankful

We had a really nice Thanksgiving day. It was what you'd expect a good Thanksgiving to be. Good food, good friends, good fun. We all met at the church so that we'd have enough room for all of our families to be together and also to include anyone else who wanted/needed a place to come. (great idea, thanks Lisa!) We went around the table and said what we were thankful for. For some reason I thought about my response for the next two days. I said I was thankful for Jesus Christ. And, as I thought about it, I thought about the fact that I am blessed to actually have that knowledge that He lives. So, I am thankful for knowledge as well. Thankful that I know that we lived with Heavenly Father before we came to Earth; that I know that Jesus Christ made it possible to overcome sin and mistakes and even overcome pain from both; that I know that through Christ we can live with Heavenly Father again someday. I am thankful for knowledge.

OTHER THANKFUL FORS:
Trevor- LEGOS (seriously, he's an 8-year-old boy, what else would you expect?!)
Ashlyn- ANIMALS
Corbin- PIGS (he actually wouldn't say this at the table, but I asked him later and this is what he said! funny kid)
Dave- FAMILY

Emily, Lisa and I decorated for the event.



The Water coloring station was a hit!


I brought feathers and headbands for the kids to make Indian headdresses

What Thanksgiving would be complete without the Wii, Just Dance game?!

A little basketball...





The movie station