Christmas with the Crazies

Christmas with the crazies. That about sums it all up. We're absolutely crazy. Our life is absolutely crazy and that's just the way we like it!  Christmas 2016 is in the books and even in the midst of a move and sickness we certainly made the most of it!

December 21 - Lainey still had some crazy funkiness to her eye and big brother woke up with it too. So we loaded them up and took them to the pediatrician for what would be WEEKS of sickness and multiple visits to the doctor. We got the kiddos loaded up with antibiotics and headed home for the big rivalry game: UK vs UL! House divided and the competition is REAL.

December 22 - Ya'll I won something, and that NEVER happens. I was listening to the radio and they said to submit some of your Elf on a Shelf photos to their Facebook page for a chance to win ... and I won! We won tickets to the Gaylord Opryland's Christmas celebration of ICE plus a play, a kids center, and extra fun adventures on the grounds. So the kids and I spent the day snagging our winnings, picking up our absolute favorite cookies for all of our Christmas parties and Santa + exploring our city and meeting daddy for a silly dinner date.

December 23 - We hit up Opry and Christmas'ed until we couldn't Christmas anymore. And ended with Hibachi because it's delicious and fun and all things festive. Or at least we thought it was ending ... until hubs and I made a last minute call to celebrate Christmas a day early so we could hit the road to KY a little earlier than we'd planned.

And then we got home and Christmas'ed some more! Because it was Christmas Eve after all! We sprinkled the yard with our homemade reindeer food. We left our favorite Christie Cookies for Santa and we read The Night Before Christmas! While we were tucking Bennett into bed Shane started making comments like "if you hear something on the roof, don't worry it's probably just Santa's reindeer." Well, if you remember Easter, Bennett was NOT keen on the idea of someone or something coming into his house while he was sleeping (to be fair, it is pretty creepy and as a youngin' I was scared of the Tooth Fairy, so I get it). Bennett asked Shane to use his ladder to climb on the roof and leave a note for Santa instructing him not to land on the roof, to have his reindeer land in the neighbors yard, and to most certainly NOT come down the Chimney. Hahaha! It was certainly not the way we expected bedtime to go!

December 24 - Our Christmas day! The morning was perfect and seeing Christmas magic on the little's faces is the best ever. Once Christmas breakfast was consumed I snuggled on the couch with some coffee watched our little kiddos play with their Christmas gifts and I started to feel TERRIBLE. I'm talking fever, chills, you name it - Sick. So the remainder of my Christmas was spent in bed - while poor Shane packed up the U-haul with all of our clothes and must have items (because we decided we were moving to KY the following day :) more on that in a later post).

And yayyyyy! Bennett did indeed get his blue yo-yo for Christmas!

December 25 - We made our way to Christmas brunch with Shane's family and spent the bulk of our day at his momma's house. And then we headed to my parent's house for Christmas dinner. Such a great day spent with all our loves.

December 26 - we officially "moved in" to the house we'll be staying in during our renovation and rounded out the day celebrating Christmas with Shane's dad and his girlfriend, Susan. I was still sick on both Christmas and the following day, so my pictures seriously lacked.

Without a doubt however, aside from the sickness (and there was plenty to go around but I'll spare you the details) Christmas was nothing short of crazy, and yet it was absolutely perfect. Always so sad to see the Christmas season end - but excited for a fresh start in the new year.

Happy Birthday Jesus! We're so glad it's Christmas. The presents are nice, but the real gift is YOU!

CoCoa ~ 2016 Elf on The Shelf

Shewwwweeee, guys I can't even begin to articulate an appropriate opening for everything that has taken place since my last post.  I have so much to share, so much to recap and truthfully I'm trying to decide what to share and what not to share - along with how in the world to put all of these photos together! So, while I'm working to put all of that together, I'll go ahead and give you a little bit of insight into our Elf on a Shelf and his shenanigans this past Christmas season. Our Elf, CoCoa, joined us last year in 2014 for the first time. To be honest, Bennett was probably too young for it ... but we were in the Christmas spirit and when Hubs and I became parents we wanted to root family traditions so we started early. And I'm honestly glad we did.

It was a great warm up ... and when CoCoa arrived this year Bennett was much more in tune with what was going on. And my oh my has a year made a difference in little man's excitement about his elf. The first couple of mornings he was a little reluctant. He was a but unsure if CoCoa would move, or what the deal was ... but once he got the hang of how things went down he was all in. And his bright eyes every morning on the hunt for CoCoa and him running to our room to tell us what shenanigans he was into the night before are great memories!

Here's a look on CoCoa's visit to our home in the year 2016:

November 30 - Our Elf Arrived with a special M&M message

 December 1 - CoCoa got stuck in the sucker jar!

 December 2 - CoCoa was up all night making the kids Christmas PJs with his face all over them!

December 3 - swinging on the dining room light 

 December 4 - CoCoa climbed to the top of the cabinets

 December 5 - Just Be Claus

 December 6 - Candy Cane Crush

 December 7 - Do you wanna build a snowman?

 December 8 - Snowball fight!!

 December 9 - Enjoying a light read and new book for B: Merry Christmas Daniel Tiger

 December 10: Bubble bath and bath fizzles!

 December 11 - watching the clock - is it Christmas yet?!

 December 12 - Chillin in the U

 December 13 - Bay window blues

 December 14 - Anna Kedrick on the brain

 December 15 - Sugar overload!!

December 16 & 17 - we were out of town having Christmas round 1 + 2 ... so we have no idea what CoCoa was up to. However, we came home to this on December 18 - Nerf gun war!

December 19 - watching over the kitchen again

December 20 - CoCoa got into a bit of a "sticky" situation with the washii tape ... but he left behind some awesome Snowman "stick"ers

December 21 (totally forgot to snap a pic - booooo)

December 22 - CoCoa and Bennett's elf, Mint, from the Galt House Christmas got into a silly string fight and even left some extra cans for us to play with that day!

December 23 - CoCoa took a ride on the mistletoe.

December 24 - and CoCoa's final day he left letters for the littles before heading back to the North Pole letting them know they had made the nice list :)

We had so much fun with you this year CoCoa! We can't wait for you to come back next year and see what mischief you get into. And Lainey will have a great time playing next year too. Yay Christmas!