Buddy, The Elf

This past weekend, we welcomed a new member to our family, Buddy the elf.  We decided to start a new tradition, Elf on the Shelf.  The story goes that Santa delivers an elf to your house and each day he watches over you and then flies to the North Pole at night to report to Santa whether or not you've been good or not.  Each morning he flies back to your house, landing in a different spot each time.  No one can touch him or he loses his magic to fly back to the North Pole. 

There was an Elf the Shelf movie on TV on Saturday night, so we had Em watch it (and we recorded it), so she learned all about how our elf worked.  She paid a lot of attention to the fact that she couldn't touch him, only talk to him.

When I woke her up this morning, she was very excited to go downstairs and see where Buddy had landed.

 Here was another of Buddy's landing spots, do you see him?

North Pole Express 2011

Yesterday afternoon, we headed to downtown Grapevine to ride the North Pole Express.  This was our second year to go.  We had so much fun last year, we knew Em would enjoy it even more now that she's older.  It was much colder this year, so we got all bundled up (and of course, Em wore her pj's).  We arrived 20 min. before our showtime and so we went inside the General Store to keep warm.  They had lots of neat train sets for sale, but Em enjoyed sitting in the rocking chairs on the porch even more.

After a few minutes of rocking, we decided to head into the tent.  They put on a short show before we board the train.  This years show was a bit shorter than last years (I was glad about that), but I didn't think the acts were as good.

After the show, it was time to board the train.  We got right in the front car and Em was very excited about riding the choo choo train.  She loved looking out the window the best.  Towards the end of the ride, Santa made his appearance.  Em didn't know what to think of him.  She pointed him out from a distance, but once he was close, she wanted nothing to do with him.   I tried to get her to switch places with me and talk to him, but she wasn't having any of that.

I wasn't as impressed as I was last year, but I'm still glad we went.  Em told us she had fun riding the choo choo train, so that alone made me glad we went.



Thanksgiving 2011

I was really bad this year and didn't even take my camera with us, but this year we celebrated Thanksgiving over at Shawn's mom's house.  There were lots of people over there, but somehow Emily ended up being the only kid.  We left our house during her naptime and luckily she slept about 40 minutes in the car.  His mom serves Thanksgiving as lunch instead of dinner and we all just graze throughout the day.  Even with not much of a nap, Em still did really well.  She still didn't really warm up to the other guys in the family (ie, Shawn's cousins and brother), but she did well with everyone else.  It's really weird to me that she just doesn't like guys.  She loves her grandpa's, but any other guys she wants nothing to do with.  Overall, we had a nice time visiting and eating lots of yummy food.  I still can't believe Thankgsiving is over now and Christmas isn't too far behind.   I feel way behind on the shopping front this year.

I did manage to take a picture of Em on our way out the door to Shawn's mom's house.  She wanted to carry her purse.

OCD?

Emily has been very big into lining things up lately.  Randomly I will find things throughout the house that she has put in a straight line. 

Family Photos

A couple weekends ago we got some family pictures taken.  We used the same photographer as we've used in the past, but we went to a new place in Southlake this time and I was really happy with the spot.  Emily did awesome.  She loved just running around.  And since our photographer takes natural shots instead of all posed shots, this worked great.  I'm hoping to use 1 (or some) for our Christmas cards, just not sure which one yet. 

Weekend Recap

We had a busy, but fun weekend!  I feel like I've been slacking on the blog posts, but I really haven't had too much to post lately.

Saturday morning we headed off to the mall in search of a new winter coat for Em.  We had success and found a cute coat for her at Gymboree.  And since we were at the mall (and she did awesome and sat in her stroller the whole time), we rewarded her with 2 rides on the carousel.

Saturday afternoon we met up with Tommy, Jenny, and Aubrey at Jump Street.  The girls had a blast jumping on the trampolines, however, I think Em's favorite part was going down the big blow up slide.  She finally figured out how to climb up it herself and I'm pretty sure she went down in about 20 times.  After all the fun, we headed over to Mooyah for dinner.  They have yummy hamburgers and fries!

Sunday morning we watched Lauren and Nattie so Kevin and Julie could go to a movie.  We decided to switch off Sunday mornings so we can each have some date time.  The girls had fun dressing up, playing outside, coloring, etc.  Since it was daylight savings time, we kept Em up an extra hour to keep her on her nap schedule and by the time we put her down she was tired!!!  All that playing wore her out.  She took over a 3 hour nap (and we ended up having to wake her up because we had plans).

Em wanted nothing to do with pictures

Sunday night we went over to my cousin's house for dinner to celebrate my 2 younger cousin's confirmation.  It's been a while since we've seen everyone so it was nice catching up.