Our Elf on the Shelf

On December first, we woke up to a new friend and a special book. The book was called "The Elf on the Shelf". The book told us that this elf was send to our house to watch us so that he could tell Santa if we were being naughty or nice.
It also said that we needed to give him a name. Joslyn chose the name Danger for our elf, with a lot of encouragement from her father.
Each morning, when we woke up we would have to look and see where Danger was hiding and we would have to make sure that we were being extra good so that Danger could tell Santa that we belonged on the nice list.
It was lots of fun getting to hide Danger and see Joss's face when she found him in the morning. It was a fun tradition to start with our family. I'm excited for years to come!

Board Games

Joss really likes to play board games these days. She doesn't actually play a game with them so much as she just organizes and looks at the pieces. She really likes Rummikub, Candyland, Memory and Scrabble.
In the picture, you can see how she just lines up the tiles in the box. She will do this over and over again. She loves it.

Christmas Card Photo Shoot

Oh the joys of getting that perfect picture for your Christmas cards... Ugh.
We were supposed to have our family pictures taken while my sister was visiting but it rained the day we had planned and then we just never got them rescheduled.
So I decided to try and get some cute pictures of the kids in our backyard. It didn't work so well. Seth just wanted to run around and play. And Joss wanted to jump and squeal and smile all funny. I tried getting pictures of them together but only ended up with pictures of Joss wrestling with Seth to keep him next to her. So them I decided to just get pictures of them separate. And then it started to rain.... Ugh. So I went inside and set up a solid colored background and tried to make it work. It didn't. I even tried using my grandpa's old stuffed reindeer as a prop to keep Seth interested. He wasn't. AT. ALL.
I did get some okay pictures and even one that was good enough for the Christmas card. I just used an old one of Patrick and I because I think it was even harder to get a decent picture of the two of us.

This is the picture we used for the Christmas card.


Here are some of the other pictures that I took. Some good and some not so good.

Playing Outside

With the new addition of grass to our backyard the kids have been enjoying the great weather and playing outside a lot. Their favorite toy is the screen door though.

Vacuuming

While Joslyn is still scared of the vacuum, or at least thinks its great fun to hide when we use it, Seth loves the vacuum! He thinks it is the best thing ever when we suck his hair up or catch his pants, but his all time favorite thing about the vacuum is when we put it on his lips.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was different than years in the past for our family. We used to get together with my Mom's side of the family and have a very large Thanksgiving dinner. Since my grandmother past away earlier this year, it was decided that each family would have their own Thanksgiving dinner.
We had ours at my brother's house. It was a lot of fun. My contribution this year was mashed potatoes. I also made an apple pie. It was my first time making a lattice crust.

After dinner, we went to my parents' house and I put up their Christmas lights while the kids and the dads played. We must have been having a really great time because these are the only two pictures I got of the whole day.

Orange Slices

One of the perks of having your mom work in a school cafeteria is that she brings home lots of sliced oranges. Joss is a super big fan of this perk especially. She has even learned to wear them. :)