Wine Tasting

Our neighbors told us about a local wine tasting event this month that a bunch of the local wineries participate in to benefit Toys for Tots. Everyone brings in one unwrapped toy and you get unlimited access to local wineries and tastings. We brought all 3 kids along with us, so we only ended up making it to 2 wineries, but we had a really fun time and discovered some local wineries that were so close to us and we never even knew it.

Santa visits our neighborhood

So every year in December, the local fire department drives around through every neighborhood with Santa Claus on the truck and they pass out candy canes.  You never really know when they are going to be here so it's usually a mad rush to get the kids outside when you start hearing the honking or when we get a call from the neighbors. I remember one year, the kids were just getting in the bath when we got the call so we wrapped them up in towels and ran out the door. This year, fortunately the kids were all still in their clothes and we were able to get all of the neighborhood kids outside in time!

Stomach Flu

Well it wouldn't be the Christmas season in our house without the stomach flu!  Pretty sure they picked it up from our visit to the mall to go see Santa.  Olivia woke up at 4:00 in the morning and started vomiting and Cole followed suit 4 hours later.  It was a FUN day to be a mommy. They were literally tag teaming me with throwing up.  Poor Olivia got it the worst- I stopped counting after 10 times, but she was pretty much a mess all day.  And lucky me - 6 days later I got it!!! Fun stuff :-(

Our visit with Santa Claus

We took the kids to go see Santa in the evening on a week day.  I was hoping that since we did

it in early December and on a weekday, that we may skip out on the lines. No such luck! We waited

an hour and 20 minutes to visit St. Nick. Fortunately, the kids did great they were excited to see Santa and we got a good picture- and at the end of the day, that's all the matters :-)

The finished product! We even got a smile out of Izzy!

SC asking Olivia what she wanted for Christmas

Waiting in line - we went and picked up some Hot Chocolate

Olivia in her dress. She loved it!

Afterwards, we took them to the play area and they were  begging
to go for a ride on these fun guys. Daddy caved and they loved it!

Elvis - Our elf on the shelf

In December 2008,  we received our "Elf on the Shelf," who the kids named Elvis. Elvis comes down from the North Pole to watch the kids during the month of December and reports back to Santa each night on the kids behavior. Are they on the nice list of the naughty list?

This year our Elf got a little crazy. Instead of just finding a new place to hide every morning, he started doing all sorts of funny things to our house.  The kids had such a fun time trying to "find" Elvis every morning and were so sad when he had to leave.

Here are a few snapshots of some places we found Elvis this year....

Daddy reading the "Elf on the Shelf" book to C & O.

The first night he came back, he left a trail of mini marshmallows
from the kids room to the bathroom and was taking a bath
in the sink.  He also left the kids a box of donuts- they were in total awe!

On another night, we found a tube of toothpaste and wrote on the mirror with a toothbrush.
Mommy REALLY enjoyed cleaning this one up.

He got a little crazy with the dry eraser pen!

And even toilet papered our Christmas tree!

Random November Pictures

Some pictures I found on our iPhones and some of our November random events :-)

The trees in our front yard. They were so beautiful this year.

Olivia went to one of her friends birthday parties 

and they all got to dress up as princesses. She

was Belle from Beauty & the Beast.

A random brotherly/sisterly love moment. These
two adore each one another.

Olivia playing with her Tangled doll she got for her birthday.

Decorating our Christmas tree - apparently we do it with our shirts off??

A day in the life with Olivia - this is her doll and
she HAD to run all of our errand with us today.

One of my favorite "Mom" inventions. They need these in
ALL restrooms. I can't tell you how many times I've had to
go to the bathroom with a kid on my lap.

Grandma mailed Isabella her stocking as well as an apron
she made for Olivia. She has handmade (cross stitched) stockings for
everyone in our family including all 6 grandkids (and counting) and they
take her like 150 hours each! Very special to us xoxo

Found these Christmas dresses for the girls at Nordstrom's rack
and fell in love with them. I can't wait for them to wear them.

Never too young for the iPad