Nutcracker

On Sunday, Lily & I went to the Nutcracker. We went for the first time last year, and Lily wanted to do it again this year. So I think this will be our new tradition!

When we got there, Lily spotted a little tiara for sale, so we got it & she wore it throughout the whole ballet.

During intermission, Lily wanted to have our picture taken in front of this picture:

Lily was even more enthralled with The Nutcracker this year than last year. When the Snow Queen came out, she whispered, "I wish I could dance like that!" So, we will definitely be signing this little girl up for ballet lessons again! =)

What Elfie has been Up To

Elfie has been very mischievous this week! The kids woke up on Saturday morning to find Elfie bungee jumping off of the blinds with a slinky!

On Sunday, he was pretending that some My Little Ponies were reindeer and that he was Santa!

He must have needed to relax on Monday, beacause he was hanging out in a marshmallow bath!

He did a little fishing on Tuesday:

He was very naughty on Wednesday when he drew on the kids' pictures!

The kids found him wrapping presents for Santa, Mrs. Clause, Rudolph, and Clarice on Thursday.

And this morning, he was gliding on a zip line that he had made!

Elfie is always good and cleans up his messes, and then the kids have to find where he hid. Here is where he hid this week while the kids were out of the house:

So that's what Elfie has been up to this week. =)

(And no, obviously Elfie has nothing better to do with his time at night....) ;0)

Candy Trees

Last night, we made candy trees out of ice cream cones! We frosted the cones with green frosting and then the kids decorated them with all kinds of candy!

The kids did a good job!

Then came the best part; eating them!

This is definitely something we will do again next year. The kids had fun and could do it all buy themselves. The only thing I would change would be to use sugar cones instead of waffle cones. The waffle cones have a slanted top, and they were hard to get to stay upright until Zach had a genius idea to use mints to hold them up. So it all worked out! =0)

Grinch Night!

On Sunday night, we had our first (hopefully annual) Grinch night! I made Grinch cookies (mint cookies with Andes mints):

We also had Grinch punch. I colored some sugar, and put it on the rim of glasses:

And then poured the punch in. It's just lime sherbet and Sprite.

The kids were SO excited!

After everything was ready, we started "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"!

The kids called this night a success! =0)
(I got all of these ideas off of Pinterest, of course.)

C-Arrow Stables

On Friday night, we went to C-Arrow Stables. My sister Mary had heard about it and thought it would be a good place to take the kids, so we tried it out. Since it is in Maize and Jeff's parent's house is on the way, we thought Sheril (Jeff's mom) would like to come. She said yes, so we picked her up! It was so fun! When we first pulled up though, we weren't too sure that it would be. It seemed pretty bare. But our fears were laid to rest soon when Santa came out to greet us and two very helpful girls came out to help the kids decide what to do first. Lily was SO excited to see Santa!

The kids were given a choice on what they could do & they unanimously chose to ride the ponies. I have some horse-loving kids!

Then those same sweet girls showed the kids the horses. They LOVED this!!

Zach is especially enthralled with them. I think he might talk us into horse riding lessons in the future....

After the horses, we went on a wagon ride pulled by horses. It was a lot of fun!

The kids got a special surprise when they were told that they could ride the ponies again! They "posed" with Santa while they waited for the girls to get over there to help them. ;0)

When the second pony rides were over, the kids wanted to go to the petting zoo & living nativity. They talked Santa into going with them. He was very nice and came over to talk with us! The kids got to feed and pet all of the animals and even hold some of them! They had sheep, mules, pigs, bunnies, guinea pigs, deer, geese, ducks, llamas, and a camel!

After awhile, Lily remembered she had been promised hot cocoa (or apple cider) and she announced to me, "Mom, Santa & I are going to go get hot chocolate!" I told her that maybe Santa didn't want to follow her around all night, but Santa said that he could go with her, so we all went and got hot drinks and sat around the fire. :0)

The kids really had a great time and it was fun to see how excited they got about everything! Santa was especially great and Lily & Riley LOVED having his attention! The kids want to go back again before Christmas, so hopefully that is something we can squeeze into out very busy holiday schedule. :0)
Thanks Mary for suggesting this. It was a lot of fun!