Tricky the Elf and Gingerbread Houses

Tricky, our Elf on the Shelf, came to visit right after Thanksgiving this year.  He has gotten into some trouble and been hiding in some interesting places so far.  Landon and Emerson both enjoy looking for him and giving him messages to take back to Santa each night.

One night, he shaved part of Daddy's hair!

 This weekend, we worked on a gingerbread house together.  The kids really enjoy eating the candy and decorating the house.  Landon has a cold/cough so he didn't help as much.

Pretty cute!
Love Landon's "smile" in this one!

Christmas Performances

Landon and Emerson had two Christmas musicals on back to back days.  The first was "Christmas in Black and White" at church.  They were penguins trying to show a group of school children the true meaning of Christmas.  The music was adorable and all the little penguins were precious!  The kids favorite song was "True Dat", which had a rap and the kids could say, "true dat" over and over! 

 Then the next night the kids had their preschool performance.  How adorable are they??

 After the performance was a surprise visit from Santa!  Emerson kept saying, "I'm so excited, I'm so excited" over and over while standing in line to see the big guy!  Landon asked for a game called Pop the Pig and a race track.  Emerson asked for a ring collection and princess dress up clothes.

Christmas Tree and Matt's Birthday

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we went to Eby Pine's to pick out our Christmas tree.  We really enjoy the selection of trees, free horse drawn carriage, cheap popcorn, and visiting Santa.  We decided to use the first 4 pictures for our Christmas cards this year...

 The kiddos are always helpful putting on ornaments.  They each have an ornament from their first Christmas and usually like putting on the sparkly ones first.

 I love the glow and smell of a freshly cut tree.

On December 4th, we celebrated with Matt for his birthday.  Our Sunday School class was scheduled to serve supper and he didn't really feel well, but I didn't hear him complain.  He is such a wonderful husband and a terrific example for Landon and Emerson.  He is thoughtful and caring and always knows how to make us smile!

Thanksgiving Feast and Movie Night

This year, we got invited to a Thanksgiving Feast at the preschool.  Matt and I both had the day off so we decided to go and eat lunch with the kids at school.  It was a fun experience and I always enjoy seeing the other kids and families.  It's nice to put a child's name with a face!  Here we are before the Feast:

The kiddos absolutely LOVE popcorn and movies, so we watched a Sofia the First movie (one of Emerson's favorite shows) that evening.

The next day was Thanksgiving.  Emerson was completely enamored with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Landon was playing cars and trucks, but as soon as a song came on, he stopped playing and watched the performance.  When Santa finally arrived, she said, "Those reindeer are not real, but I'm sure that is the real Santa!" :)  We spent the afternoon and evening with the Hahn's.  Nate was home and Terry and Marie were over also.  We had a nice time together and enjoyed some delicious food!  We have so many blessings to be thankful for!

Crazy November Weather

I see I have been a bit absent from the blogging world, missing the whole month of November!  So, I'll try to catch up with a few posts.  We had a really rare day in November when the weather was warmer and the sun came through some rain clouds to produce a gorgeous double rainbow!  Both rainbows were full and pretty bright for a few minutes.

Then, just about a week later, we had our first snow that stuck and covered a lot of the ground.  The kids couldn't wait to get out their sleds.  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough snow to build a snowman!  But they enjoyed sledding down the hill in the backyard.

You never know what to expect from the weather in northern Indiana!

Fall Fun!

This fall, we met our Sunday School class and families at Knollbrook Farms.  All the kiddos had a great time using the pumpkin slingshot, going through the corn maze,  riding the trikes, sliding, and going on a wagon ride.  The weather was great and it was fun hanging out with everybody!

Cheering on Da Bears!

Landon and Emerson are both very interested in giving things to others.  So this year, I got dollars and coins in my homemade cards along with some Emerson chosen gifts! :)

Emerson took her time to wrap this gift herself.  All of the wrapping paper was inside the box.

My bejewled sweater

Dessert at Bar Louie on our date night!

Fall brings all kinds of fun activities and traditions!

Pumpkins and Halloween

The kiddos really got into Halloween this year.  It was totally Landon's idea to decorate the whole house spooky.  So we got out the tub of decorations I had and he went to each room and put at least one "spooky" item in it.  (Thankfully he was just as helpful removing all those items later :))

On the Saturday before Halloween, we decided to carve pumpkins.  I suggested all kinds of cute characters or things we could carve and they each just wanted a face.  I guess I'll have to get my own pumpkin next year to carve!

Landon absolutely HATES getting out the insides, but he was a good sport!

Em dug right in and wanted to do it all herself.

 Then I had to get pictures of the finished products.  Landon is not a great picture taker.  #1 He struggles with smiling.  #2 He doesn't even look at the camera.

This is Emerson's solution to Landon's picture taking problems! :)

YEAH!!

On Halloween, we went trick or treating at a few houses, mostly relatives.  The kids had a ball and loved showing off their costumes.  After shopping at several stores for costumes, he was set on being a ghost with a sheet over his head.  He couldn't see out of the eyes and kept tripping all night, but he was happy!  Emerson found a Barbie princess costume and I let her wear REAL make-up so she was also thrilled.  I forgot the camera, so here's the best picture I got!

Landon's Sports Birthday Party!

Landon had an exciting day on October 2nd with taking Oreos to preschool, staying with Papa B. and Memaw, opening presents from us, and going on a hayride at church for Kid's Club!  Landon on his 5th birthday:

Emerson had to make sure to get some attention too today!

One of the only gift ideas he gave me was "a tool set, so I can help Daddy work outside"!

Landon and his birth tree
Love the sky in this picture!

I love this boy for many reasons. One being that he is SOOO easy going! :)  I asked what he wanted for his birthday party and he said sports.  How easy is that theme?? (Another example of this would be his ideal Halloween costume...a ghost cut out of a sheet!)

 He had a great time opening his gifts.  He got many wonderful things from footballs to Angry Birds to a new bike to clothes and pjs.

We served supper concession stand style.  The menu included hot dogs and brats, popcorn, chips, nachos, and apples and watermelon (for a tiny bit of healthiness :)).

And I must close this post with some recent "Landonisms":
He loves to pretend to play on a football team and the other day he said, "Mommy, I'm playing the Green Bays versus the Yellow Bays.  I really hope the Green Bays don't win."
While watching 'Sofia the First' (a Disney Princess show) with Emerson he said, "When I go to Disney World, I'm going to tell them that Princess Amber is cheating on this show."
Love that boy!