The Aftermath

Well, Christmas has come and gone.  It is my absolute favorite day of the year.  For as long as I can remember, we have spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with my aunt and uncle, cousins and grandparents.  When we built our house, one thing that was a must was enough room to host our ever-growing family for Christmas.  So that's just we have been doing for the past three years.  This was the first year, however, that EVERYONE was here and I couldn't be happier.  For two days it was the constant chaos of family.  As we were trying to get 20 people out the door for church on Christmas Eve, it felt a bit like that scene from Home Alone when they realize they slept in.  "Who has Ben?"  "Where is Grandpa?"  "Who's riding with me?"  I am proud to report, however, that we left no one home alone!  We did however, have a great two days!!

Here is a picture of my Grandpa (he's 91!) with 5 of his great grandchildren

 And here we all are eating our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of Lasagna

 My kids couldn't have been happier to get just what they asked for from Santa.  An organizing shelf for her art supplies (completely stocked, of course) for Abby

And a football helmet and pads for Ben

 This is apparently as good as it gets....waiting to go downstairs and see what Santa brought

 After breakfast, we open presents, one by one

 And by the time we were done, I barely recognized my living room!!

 What's the best thing I got for Christmas?  Well, one of my favorites was a new shelf for the playroom so I could finally organize the books by color like I have been wanting to.  I know, I have a sickness but it makes me sooooo happy!!

I was so glad to have all of my family here for Christmas and even though it is a whirlwind, I can't wait for next year!!

The Adventures of Kelf

So you may know about our Elf on the Shelf, Kelf.  He came to visit us for the first time last year.  He shows up the day after Thanksgiving and watches our every move to report back to Santa each night.  When he returns each day, he is always in a different spot, which after about four days starts to get tricky.  So I turned to my BFF, Pintrest, to see what others were doing.  What I found were a bunch of mischievous elves.  I was a little worried since he is supposed to be watching their behavior, I kind of felt like he should be a good model, but I decided to test the waters a little by having him eat some of the little bit of Halloween candy that was left over.  The kids woke in the morning to see him sitting on an end table, surrounded by candy wrappers.  This is how it all went down:

THEM:  "Mom!  Look!  Kelf ate our candy!!!!"

ME:  "Oh no!  What a naughty elf!"

ABBY:  "He is NOT naughty!"

ME:  "Well he ate all that candy without asking..."

ABBY:  "Yeah, but that's not naughty because he ate all the choking hazards!"

I looked down and sure enough, he was covered in the remnants of Jolly Ranchers.  Okaaaaaay.  Time for a new plan because my children had made it clear that "Naughty Elf" was not going to fly.  So Kelf turned in to quite the adventurer.

One morning, we found him zip lining across the kitchen...

 Another day, he was sitting in the fridge with his pencil and the kids found notes from him in their lunch boxes...

 Once, he snuggled up under the Christmas tree, wearing Ben's new shoes...

 My favorite was the day that he put on his scarf (thanks to all the leftover felt I had from Abby's Christmas present) and played in the snow...

 At one point he ended up on the ceiling fan, 19 feet in the air...

 And decided to climb the tree sculpture above our front door...

 One of his last stops was Abby's room (you can barely see her the top of her head sticking out from under the blanket) which was all she had been asking him to do all year.  I heard her say, "Oh yeah!" when she woke up and then let him know when she was leaving the room ("I'll be right back, I have to go potty.")  And when she returned ("I'm baaaaaaack!")...

Of course, Kelf had other adventures, like visiting the pantry and Ben's room and once we even found him in my car!!  We were sad to see him go, but we look forward to next November when he returns and I, for one, am thankful to have eleven months to figure out just where he will land!

Becca's Favorite Things

This time of year, I always look forward to watching Oprah's Favorite Things.  You know, where she shows off all of the wonderful things that she loves the most and then showers the audience with their own supply of each of her favorites?  Now that she is not longer on the air, there is a little empty space in my heart.  (Truthfully, the only time I ever watched was the Favorite Things episode).  So in the spirit of Oprah, I give you MY favorite things.  Now, these are really just the things that I am loving today, on this cold December morning, not my all time favorites.  While they are all things that I love, I just don't want to feed into any misconceptions that I actually like fall or winter, these things just make them bearable for me.  Here we go.

Up first, Costco wrapping paper.  I love this stuff.  It is thick, two sided, and has about 600 square feet per roll.  Seriously.  This stuff lasts forever.  I am willing to admit that I probably have a problem.  I buy at least one new roll each Christmas.  And as I previously mentioned, one roll can wrap a ton of presents which means that I have enough wrapping paper to wallpaper Costco.  But I love it.  And it is so pretty.  And quality.  And versatile.  And long lasting.  And really reasonably priced.  Ten bucks a roll!  I know.  This is why I buy so much.  At last count, I had 12 rolls.  Oh, and one roll at school to wrap presents there.  So this is where it gets a little out of control...my Christmas wrapping paper collection is worth $130.  That's overboard, right?  Oh well.  Small price to pay for one of my favorite things.

 My next favorite thing is my Crock Pot.  I could cook in this baby 7 days a week.  (There are people who do that you know).  As you may know, cooking isn't my favorite thing to do, but this makes it so easy.  Dump a bunch of stuff in, turn it on and wa-la!  Come home to a pipping hot dinner.  3 minutes to make and 3 minutes to clean up.  Can't beat that!!

 Please don't judge me on this next one.  As you know, I love me some sweats.  My favorites?  These ones that I have had (and worn) for five years.  I bought them toward the end of the hell that was my pregnancy because I just didn't have any sweats that fit.  They are big.  Really big.  But boy, are they comfy!  They have seen better days, but I couldn't love them more!

 Really, the only thing that gets me through any day where the temperature doesn't reach 70 is the wood stove.  We use ours to heat the whole house and it does a bang up job!   A good fire can get the house to about 77 degrees, which I know is hot for the common human but just about perfect for me!

So there you have it.  My favorite things.  This is the time when Oprah would tell you that you all were getting each of the above mentioned items PLUS a 17,000 square foot house and her little elves would come out with perfectly packaged presents and a gold plated key to your new home.  Bad news.  I give you nothing.  Sorry friends, but I'm no Oprah.  Best case scenario?  You might get a present wrapped in some of my amazing paper!!

From Ben's Point of View

As you know, last weekend we went to our own personal Christmas tree farm, aka my parents' house, and picked up this beauty:

 After some help from our family and an evening of risk taking adventures in decorating, here she is in all her glory:

 Pretty right?  It is a little on the ridiculous side and there are some branches that will have to go before the big crowd arrives for Christmas but for now, it is just about perfect!

Were you wondering about how we got such a gigantic tree cut down and tied to our car?  Well you are in luck because I had a photo journalist with me to document the whole thing.  Friends, I give you Ben's photos.

First up, a photo of his favorite thing...me!

 These next two photos are of some of the things in my dad's shop...

And my dad's car (you might want to take note of that license plate and steer clear)...

 The extension cord we used to for the electric chain saw to cut down the tree...

 Some cinder blocks...

 This is my favorite.  It's me and my dad.  I am thinking about having it framed for him for Christmas...

 My best guess is that this is the lens cap...

 Here I am, hard at work, trying to help tie the tree on top...

 And in case you have forgotten what my dad looks like, one last picture of him...

So there you have it.  Ben's point of view.  (It should be noted that this is just a random sampling of the 40 or so pictures he took during the 10 minutes that no one was paying attention to him!)  Good work Buddy!