How we got The Elf on a shelf

I love Christmas, I love the joy and happiness it brings, I love the peaceful spirit that surrounds us, I love the smells of the Holiday, I love everything about it. Growing up my parents ALWAYS made a HUGE deal out of Christmas! They created so many fun traditions for us that I am now able to use with my own little family along with creating some of our own. I want my kids to grow up remembering how magical the Christmas season is!
A new tradition for our family this year is The Elf on a shelf! I wanted to make this gift extra special and not just hand it to them like it was straight from the store, so I came up with this...
I left with the kids to go take some pictures of them and had Brandon put this out on the porch for them to see when we got home.

They were jumping with excitment when they saw it!



The letter from Santa makes it even more magical!

So the gift set came with the Elf and the book and I purchased the movie too.

For family home evening that night we opened the gifts, read the card, watched the movie and talked about how special this gift is and how lucky they are that Santa trusted our family enough to send his HEAD ELF FREDDY to stay with us and watch over them. After some yummy hot chocolate and warm cookies we got our jammies on and read the book. Bedtime was a breeze that night!

Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

~Fall Dance Recital~

The girls performed in the Fall Dance Recital with The ConfiDance Club last night and they both were so cute and did so good! I feel pretty lucky to be their mom!

Diversity Means...

The topic for Reflections this year was Diversity Means... I asked Averie what that meant to her and she said that it is something that is "the same" but looks different. Pretty smart answer coming from a 6 year old! So I told her to color a picture showing me what she meant by that. She came up with this, Houses!

And she won a metal for it! We are so proud of her!!!



Proud parents after the awards assembly!

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

Every year we wait until the Saturdat after Thanksgiving to put up our Christmas Tree but this year we just could not wait. So we put on our favorite Christmas tunes and decorated the whole house for Christmas!






Of course the tree is the BEST part!

Kaylie got her ears pierced!

My little girls are growing up and there is nothing I can do about it!
Kaylie has been asking to get her ears pierced ever since Averie got hers done just over a year ago. I kept trying to convince her to wait until Kindergarten because that is how long Averie waited. But Kaylie insisted she was ready now.
On Saturday I decided it was time. I asked her if she was ready and she couldn't wait to get out the door. She was ecstatic!

Even though she was beyond excited she needed her sister to hold her hand.

She never shed a tear...

She smiled just like this the whole time...

My little princess is growing up.

Is there a Tooth Fairy for animals?

Dex lost a tooth, Averie found it in the carpet and was so excited! She asked us it there is a Tooth Fairy for animals and so we said let's put his tooth under his doggie bed and we'll see. She thought that sounded like a great idea but DID NOT want the Tooth Fairy to take the tooth, she really want's to take it to show and tell next week.

So this is what she did...

And she was soooo happy to wake up and find this....!