A Naught Elf and A Christmas Party

Eddie did a few more naughty things to finish up his time with us.

He wrote on the bathroom mirror in toothpaste, and he blamed Drew!  Drew could read what was written on the mirror, and he was shocked that he was being blamed.  :)

 He drew all over some of Drew's baby pictures with a marker.

 He changed the Christmas count down to 95 days - I guess he wanted to spend more time at our house!  Drew was really good about keeping up with the count down this year, so he noticed this one right away.

 He drank some syrup.

He replaced all of the pictures on Drew's bedroom wall with pictures of himself.

He took Jim's car out for a drive one night!  Drew couldn't find Eddie anywhere that morning, but when the guys went out to go to school, there was Eddie, sitting in Jim's steering wheel!

On his last night at our house, he played with Drew's new Angry Birds game.

We really had fun with Eddie this past month, and I think that Jim and I might have enjoyed Eddie more than Drew did.  I asked Drew if he thought Santa would send Eddie back to stay at our house again next year, and he told me that he hopes that he doesn't!  He said that Eddie was one naughty elf.  However, I think that Eddie will probably be coming back to see us next December.  :)

Drew was in two Christmas concerts this year - one at school and one at church.  Here is a picture of Drew and Maddie before the school Christmas concert.

 Drew had a Christmas party at school on his last morning of school.  The children made little Christmas trees out of ice cream cones, green frosting, and M&Ms,

 and then they ate them!

 They had a little gift exchange that they enjoyed very much.

We are all off from work and school now until next week, and we are really enjoying our time with friends and family!

Christmas Fun

Christmas has been so fun this year, and Drew has really been enjoying all the activities of Christmas.  One of his favorite things has been our Elf on the Shelf, Eddie.  Eddie the Elf kept us entertained through the month of December!  

He played Cars Memory with Mario.

He decorated the Christmas tree with Drew's underwear.

He got into the marshmallows.

He drew a self-portrait on the easel.

He made a toilet paper mess in the bathroom.

He ate a whole bag of candy cane kisses.

He took a balloon ride.

He was captured by the evil emperor Zurg and the bad robots.

He and Thomas read a book.

He unwrapped one of Drew's Christmas countdown books.

He stayed up late one night watching, "Home Alone" and eating popcorn.

Drew and Maddie also had a party at church with our preschool group.  Drew had fun eating pizza,

and Maddie played in the exersaucer.

After lunch, the older kids frosted and decorated cookies.

Drew ate two big snowman cookies!

Maddie played at the train table during the cookie decorating time.

We attempted a fun group Christmas picture,

and then we took some pictures of each set of siblings.  The children weren't very excited about being photographed.

December has been busy, but it has been fun!  I'll post a few more times this week about the rest of our Christmas activities and celebrations.  I hope you all are having a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Fun

We are really getting excited about Christmas at our house!  Drew has been so fun this year, and he seems to be old enough this year to understand and be excited about all the fun aspects of Christmas.  He was a big help as we decorated our Christmas tree last weekend.

He is also enjoying our Christmas book advent.  He loves unwrapping a new Christmas book each day, and he is even helping to read the books this year! 

The first gift arrived under the tree on Saturday afternoon during the children's naps.

 Drew opened it and found Eddie the Elf and a letter from Santa.  I have been pinning all kinds of Elf on the Shelf ideas, and we decided to add a different focus to our Elf on the Shelf tradition this year.  It is based on one of the Pinterest ideas I found, and it emphasizes the ideas of grace, love, and forgiveness of sin.  Eddie the Elf is quite naughty at night while we are sleeping, and just like God loves us and shows us grace when we sin, we can forgive Eddie for his naughtiness too.  Drew is trying to be a good example for Eddie, and he is trying to help him learn to behave better this month while he is at our house.

Eddie has already gotten himself into some trouble!
Night One - Late night cereal snack and mess.  Drew came in and woke me up at 6:15 that first morning to tell me what he had found Eddie doing!

Night Two - Ceiling fan ride.  We had the fan turned on, and when Drew got up, he found Eddie flying around in circles.  It was so funny!

 Night Three - Creating his own Mii on the Wii.  Drew couldn't wait to play some of his games as Eddie today after he got home from school!

Jim and I have been enjoying our Elf on the Shelf at least as much as (and maybe more than) Drew has been enjoying him!  This is such a fun tradition.  I'll try to post more of Eddie's antics and some of our other Christmas activities soon!

Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts

Before November is completely over, and we've all moved on to Christmas, I wanted to blog about some pumpkin doughnuts I made a few weeks ago.  I had seen the recipe here, and I wanted to try them, but I didn't have a doughnut pan.  I looked at doughnut pans at Target, but they were kind of expensive.  I knew that I wouldn't be baking doughnuts very often, and I didn't want to put a lot of money into doughnut pans, so I decided to wait and see if I could find one at the thrift store.  On my next thrift store trip, I found a doughnut pan for just a couple of dollars, so I bought it, washed it up, and tried the recipe!

 We all really enjoyed these doughnuts!  They are very soft inside, and the spices made them so tasty!  I ended up making one pan of them on a Saturday morning, storing the rest of the dough in the fridge overnight, and making the rest of the doughnuts on Sunday morning.  The dough did great, and the Sunday doughnuts tasted just as good as the Saturday doughnuts.

 Drew loved them!

 Maddie had a few pinches of the insides of the doughnuts, too.  She likes to hang out by my feet while I cook, which is cute, but sometimes a bit dangerous.

Drew and I have been trying to decide what kind of doughnuts we want to make next, and I keep checking the thrift store for a second doughnut pan.  I will let you know if we find another doughnut recipe that we like, and you will have to let me know if you have a good doughnut recipe or if you try these pumpkin doughnuts!

Our Thanksgiving

We had a very nice Thanksgiving this year, with three Thanksgiving dinners (at least for Drew and me)! 

Our first Thanksgiving celebration was at Drew's kindergarten class lunch on Tuesday.  We were assigned the mashed potatoes.  I grabbed a 10 pound bag of potatoes for $0.99 at Aldi, and cooked them up on Monday.  I told Jim that I felt like I was on K.P. duty in the military with all the potato peeling, but they turned out well!

 Drew and his buddy, Joseph.

 The class recited Psalm 100,

 and then they said a little poem about some fat little turkeys.

 Maddie was a good girl at the party.

I made Maddie's turkey shirt, and she wore it for all of our Thanksgiving events.  I used this tutorial, and I was really happy with how it turned out!

Drew enjoyed some Thanksgiving chicken nuggets (that was a good idea for 5 year-olds!) and corn.

 It was fun to be able to be a mom at the dinner and not a teacher.  Those events are always a lot of work!

That evening, we had our second Thanksgiving dinner and a praise service at church.  I made this pumpkin cake and a jello salad.

We spent Thanksgiving afternoon at Jim's sister and brother-in-law's house.  Jim's sister always cooks a big, delicious dinner, and everyone else brings appetizers and desserts.  I brought a salad and some cupcakes.
Drew had another chicken nugget dinner, and he ate pretty well.

Maddie was a good eater too.  I had brought her some turkey and sweet potato baby food, but she ended up nibbling on table food with her Aunt Sharon instead.  She ate a cracker, part of a roll, some mashed potatoes, and some sweet potatoes.

We had a very nice time with family, and I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving too.  We have so much to be grateful for.  We are very blessed!