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!