Freddy The Elf

The kids were eager with anticipation this year expecting the arrival of Freddy (our elf) once again. We put up our tree on Thanksgiving night and sure enough the next day a package arrived from the North Pole. The kids could hardly stand that they were not allowed to open the box and it just had to sit under our tree. LOL When the woke up the next morning and came down stairs Freddy was sitting in our tree ( pictured above).

As you can see from all the pictures below, Freddy was quite the mischievous prankster this year. We also had to set a new rule that if you were the first one up and found Freddy you were not allowed to tell anyone else where he was, so that everyone got a chance to find him. Jadon even caught on and would be excited to find Freddy each morning.

He too the place of the Angel

Fishing in our fish tank

Tp'd Anastasia's tree

He left kisses under the mistletoe

Made the kids pics look like Rudolph

Reading the Christmas story from Luke

Threw our stockings on the floor and hung two on the fan and put dirty socks in their place.

He went with us to the Polar Express

He tried to put on Joseph's Coat of many colors and use David's sling shot from our Jesse Tree.

He made a snow angel from sugar to go with our gingerbread houses.

Christmas Eve morning he was found on top of the computer monitor with a note. There was a special email video for each of the kids from Santa. Through out the day on Christmas Eve they all took turns say good-bye to Freddy (numerous times). They were very sad to see him leave.

Jadon's Birthday (and Thanksgiving)

We have another terrific TWO year old in the house once again!! Jadon is such a delight to us all. He is such a ham and makes us all laugh all the time. This year his birthday happened to be the day before Thanksgiving which is fitting because he is our little Turkey! So we had two fabulous days of celebrating this wonderful little man!

Love this picture!

Some of Jadon's Favorite things:

1. He loves to fight with swords and bop it sticks. He will sneak up behind you and get you when you least expect it.

2. Somehow he picked up the word "need" instead of "want". So he will say, "Mama, I need my milk. Mama I need food. etc it is so funny.

3. He is already speaking full sentences.

4. He plays the I love you game. He will say I love you in three different tones.

5. He loves Diego, Woody and Buzz, and Cars

6. He already has a great sense of humor and will try and scare people and loves to play games with his brother and sisters.

What a wonderful BOY!!!!

So on his birthday morning we let him open the gift from us:

It was this Cars chair. He loves it! He would sit in it though for the longest time because he wanted to just look at the back of it (where his back goes) and see the picture. He calls it "my cars chair".

Then that night we went to Zoo Lights at the Phoenix zoo. It is a tradition for our family and this happened to be a member's preview night so it wasn't too crowded. Especially since it was the night before Thanksgiving.

Papa and Grandma came with us.

Then the next day (Thanksgiving) the celebration continued. Along with our pie for dessert we had Jadon's birthday cake, which Anastasia made. For the last few weeks, every time I light a candle in the house, Jadon shouts "birthday cake" and he tries to blow it out. So when it was time for his actual cake he was very excited. He even joined in in singing Happy Birthday. ;)

Cousins

Papaw and Grandma with all the grand kids.

Ummmm.....Yea......caught in the act.....we better watch out! LOL

Operation Christmas Child

Another favorite ministry of our to participate in is Operation Christmas child. This year we filled two shoe boxes (one for a boy and one for a girl). Over the last couple of months we have collected items to put in our boxes then we got together with friends from Calvary Chapel and put the boxes together. This year we paid our donation on line and that way we were able to track and see where our boxes would end up and they ended up in the Philippines. This act of service really hit home for my kids when they got to see different videos from around the world of kids receiving these boxes and how excited they were.

Count our Blessings

Count your blessings, name them one by one,Count your blessings, see what God has done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,Count your many blessings, see what God has
done.

It is our yearly tradition on November 1st to start our blessing tree. Each day, usually at lunch, everyone has to fill out a leaf with something they are thankful for. The only rules are that you can not repeat yourself and you can not repeat what someone else says on that same day.
As our family has grown, our tree fills up really fast! We do this until Thanksgiving day.



Here is a great new project I found for fall.... I painted the kids hands in brown paint to make the tree and then they used their fingers to make the leaves. So cute!