Better Late Than Never?

I figured I should probably post some Christmas pictures before it's Christmas again....

This Christmas season was...different? I still haven't been able to figure out why but it just felt different. When I look back we didn't really do much. Robert worked a TON, including Sundays, and went weeks without a day off (which is probably why we didn't do much). I was done Christmas shopping by the end of November so we didn't have much stress at all. It was really nice.

We started the Elf on the Shelf this year. Probably the highlight of the Christmas season for all of us. The kids named him Elfie (super creative kids we have) and boy do they love him. Just this morning Emily asked if he could come back for a visit.  We introduced him with a big breakfast on November 30th which is also when we gave the kids their ornaments for the year. Emily got her first dance ornament, Chase got Lightning McQueen, and Carly got an Elmo ornament.

 After our breakfast we went to Gardner Village to see the creepy elves. It was FREEZING cold and windy so it kind of put a damper on the fun but we had lunch there and also saw David Osmond. Haha! Notice my mailman husband in shorts.

 Totally unrelated to Christmas but here's Carly's first full pigtails. :)

Every year we go to Festival of Trees. Chase loved this Cars tree so much he wouldn't even turn around to take a picture with it.

 Nativity play. Chase was the shepherd, Emily was Mary, and Carly was the angel.

 Emily took her part very seriously.

 Joseph wasn't feeling it! Luke was actually really sick and a trooper for even getting dressed up and participating. The whole thing was really cute.

One of our goals this year was to try and do some service with our kids. Try and teach them to appreciate what they have. Not sure if it worked but we enjoyed it. Emily's preschool class collected spare change to buy food for needy families. Her preschool collected over $300 and Emily had just over $50. I was proud of how excited she got when someone would put change in her jar. Here's Elfie putting a penny in her can. :)

 

We also donated two garbage bags full of stuffed animals to children who have been victims of abuse or crime. I was surprised to see how willing the kids were to donate some of their own animals. Even ones they loved. It was fun to take them with me to drop them off and see how excited the kids were to help me carry them and add them to the pile. I was proud of them. We also did a few other things anonymously for families in our area. 

Sunday before Christmas we got together with Robert's family. It was a lot of fun. We had an awesome ham dinner, played the candy bar game, gotta have a spiritual message, opened presents, had a dance party, kids fashion show in their new pjs, and all around craziness. His parents always give the kids pajamas and then we take a picture all together. The picture always turns out the same. Kids laughing and looking all over the place. Sadly this is the only picture we took all night!

On Christmas Eve the kids woke up to find a goodbye letter from Elfie and some north pole treats. Emily cried. She was so sad that Elfie had to go back to the North Pole. It was the sweetest thing ever. She would talk to him everyday and she was genuinely going to miss him. :( I wasn't going to miss hiding him every night but I was definitely going to miss how excited the kids got every morning. Finding Elfie was priority number 1 every morning. It was fun.

 Sugar cookies for Santa.

 Chase had been talking for months about how Santa was going to bring him a McQueen bike. Thankfully Santa got the memo.

 Opening presents....

 Playing with all his new cars....

Her fantasy. She got a wedding dress up set from my dad and stepmom. Pure heaven to a 5 year old wedding obsessed girl.

 My sister-in-law gave us this little Wolverine for our new baby Logan coming in May. Because ya know, Wolverine's name is Logan. :) So cute! 

 Well, that's probably enough. I was terrible at picture taking and we really didn't do much but we had a wonderful Christmas season with our family. Hope everyone else did too!

Our new addition

It has come time to venture into the realm of bunk beds.So far, no injuries!