Santa Sent Us An Elf
Much like many families this holiday season, Elf on the Shelf arrived on our front step and we've all been having fun with him since. The back-story about this elf is that Santa sends it to your house and you need to name it, but once it is named, you cannot touch it or else it will lose it's Christmas magic. The elf travels back to Santa's workshop at night to give Santa a full report of your behavior during the day and it's a fun game to see where you will find him in the morning, upon his return from the North Pole. A lot of moms are having too much fun with this (check out this hilarious blog post about the over-acheiving moms out there), and if you know me, you know full-well that I have the potential to go overboard with this. There's a famous picture floating around out in cyber space that shows someone's elf making "elf angels" in a huge pile of salt that the "elf" dumped out all over their kitchen counter. My first thought was, "That is SO FUN!!" My next thought was, "Who's going to clean that up?? Oh, right....me!" Anyhoo, we named our elf "Alfred" (called "Alfie" for short---yes, he was named after Batman's butler. You don't need to ask why: we have a 6-year old boy living in this house) and Alfie is quite the climber. Or, as the kids like to say, he's quite the "flyer". The first night he was here, he was hanging from our dining room chandelier. The second night, he was sitting waaaaay up on the ledge of our foyer window. He likes to find the high places, which is sure good for his well-being, since he'd be very enticing for a certain toddling 1-year old if he hid in a low place. I'm sure we'll have more creative places to hide Alfie in future years as the kids get older, but for now, it's so fun to see the kids search around the house every morning and shriek with delight when the find where Alfie has hid next.
Here's a picture of Alfie today....hanging from the mistletoe!!
We've Got a 1-Year Old
As I'm sure you know, the "baby" of our family had his birthday at the beginning of this month. With the holidays around the corner, and everyone's schedules filling up fast, we had a "Double Birthday Extravaganza" with our families the other weekend, celebrating Connor's first birthday and Hannah's upcoming fourth birthday. Two birthdays, so we had to have two cakes and two "themes" (which turned out to be princess/pink for Hannah's and just "blue" for Connor's). It was a lot of fun to hang out with our families, which we love to do, and I'm sure everyone was a little hyper from all the sugar offered to them...
As with any 1-year old's birthday, everyone was excited to see Connor tear into his "smash cake". It turned out to be the cleanest first birthday EVER: he didn't even smash the cupcake! He ate some of the frosting, then ate a little bit of the cake (his was banana truffle flavored and Hannah's princess cake was strawberry). Oh, well....plenty of cake to be had in his lifetime and it was a treat for Mommy to not have to take time away from the party to give my little guy a bath. What a year it has been! Time sure does fly when you're having fun. :)
We've Got a Walker!!
Now that he's one, Connor decided that it's also time to walk! He's been walking by holding onto things for a couple months and finally decided to be a risk-taker and start walking into rooms not holding onto anything. It's so fun to watch! I'm SO GLAD that he wasn't an early-walker like Caleb was because I already had a heck of a time chasing him when he was crawling. He's also a climber...
....so we've got THAT going for us!! THIS is why I'm so busy these days. Nothing that needs to be done gets done in my house, which is fine because this stage is very temporary. I spend my days running around, making sure that the gate is up by the stairs, doors to the rooms we don't want Connor getting into are closed and that the dishwasher is shut so Connor doesn't climb into it...
Activities, Activities
This week is the last week of the year (2011) for many of the kids' activities. Hannah has ballet/tap dance on Monday nights, which she loves (this goes until June), both of the older kids have had swimming lessons on Tuesdays since September (but that ends tomorrow and then switches to a different afternoon in January), and Caleb is having a great time with his Cub Scout troop. We're hosting the den meeting in January, and Caleb also just got his first pinewood derby car kit. (Although, I think Chris is as excited---if not more!---to make the car a champion!) For awhile this fall, I felt like every evening was busy and I thought for sure we'd get burnt out from all the activities, but so far, so good. We've made sure to have some nights free every week to regroup and relax, and we're also really good about having family dinners together--even if dinner time is right before bedtime some nights! Tuesday has become my "crock pot" day for cooking dinner and I think I might keep up with that in 2012, even though we won't be as crunched for time on Tuesdays by then. I know...it's only going to get busier as the kids get older so Chris and I are really savoring the evenings when our family has nowhere that we need to be.
Basement, Christmas Gifts, Everything Else...
Chris has been busy the last few weeks getting the basement ready to sheetrock and that will be finished when the sheetrock guys can fit us in their schedule. (Of course, everything takes extra time right now because of the holidays.) I sent my Christmas cards out late (for me) this year--again, because of a certain one-year old that hates sitting in his stroller right now. It's a week before Christmas and I only have the "hard" people to shop for yet. "Santa" wrapped all of the gifts he will be bringing last night so Christmas Eve should be a quick set up. (Luckily, my kids are still young enough not to notice that Santa's Elves do not wrap their gifts as beautifully as the gifts they see on TV. Seriously---baby toys are HARD TO WRAP, people!!) Otherwise, we're all on the edge of our seats waiting for next weekend when we get to have two full days of family and fun!! Let's hope the winter break (from school) brings a lot of relaxation for our house!! (Okay, kids, no waking up early on those days!!) ;)
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