It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

It took us an entire week to get our Christmas tree & decorations up! There's a whole assortment of reasons, including but not limited to: lack of patience, non-working lights, hauling boxes up & down the stairs, ...the list goes on. Regardless, it's finally done - and looks pretty decent!

Helping Daddy put together the tree:
The finished product!
I'm also going to take this opportunity to introduce you to Charlie, our "Elf on the Shelf". I don't know if everyone is familiar with these, so I'll give you a quick description... Last year, an Elf arrived at our house right after Thanksgiving...he came with a book that told all about him. He is an Elf from the North Pole who helps Santa keep an eye on the kids. He doesn't talk, he just watches and listens. Every night he flies back to Santa to give him a report, and by morning he is back at our house (usually in different places of our house). There are more details to the story, but I assume you get the drift. :) In my opinion, this is one of the best things EVER! The boys talk to him, and tell him what they want for Christmas! It's so cute!! He's also very helpful...When the boys are being naughty, all I have to say is "Charlie's watching" and they usually stop what their doing! :)
Now that the decorations are up...it's time to get serious about shopping!!! :)

John Deere + Santa = Joy!

Santa stopped in for his annual visit at the John Deere store a couple weeks ago. Nick was super-pumped!! He loves Santa, and he loves anything John Deere. Trey...well basically we had to bribe Trey with the cookies & punch they had set out for the kids when they finished talking to Santa! They ended up taking a really nice picture, and we got some Christmas ideas for Nick! If anyone out there has kids who are into John Deere, you should definitely stop out. It's pretty much mind-blowing, the amount of toys/books/shirts/hats/etc...they have out there!! Ok, enough of the John Deere store plug (you're welcome, Rabbit)... Here's the picture I took of the boys with Santa:
Cookies & Punch!
PS This was the morning of the OSU/Michigan game, if you're wondering why all the OSU attire...

Guess what time of year it is???

IT'S ELFYOURSELF TIME!!!

The folks over at JibJab changed things up this year, andI can't figure out how to get our 2010 dance embeded on here...so I've posted the link to our elves below. Enjoy! Make some of your family and send them to me. I would love to see them!!

Here's our dance! Enjoy!