Elf Business: Week 2

Our elves have been busy!

Let's play some Christmas games!  I added a new Santa, cookie, elf, candy snowman game to our Christmas game mix.

The elves framed the kid's school pictures for our tree.  Look at these sweet felt frame ornaments.  They are from Target and they could pass for Anthro ornaments.

I think this was my favorite elf moment of the week.  I snapped a picture with each kid sleeping with their elf.  The were so surprised to see a photo of elf snuggles the next day.  Leo kept saying that he did not remember snuggling his elf.

The floor is bubbles!  The kids loved stomping this bubble wrap.

Elf friends came to visit with elf ears for the kids.

Is it cake??  My kids love that show so they thought this was a funny set up.

The elves were hiding in our big pantry ready to do some Christmas baking!

Off to do another fun week of elf activities!

3 Years Later

We just hit our 3 year anniversary of living in Evansville, IN.

It seems like just yesterday we were spending our first night in our new house in 2021.

Look at how little the kids were.  We had just unloaded a whole house worth of stuff from the moving trucks and we were all ready to settle in.

Look how tired the parents look - haha.  Kevin accepted a new job, we sold a house, bought a new house in a new city and moved the kids to a new school in about a six week span of time.  I'm tired just reliving that time in our life.

SO much has changed for us since December 2021.

Kevin has learned that having your dream job is a lot of work.  It's hard and rewarding.  Wonderful and stressful and it's amazing to build something from scratch.  He's added new titles to his resume.  He is learning new things every week and he is doing big things for our community.

I met so many nice new friends through church, got plugged into our community in a variety of ways, have made neighbor friends and loved being home to help everyone settle into a new city once again.  I'm back to work and it turns out that the grade I said I would never wish to teacher - kindergarten - is wonderful!  I am enjoying teaching again and really enjoying going to school with the boys.

Olive is thriving.  She's so responsible.  I never have to help her manage her life.  She's detail oriented, goal driven and is the model student.  She is making all As and would tell you that 6th grade is awesome.  She is doing lots of new things this year and enjoying honors math.

Fletcher is adjusting to another new school and doing well there.  I would not have predicted him moving elementary schools again, but our school is a great fit for him.  He catches on quickly and impressed his teacher right away with his math skills.  I love seeing him at school and we are both enjoying not feeling so new there anymore.

Leo has had the biggest adjustment this year after going from full time home with mom to full time school this year.  He's doing so well in PreK.  We are all shocked with how much he's learning.  He loves his school and his classmates.  He tells us everything about his days and we're so proud of him.

We are all feeling settled and so happy with our jobs/schools/house location.  We're feeling less new and not having to use our navigation so much anymore.

The kids have all nearly doubled in height and I'm still shocked at how much growth our family has experienced these past 3 years.

If you find yourself living in a new city or contemplating a move with a job, do it!!  We have loved living all over the country.  Some cities were better than others, but we have really enjoyed learning new cities, making new friends and getting to experience new things.  Reach out if you find yourself relocating - I'd love to encourage you!

Cheers to more great years ahead!!

December Coffee Chat

Happy Monday, friends!  I hope you had a great weekend.  I am in denial that Christmas is 9 days away.  This holiday season has FLOWN by so fast.  I'm trying hard to enjoy the moments.

Grab your coffee (iced mocha for me) and let's catch up.

1. My crew has 11 different dress up days to participate in this week!  You read that correct - 11.  Yikes.  I'm hoping I got my calendar right and send the right kid with the right outfit on the right day.  Grinch day.  White Christmas wear white day.  Wear stripes for candy cane day.  Ugly Christmas sweater.  You get the idea.  Lots of cute Christmas clothes to coordinate.

2. How's your Christmas shopping going?  I'm getting close to done and have NOTHING wrapped.  I need a personal assistant to wrap and prep my house while I work.

3. I'm so excited to send home Christmas gifts with my students.  We have been working hard to make 3 different personalized ornaments that showcase their handwriting, their hand prints and their art.  I hope the parents LOVE them and I get extra excited when parents let me know that they loved something we did at school.  My challenge for you - if your child's teacher does something you love or sends home something wonderful - email them a THANK YOU.  It will make their day.

4. Have you seen the Marth documentary on Martha Stewart yet??  I enjoyed it so much.  Her life story was fascinating as well as her success story.  I'm still shocked she served prison time.  And I have a new reason to dislike James Comey.  It was so interesting to see how the highs and lows of her life changed her.  I appreciated her attention to every single detail, loved seeing her wardrobe and gardens and was surprised to here details about her personal life.

5. My Christmas decorating is finally done.  We started right after Thanksgiving, but it's taken me a while to finish.  Add in a very mischevious Mr. Mittens and our decor looks different this year.  We kept the breakable ornaments boxed up just like we did when the kids were toddlers and we're hoping that next year Mr. Mittens will be better behaved.

6. Opening the mail in December is one of my favorite things.  It brings me great joy to open Christmas cards from so many friends and family since I send out a bunch of Christmas cards.  I keep the cards in a basket in our kitchen and the kids love to flip through them.

7. Are your college football teams in the playoffs this year?  IU and ND play in a playoff game this Friday!!  It's a big deal at our house becuase I'm an IU grad and Kevin is an ND grad.  People are calling it The Hoosier Bowl since both teams are in Indiana.  So fun!  IU has never ever been good at football so this is a shocking turn of events.  We're hosting a fun playoff party to cheer on our teams.  Kevin says he can only cheer for ND and I'm going to cheer every time either time scores.  It'll be fun.

8. We only have one kid that wants to go visit Santa this year.  I'm hoping to head to the mall this week so Leo can talk to Santa.  He keeps saying he's going to ask Santa for a cyber truck and I sure hope he sticks with that plan.  Stay tuned for a Leo + Santa pic.

9. I completely cringe when I see teachers online listing out all the things that they DO NOT want from their students for Christmas.  I think it's so rude.  Their lists usually say - NO MORE coffee cups, candles, lotions, homemade treats, etc.  I think it's totally fine for teachers to have wish lists or favorite lists to share with their classes.  It just doesn't sit right with me to make fun of gift options that their students might gift them for Christmas.

10. I know the elf on the shelf gets a bad wrap, but I love it!  Our elves are cute and fun and all 3 of our kids wake up excited to see what the elves are up to each day.  I try to keep it simple on school days and do more ellaborate things on the weekend.

That's all for now!  Thanks for chatting :)

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday, friends!  It's been busy here with all of the holiday cheer and festivities.  We are going in all different directions and packing in the Christmas fun.  Is it Christmas break yet??  You can find us counting down the days until December 20th.

The best parts of our week were:

1. Our neighborhood Christmas party.  We all brought food to share and enjoyed an adult's only night.  We also tried a new babysitter that was great.  Yay!  My bacon wrapped smokies & cookies were a hit.

2. Surprise gifts from a friend.  A work friend surprised me with my favorite drink and a smiley coffee cup ornament for my classroom tree.  Kind words and thoughtful gifts are the perfect combo.

3. This corner of my classroom makes me so happy!  I love my tree and my classroom is starting to feel like home.

4. This is a ridiculous favorite moment.  Olive and Fletcher love nothing more than a stroll through Sams on a sample day Saturday.  Last weekend they were able to sample - DINO NUGGETS.  They were thrilled because I never buy them.  They also talked me into a cart full of extra things - matching sweatshirts, snacks, chips and no dino nuggets for us.

5. It's pomegranate season! The kids love them and they are fun to eat in their school lunches.  We also tried out a few new foods - ditalini pasta, peppermint bells, jello and dry cereal.  They enjoyed it all.

6. Cookie stroll!  We had a cookie stroll at school were the parent/teacher group baked a ton of Christmas cookies for the teachers.  It was fun pick out a box full of cookies to try.

7. We had a team Christmas dinner and I'm still dreaming of my Texas Roadhouse meal.  This salad.  The rolls.  The cinnamon butter.  I loved having dinner with friends and loved this delicious dinner.

8. Homemade gifts are my favorite.  A teacher friend gifted me this tub of Dollar Tree Trail Mix.  We have all enjoyed eating bites of so many different things.

9. My favorite elf day of the week was this one!  The kids loved it and Leo still keeps telling me that he doesn't even remembering snuggling his elf pal.

10. How to earn bonus points with your K teacher: Write "I love you Mrs. J" on all your papers :)

I was going around doing a white board check and found this sweet message.

11. I'm working on my Christmas cards and Mr. Mittens doesn't want to miss anything.  He's a cute project manager, but not very helpful.  I need to get busy and finish my cards up this weekend!

12. A teacher friend surprised me with this pink and green dress this week!  She said she was doing a closet clean out and thought I needed the dress.  It'll be so cute in the Spring and it was perfect with a sweater on top this time of year.  It feels good to be making new friends and getting to know new people.

13. Tree Topper Day!  Fletcher and I sported our best Christmas hats for school this week.  My kids loved my light up light headband and Fletcher was Santa most of the day.  Seeing Fletcher at school is still one of my very favorite things.  He loves to help out in my room before school and he's like a celebrity to my kindergarteners.

14. Leo the Christmas Elf.  What a silly guy!  He wants to wear all the Christmas hats, clothing and is very into the Christams spirit this year.  We're watching Grinch any chance we get.  The cartoon version, obviously.  And he's making tons of Christmas art at school.  He's got a week full of Christmas dress up days ahead and he's already planning out his looks.

15. Christmas parade!  We took the kids to their first Christmas parade and I think we got more candy than we did at Halloween.  It was tons of fun and a little bit quirky.  I'm talking to you Bigfoot driving a tractor.  The parade was Charlie Brown themed and Olive loved all the Snoopy sightings.  She saw friends from school.  I saw students from school.  Then we saw cousins & my SIL which was a highlight.  We all enjoyed the parade and I scheduled a grocery pick up run on the way home!  Tis the season!

And now I'm ready for the weekend.

See you back here on Monday!

Linking up with Momfessionals

Elf Business: Week 1

Holly, Jolly & Chris have returned!  They showed up with a North Pole Breakfast on December 1st to kick off the Christmas season.  Our elves only do nice, cute things and never cause trouble.  It's hard to find things that all of the kids - ages 11, 8 & 4 - are thrilled about doing so when they all get excited about the elves it is an easy yes from me.

I collect elf activities all year long and really enjoy elf activities for the month of December.

Dec 1 - North Pole Breakfast - Chrsitmas pjs, ornaments and an advent calendar to share.  Our breakfast was super simple - muffins and berries.

Dec 2 - Matching Santa socks for the whole family.  I cashed in Old Navy rewards to get some free socks.  The kids have worn them to school and worn them a ton already.

Dec 3 - Gingerbread house building contest!

It was fun to have this to look forward to all day long.

Leo joined our team.

Dec 4 - Glitter delivery!  Glitter magnet blocks for the boys and glitter nails for Olive.

Dec 5- The elves hid in the snack pantry with bags of Muddy Buddies for an after school snack.

Dec 6 - Happy St. Nick's Day!  Candy in the shoes for all the kids.

Dec 7 - Help us track down the mising candy canes!  The kids loved this one!

If you do elf on the shelf, what have your elves been up to this month??

Friday Faves

I hope you have had a great week!  We got our first snow, our elves arrived and Christmas cards have started arriving.  The best parts of our week were:

1. I'm keeping my decorations simple this year for two reasons - I'm working full time and Mr. Mittens.  This cute kitten is a tuxedo tornado and isn't being very kind to our trees.  Hopefully next year he'll be less interested in all the sparkly ornaments on the tree.

 

2. One of my best friends was in town for the day and popped in for a visit.  She brought me treats and I sent her home with a box of cookies.

3. Packing 20 lunches a week keeps me busy, but hearing my kids say that their lunch was a bright spot in their day makes it all worth it.  They get excited for things like homemade muffins, favorite candy treat and their favorite sandwiches.

4. We got our tree!  We had to stop at two different places, but we found the perfect one.  This was our first time ever to get a snow covered tree.

5. Our first snow!  We woke up to 3 inches of snow on Sunday morning.  It was beautiful and so fluffy.  It was the perfect way to welcome in December.  The kids ate a quick breakfast and headed straight out to the snow.  It was especially exciting because we barely got any snow last year.  Lots of ice, a dusting or two of snow, but this was a beautiful way to kick off winter.

6. North Pole Breakfast!  We had a simple and sweet North Pole Breakfast on Decemeber 1st.  I made muffins, our elves arrived and the kids got a couple of things to kick off the Christmas season.  Everyone had a new pair of Christmas pjs, ornaments of their favorite things and a Squishmallow advent calendar that was a huge hit.  The biggest threat to our elves this year is this guy.  Mr. Mittens vs the elves.  He's so curious and in the middle of everything.  Good thing he's so cute.

I was setting up the breakfast and this was the snowy scene outside.

7. Mr. Mittens meets the snow.  I think he wasn't a fan of the cold temps and that might keep him inside.  One can hope.

I hope you have the best weekend!  We have a neighborhood party and a few fun plans mixed in with grocery shopping, a Sams run and to dos around the house to get ready for a busy week next week.

See you back here next week!