Christmas in Action

Because church was on Sunday this year we let the kids look through their stockings before church and then waited until after church to open an presents. We all got back into our pajamas and pretended it was still Christmas morning. The kids were spoiled again this year...

2nd Grade gift exchange

Liam's class did a gift exchange this year. Each boy had to bring in a boy gift that cost under $10 and each girl the same. Liam got a science kit. One he had to dig for hidden gems in a block of sand, another he made a volcano and the last one he grew crystals.

Have a Seat

If you sit/lay down on the floor at our house Adele takes that as an invitation to sit on you. Here are a few of the times I could capture. Some of the pictures aren't that great because you have to be quick with this little girl. No time to make sure you have good lighting or focus. As soon as she sees the camera she starts running for it.

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas...

I was so excited to get ready for Christmas this year. For the first time in my life I was itching for Thanksgiving to pass so we could decorate the tree and listen to Christmas music. If you don't know, that is really strange for me. I am very picky about Christmas music (I don't think every musician needs to put out their own cheesy album) and I can't stand it when stores start decorating and playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving. The town decorated their main street and practically all of the light posts in town right after Halloween. At first it bugged me but it looked so pretty that that didn't last long. I think that was what inspired me to get into the Christmas spirit a bit earlier than I normally would. And the fact that it is freezing and all of the trees are completely bare which just makes me think of winter and Christmas.

So just a few days after Thanksgiving our tree was up and decorated. We bought our first (semi) full sized, pre-lit tree. It is the perfect size for the number of ornaments we have.

We put it on a box so that Adele can't reach all of the ornaments and then put the non breakable ones on the bottom because no matter how often we tell her not to touch we often find her touching away! The morning after we put it up she found 3 loud jingle bells and she carried them all over the house jingling all the way. She is always fascinated with what she'll find. Liam and Jonas (our official ornament hangers) had a blast looking at each ornament and hearing about whose they were and where they came from.

Nate and I wanted to do an advent calendar this year. We found some online that you could buy but I really wanted to make something. So we came up with this little plan. We bought a pack of Lego Mini figs as the fillers and I made my own little boxes to put them in using scrapbook paper I had on hand. Then we just piled the boxes on the mantle. At some point I am going to add in little notes of things we can do on a few of the days like watch a Christmas movie, or hang mistletoe, deliver treats to friends, Christmas FHE, drive around looking at Christmas lights, stuff like that. Here is what they look like:


Liam and Jonas are both part of a Christmas program the Primary are putting on for the church Christmas party. They are going to be shepherds. The leaders asked us if they had bath robes and since Liam and Jonas don't I came up with these costumes by cutting up a $3 bed skirt we found at a local store and some Walmart clearance fabric. They were excited to try on the costumes and jump around.


Our Elf on the Shelf Johnny returned this year on December 1st. Liam and Jonas were SO EXCITED to see him! They talk to him through out the day and make comments about needing to behave so Johnny will give Santa a good report about them. Here he is hanging from the strings of the blinds. Silly guy! I hear other elves are much sillier and get into much more mischief than our Johnny. We'll see if he gets more wacky as it gets closer to Christmas.


I printed out this cute Christmas themed subway art and happened to have a frame on hand that matched it. I used scrapbook paper to make it look like it was matted.


I have been having so much fun doing little Christmas crafts and making our house look a little more festive!

BANGS!

BEFORE

Adele's hair is getting so long. I am never sure what to do with it to keep it out of her eyes. Often we will pull the front back into a little clip (and she is finally at the point where she doesn't pull it out right away - at least most of the time). But of course the clips fall out so she'll be running around with her bangs in her face. It drives Nate crazy! I think it must drive other people crazy too because I hear lots of comments from other people like "Oh, Mommy needs to pin that hair back" or "Mommy needs to cut those bangs". The problem I have had is that it is not just her bangs that hang in her face, it is pretty much all of the hair on the top of her head and I was NOT going to cut the whole top of hair into one huge bang. Plus a couple of months ago when we were considering cutting bangs I Googled it and found so many pictures of poor little girls whose parents tried to cut their bangs and they ended up with bangs so short they were practically at their hair line. I was terrified! So we put it off and kept trying to pin the hair back until yesterday when Nate mentioned again that we needed to cut her hair. I wet her hair, pulled it back and made a tiny line of hair in the front and told Nate that was all I was willing to cut. He said "lets do it!" So we did. And here you have Adele with her bangs:

AFTER

(this is taken with Nate's phone so it is a little blurry)

I am still trying to get used to seeing her with bangs but I love that it is easier to see her pretty eyes and of course I still think shes the cutest little girl I've ever seen!

New Word

Adele started saying a new word today - Baby! She has been carrying around her baby a lot lately. It is so sweet to see her acting like a little mommy. She hugs her, rocks her, gives her kisses and gives her to us so we can too. But she will only let us have her for a short time before she demands her back though. :)

Mischief Managed

I thought I would record some of the mischief Adele has gotten into lately.

My sister in law introduced me to Pinterest (Thanks Whitney!!). I get easily spend hours on this site. This day I was only on it for 5 minutes before Adele accomplished this...

A whole package of baby wipes all over the floor. She was so proud of herself. Now I try to limit my Pinterest time to when Adele is asleep or I know she is strapped in her high chair.

There are always markers lying around the house because Liam especially loves to draw. She usually can't get the cap off but obviously this day she did!


Liam was keeping his bag of Halloween candy on the stairs because there is always a gate at the bottom when Adele is awake so she is never on them. But sometimes Mom forgets to put the gate up in the morning when she brings Adele down from her room...

She had opened at least 6 suckers and was happy as could be!