Elf on the Shelf - 2020 Edition

Have you seen the pictures of all of these "quarantined elves" on social media? I can't say that I was even slightly tempted to quarantine our elf, because it's almost as fun for me as it is for the kids. At least for the first week or so...then it kind of gets old. I'm sure some of you can relate. 

Here are some pictures of our elf adventures, we always start out on December 1st, but since Katie had the boys some of the weekends, our elf got a much needed break sometimes. 

Sorry Finn!

Finn was very good about not touching the elf. I'm not sure if it was because he truly understood that this was the rule, or because the elf intimidated him a little. 

I thought he would either love this and talk about it for years to come, or Airplane the elf might have to go home to the North Pole a few days early because it was going to scare the crap out of him. What I didn't expect was that Finn would get out of bed without me knowing, walked into the living room and came running back to me, totally terrified. I had no idea what he was talking about at first and felt so bad that it scared him so badly. Fox on the other hand was not impressed. 

And that's a wrap! 

December iPhone Dump

December...always one of my favorite months of the year (along with October)!

At the beginning of December we took our Santa pictures with our photographer and she always has this little sled set up in her yard, so I suckered the boys into taking one more picture with their mama. As you can see, they were both very happy about it...ha!

I just showed this picture to Finn and asked him what he was doing there, and he said "Chubby cheeks". 

Katie took Finn for his very first haircut and I was really disappointed that I wasn't able to be there for it, but she sent me lots of pictures. 

He looks very serious, but she told me that he liked it and did so well. I tried to procrastinate his first haircut for as long as I could, because I feel like once they get one, they don't look like babies anymore. But I guess Katie couldn't stand his crazy hair anymore, so she took him in. Still my sweet baby!

Mornings with this guy are my favorite. He's been super cuddly and sweet lately and I'm soaking it all in. 

I had this pie plate made on Etsy for Katie's mom and grandma. It's Katie's great grandma's handwritten recipe and picture and I loved how it turned out. They were both crying when I gave it to them.

Mr. Cool

Okay, this might be an unpopular opinion, but let me tell you the truth: I HATE when he asks to paint (which seems almost daily). I set it all up, he paints for 45 seconds and then I have to clean it up. We've been working on this one canvas for a very long time and maybe we'll finish it one day. 

Pure excitement! I love this age when they can get excited about every little thing.

Our yearly tradition: picking out an ornament from the Hallmark Store. I thought this would be a 3 minute thing, but Finn took about half an hour to pick out an ornament. Well, let me re-phrase that...in the end I picked out his ornament because he kept saying "no" to every single one.

Some days he will still sleep on me and I'll be so sad when those days are over. 

We had a little playdate with Fox's old school friend at a park.

He's always playing basketball and he's actually amazingly good at it. 

Just looking at this picture makes me cold, I was chilled to the bone. We decorated some gingerbread houses with a couple of friends at the playground, but it was so cold that we moved the party to my friend's house.

Her husband made homemade pizza for all of us and we had a great night.

During winter break, Fox and I made a new tradition of making hot cocoa after Finn went to bed. 

Another painting session that lasted 45 seconds. 

We lost quite a few ornaments this year, because Finn thought they were great basketballs.

Fox made up a game of hiding a specific ornament on the tree and we had to find it.

Fox came up with the idea of holding the Christmas presents for this picture...but hey, whenever he lets me take a picture of him, I'll take it. 

I got these fruit and vegetables for Finn for Christmas and it must have been one of his favorite gifts, he played with them and cut them for hours. 

He made a robot and was very proud of it.

More December fun coming up soon!