Oh the Places They'll Go: Here Come the Holidays!

As always, things have been busy busy around here! Hopefully I can remember all we've done!! The day I've waited 10 long years for finally came on Friday November 11. My 11-11-11 birthday and I was so excited!!! I knew we were having people over, but I didn't know all the details (or my presents!). My friend Amy was able to come down for the weekend from Chicago and we had a great time. That morning we went to Barnes and Nobles for story time, and Emma enjoys reading her own stories instead of listening to someone else reading to her. She loves going to see all the books, just not sitting and hearing someone else's stories! The party that night was so much fun and I am so thankful to all my friends and family that were able to celebrate with me!
Two quick weeks passed and it's turkey time! Elizabeth and Patrick and the kids came in town Tuesday evening. Elle came home with us for a sleepover and we headed over to Grandmommy's house first thing Wednesday morning and stayed alll day-somehow I was able to get Emma down for a little nap and we had pizza for dinner. All 26 of us!
Thursday was a blur of turkey, 'taters, sweets and family. We headed up to King for part one and there was enough food to feed 4 families-it just kept coming and coming! The weather couldn't have been more perfect and Emma had fun running around with Marley outside. Off to Gradmommy's we went, after Matt ripped his jeans playing batchie(??) ball, for round 2 and we got there just as they were about to say the blessing. Perfect timing! I didn't over do it at Nana's, so I was ready for some more turkey-Matt had to take a break for awhile. But you can only stay away from Bojangles turkeys for so long. If you've never had one, you MUST give them a try-they are so yummy!!
Saturday we took Emma to see Aurthur Christmas and she loved having popcorn and standing for most of the movie. After the movie, we picked out our huge tree and headed to dinner for Papa's birthday. Emma and Marley had SO much fun playing together. We've started a new family tradition of having new Christmas jammies for the kids the night we put up our tree. Hopefully we can continue this for many years!
Another tradition we started is our new Elf on the Shelf. She appeared Saturday afternoon and as luck would have it, CBS had an Elf on the Shelf special and we watched it hoping Emma would understand how it works. Before the movie, she wanted to hold the Elf, after the movie she would get close and then say "Don't touch!!" In case you aren't familiar, the Elf comes and lives at your house and reports back to Santa at night to tell how the children were and if you touch the Elf, they lose their magic. You also must come up with a name for your Elf. Emma decided to name hers "Doodle" and she keeps forgetting her name and calls her different things all day.
We had a little almost oops incident when we were looking at Doodle and she fell over when Emma turned her head-thankfully Emma didn't see her fall and I was able to get her readjusted without Emma seeing. Hopefully that won't happen again!!