Jingle's Back.

Our Elf on the Shelf, Jingle, made his appearance last week.  We also introduced a Christmas Countdown calendar which is providing us with lots of fun activities and surprises throughout the month.

After we read the Elf of the Shelf book together, Lily decided to read it to us.  She was hilarious.  She was making some things up and recalling some parts pretty accurately by looking at the pictures.

We are not off to a very good start with Jingle - both in terms of creativity and simply just remembering to the move the damn thing every night.  Once we forgot and Lily freaked out.  

Lily:  "Oh no!  Jingle didn't go see Santa!!  Why did he not move?"

Me (thinking fast on my feet):  "Uuuhhh, oh, Jingle told me he was REALLY tired last night and he decided he needed his rest and that he was going to go see Santa during the day today while you're at school."

Lily:  "Oh."

Sadly, our Christmas calendar seems to be causing more fights than bringing joy and the spirit of Christmas.  The kids take turns each night to open the little drawer.  Sometimes there's a present for them to share and this is where things rapidly decline.  They will open the present together very nicely and then the tug of war begins.  The other day, Tyler won the tug of war and then wouldn't share the book.  The Story of Christmas, no less.

Me:   "Tyler, you need to share the book.  Come sit over here with Lily and I and we'll read it together."
Tyler:  "I NOT!"

Me:  "Tyler, I'm going to count to three.  You need to share the book or you're going to time out.  One."
Tyler:  "NO!  I NOT!"

Me:  "Two."
Tyler:  "No.  I NOOOOOOOOOOOT."

Me:  "Three.  Ok, Tyler, that's three.  Give me the book."
Tyler:  "NOOO!"
Me:  "TIME OUT!"

And then Lily and I enjoyed The Story of Christmas with Tyler screaming from time out in his room.

Terrible twos much?

Sometimes the Advent calendar offers fun activities like decorating a Gingerbread House - otherwise known as, "Daddy squirt the icing right here!  In my mouth!"  I'm pretty sure the kids ate nearly as much candy as they applied to the house.

Tyler in particular, was far more interested in sucking candies up off the kitchen table than he was in putting candies on the house.  At least he added a little challenge to the whole thing.

One night, when Meme and Papaw were here, the activity was writing letters to Santa.  I was so happy to have Meme and Papaw help with this one.  I was running out of patience that day and it was the perfect grandparent activity.

Sometimes, like tonight, the Advent Calendar is more about the spirit of Christmas instead of presents and activities.  Tonight, the slip of paper in the little drawer said, "Do something nice for your brother/sister."  Lily was like, "Whaaaaaaaaat?  What number is that under the tree?"  (Cause when there is a present, it's a numbered wrapped gift under the tree).  Lily ended up picking up a few items and putting them away for her brother even though she didn't get them out.  She's usually VERY BIG on "I didn't get it out so I don't have to put it away."  But tonight, that was the nice thing she did for her brother.  Tyler wanted to give Lily a present.  So he went and grabbed a present from under the tree to give her.  And I had to explain that those weren't his presents to give, but he could find a present to give her.  So he went and found a box and put one of Lily baby dolls in it and then took it to her to open.  It was awfully sweet to see his little two year heart and brain come up with that idea.  

And with that, we are half way through the Jingle season!

Thanksgiving 2014.

So Thanksgiving was a week ago.  Yes I know.  My blogging comes in fits and spurts.

The day before Thanksgiving, Joel and I were invited to the kids' daycare to have Thanksgiving lunch with them.  It was a pretty neat treat to get to see them in the middle of the day and they were excited to have us there and show us some of the things they had made.  Lily is thankful for "Mom & Dad, Tyler, Toys, Hugs."

We were treated to ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, pineapple, a roll and some pumpkin pie complete with cool whip!  Joel and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Lily ate the pineapple and the roll.  Tyler ate bites of everything and then gobbled down his whole piece of pie.

And then Lily got a hold of the cell phone an proceeded to take some hilarious selfies.

Thanksgiving morning, I hoped to take a few pictures of the family for our Christmas cards.  Not the best pics we've every taken but certainly not the worst.  Lily was all about "doing a silly face."  So we had lots of that going on.

The day was filled with delicious food - all the traditional Fonner fixins - and it was so good, I was unable to stop from shoveling down plateful after plateful.  No regrets.

The kids played so well together and I was so happy to have the play room.  It helped considerably with noise control.  At one point, we realized we were missing Lily and Ayden.  They had barricaded themselves in Lily's room.  It was hysterical.

Lily wanted to hold Audrey....She thinks Audrey's still a little baby.  Audrey wasn't really havin it.

It was also nice to realize that the kids are more or less old enough to entertain themselves such that we could resume the Fonner tradition of playing games.  We taught Jackson how to play "31" and within 3 hands he had the game down pat and then proceeded to school us all and win the whole shebang.  Ridiculous smart - that one.  The moment Jackson realized he'd beaten us...priceless.