December Update

   December is always such a busy month full of holiday celebrations and traditions.  We enjoyed all of our past traditions and even added a few more.  It was a busy month, but such a good month for us.  We really got into the Christmas spirit and enjoyed the season.  Here are some random pictures from the month.

The elf brought a gingerbread house to decorate.  Here is the before picture.  

Serious decorators

The finished house.  As you can tell, Dawson was quite proud.  

   One Tuesday, Ashlyn and I got another surprise snow day.  It was the perfect early Christmas present.  Dawson and Gracie went to daycare that day and Ashlyn and I got to spend the whole day together just the two of us.  We watched Christmas movies, drank hot chocolate, and made bead creations.  It was truly the perfect snow day.

Melting our beads

Ashlyn loves her beads

Such a busy girl she was

The tree I made

The adorable wreath Dawson made for me.  (The candy cane hanging on it was from when the elf hid candy canes throughout the house.)

    The day before winter break, Joey got to spend the day at Ashlyn's school as part of the Watch D.O.G.S. program.  It is an awesome program where dads spend an entire day at school with their kids.  Joey does it at least once every year and he and Ashlyn just love it.  It was also pajama day,  that is why Ashlyn is wearing pajamas.

Loves her dad

A quick trip to Papa's office

The kids were so happy to find Santa one day when we went out to lunch.  

My birthday

Joey got me this amazing chocolate mouse cake from Marigolds for my birthday.  It was divine!

Openin presents

    Two days before Christmas, Joey notified Ashlyn and I that he had a surprise for us.  My sister watched Dawson and Gracie since he let us know it would be a late night.  We had no clue what we were doing.  We ended up in Denver where we began our night with dinner at Steuben's.  We had a wonderful meal.  After dinner, we ended up at the theater where we got to see the musical of a Christmas Story.  It was done so well.  We all loved the entire thing.  We hope to see it again one day.  The surprise was so much fun and Ashlyn really loved getting to be the only child again for a night.

At dinner

The stage

Waiting for the show to start

Selfie time

Group shot

Joey discovered that Gracie shares his love of egg nog.  

Eddie Buddy Pt. 2

   Our dear elf, Eddie Buddy contained his silly antics throughout the entire month of December.  Each morning we awoke to something else silly he had done the night before.  As usual, we were sad to see him going on Christmas Eve.  Luckily, he still makes appearances for birthdays as well.  Here are some pictures of what he did.  

Apparently he thinks toilet paper makes a good snow man

One morning we awoke to this over our family picture.  He is a pretty decent artist.  

Always making messes.  Ashlyn loves it when he makes a mess.  

Eddie and the reindeer playing tic tac toe with marshmallows 

He must have done something really bad to make the army men this mad

He got festive with the toilet

Checking out what he did

Apparently he got caught in a slinky one night

He made the kitchen look extra festive with some bows

One night we watched the movie Elf, and the next day we could not believe that he made the same breakfast as in the movie.  What an unhealthy breakfast!!!

The note he left after Ashlyn left his some wrapped candy.

They love it when he brings snowman donuts

They really got a kick out of the Minion bananas  

The kids always love a good hunt.  They found all 12 candy canes and he hid some quite well!

On this day he left the supplies to make trees along with a note from Santa

The trees

She loves creating things

Finished trees 

What a mess!!! This elf needs to leave the toilet paper alone!!!

Silly boy

One morning, we awoke to this note "I left you a present on your mom's phone".  The kids immediately checked my phone and found he had taken selfies with us as we were all sleeping!!!

Ashlyn and the elf

Took a picture with Ashlyn's doll

Dawson and the elf

The elf and me

Posing in front of our tree

For some reason he chose to really get Joey.  He drew all over his face.  He came downstairs and did not know that his face was drawn all over.  They got such a kick out of it.  

This was very hard to wash off!

Such a sneaky one

Facetiming with Santa. 

Near Christmas, we found this note that the elf must have inadvertently dropped on his way back to the North Pole.  The kids were quite concerned that he was reporting the state of their messy rooms.  A thorough cleanup quickly commenced.   

The elf thought it would be funny to put our entire Christmas tree on the table.  So silly!