Who has a beard that's long and white?

On Christmas Eve, the kids found Charlie under the tree hanging out with the Nativity. We figured it was a good mix of the religious and secular.

After Santa's delivery (but before he finished the orange and cookies. Oops!).

Christmas morning was wonderful. The kids were so very excited about everything (though Jakson wasn't as thrilled about his frogs to begin with as we had thought he would be). Storey had the best "surprise" facial expression with every gift she opened.

I was pretty proud of myself budget wise. I was able to use coupons, etc to get their presents and only spent about $50-$60 on each kid. It also helps that they have very generous grandparents, aunts, and uncles who always spoil them. And that we never watch any commercials, so really they don't know what they are missing. Makes them easy to please.

Possibly the most talked about gift this Christmas? Cheetos left in the stocking.

It looks like the color pink vomited on Storey's presents.

My favorite gift to give this year had to be this shirt for Zak. Only Harry Potter fans will understand. Shirt found here.

Christmas Eve

This year we acted out the Nativity story on Christmas Eve. Jakson was very adamant that he was not going to participate. Too much pretend. We at least convinced him that he should be in the same room with the rest of us. Zak stepped in as the part of Joseph and Storey was all over the part of Mary. She was very cute and reverent the whole time. Of course, Grandpa took his usual role as the donkey.

My brother, Jon, read the account from Luke aloud. He was able to "trick" Jakson into participating by asking him to help read the words of the angel. It was great, though Jakson denies having any part.

Oh well. There's always next year.

A very un-Christmasy Christmas dress

Tutorial from here. Modified to fit Storey (original pattern is for 2T).

Is it bright in here?

When putting together a gingerbread house, be sure to don your most festive beach attire.

Yesterday the kids and Zak made a very small gingerbread house (seriously, the thing looked so much bigger on the box!!). A lot of the candy intended for the house ended up in Storey's mouth, but they had a fabulous time and since she was already on a sugar high from all of the other junk she had eaten, the extra candy didn't make much of a difference.

Have I mentioned that I'd like to completely skip Christmas Eve Day next year? Talk about naughty children. Jakson was definitely overstimulated/high on anticipation and extremely difficult to deal with. If the naughty/nice list was based on one day, these two certainly wouldn't be getting presents. They would get "a cold" (as Jakson says) instead.

My boy

I'm taking pictures all the time, but, lately, not many of my own kids. I have been making a conscious effort the past couple of weeks to take more photos of the kids and their comings and goings. Here's one of my favorites of Jak. I may be biased, but he's beautiful.

I know he doesn't look it, but Jakson is super excited for Christmas. This morning he ran in, woke us up, and yelled "It's Christmas! Santa came and left us presents!" Which taught us a valuable lesson: never wrap all of the presents from the Aunts in one night and put them under the tree. In the morning, it really does look like Santa came. He was quite disappointed when we informed him that Christmas morning was, in fact, two days away. Thank goodness he went right back to bed.

I wonder if our elf aspires to be a dentist.

Writing a blog post is on my to-do list, but it's one of those things that gets skipped over for more important items. Like shower (which sadly, gets skipped over more often than it should).

A few weeks ago I started noticing a trend on Pinterest. The Elf on the Shelf. Everyone was pinning ideas-places for him to hide, naughty things for him to do, etc. December 1st came and went. Friends posted on Facebook the child-selected elf names and photos of where he'd been found in the mornings. It all looked cute, but Jakson gets freaked out by princesses and dry heaves when he sees babies, so I figured he probably wouldn't be so keen on a little elf that watches your every move.

But school does amazing things. Jak started coming home talking about Rudy. At first I thought it was a kid in his class, but this Rudy character did some crazy stuff. I think what tipped me off was Jakson's description of Rudy sleeping on the book box. This was not a child. It was an elf! Then Jakson wanted to write a letter and ask Santa for an elf at home. Only Santa hadn't exactly planned on having one...... But wanting to take advantage of the believing years as much as possible, I knew Santa would love to send an elf to our house. So, I postponed the letter writing with various excuses until the North Pole (a.k.a. Barnes & Noble) was notified of our elflessness. The letter was written and lo and behold, Charlie (the elf) appeared on our Christmas tree the next morning. Amazing how that works (and how quick B&N shipping is!).

If only I would have videotaped Jakson's face. Or Storey's reaction when Zak tried to take Charlie off the tree. He didn't know the rules, apparently (touching=lost magic). Storey berated him for at least 5 minutes, complete with a hip shake and a finger wag. Zak will never make that mistake again.

A few of the places our elf, Charlie, has been found.

Charlie isn't naughty. In fact, he's too tired after doing all that flying back and forth to really get creative at all in his hiding, but the kids love searching for him in the morning and (knock on wood), he hasn't yet flown to the exact same spot two days in a row (although we had a near miss this morning when I realized I left him hanging on the light fixture in the kitchen overnight and quickly moved him to the pantry).