The Epic Christmas Post 2012

What would this blog be without an epic Christmas Post every year?  The holidays always seem to catch me off guard, leaving little time for extra things, such as blogging.  Throw a newborn and a surgery into the mix....y'all things are BUSY!  Whew!  I am exhausted all the time, I have that nice new mommy spit-up scent constantly, and my house is just plum disgraceful.  Nevertheless, we managed to have a wonderful holiday season.  We even spent Christmas Day at our own house.  No time for explaining, as I have children tugging at me at this very second.  Hopefully the pictures will tell the story....

Happy 5th Birthday Landry!!

We celebrate 5 wonderful years today.  5 of the greatest years we could ever imagine, because they are the 5 years we have spent with this beautiful gift from God!

Some wonderful new things you have been doing this year: You are taking tap and ballet class, you are teaching yourself to read (surprising us more and more each day), you became big sister to another brother, you graduated to a big girl loft bed and a big girl bike, you can count to 100 and write or recognize any number from 1-100, You took an interest in maps and learned where several states were in the U.S., you started doing chores and earning an allowance.  I'm sure there are so many others, but you get the point.  You have done so much!

You have changed a lot over these 5 years, but some things remain the same:  You are incredible, you are beautiful, you are smart, you are original and special, you amaze us everyday, we love you more than life itself, God has a wonderful purpose for your life, and we are PROUD to be your Mommy and Daddy!

Happy Birthday Landry!

Side note: This morning after you woke up and we made a big fuss about you turning 5, you ran to the room to get the scale to see if you weighed more. Next you looked for the measuring tape, bc you were sure you had grown since you had turned a whole year older.  You are precious!  I know you'll laugh at that story one day :)

We got an Elf!

How many of you have an Elf on the Shelf?  I'm sure you have heard of them, as they are pretty hard to miss.  Seems like more and more people invite elves to live in their houses every Christmas.  Now, the idea of the Elf on the Shelf is that Santa sends him or her to your house to watch you at Christmas time.  Each night the Elf flies back to the North Pole and reports to Santa whether you've been good or bad that day.  I guess Santa has gotten too old and slow to watch all the kids by himself ;)  However, I really didn't want to use our elf as a way to make my children behave.  Come December 26th, when the elf went back to the North Pole to stay the rest of the year, all hell would probably break loose. LOL  But my creative spirit knew that our family could create some wonderful memories with this little elf, so I caved and got one.

Our first task was to give him a name.  Ours is real original: Elfie.  Now Elfie is a curious little elf, and he seems to be quite busy getting into things while we are fast asleep.  I'm not quite sure how we don't hear him, while he is taking part in all those shenanigans. HeHe!

Here's what he's done so far this year: