I get to hear these words every morning when my darling granddaughter, Adyson comes over. I love how she feels so comfortably at home, she knows where to hang her coat and where the cereal is. Then when Ellen gets home from kindergarten, Adyson gets so excited to see the school bus arrive.
"Ellen home! Ellen home! Ellen... hug!"
Her eyes light up over the simplest things. She knows after lunch, her and Ellen get to play.
Most days, Ellen is so nice to Adyson it warms my heart. Many days, it's hard to get Adyson to take a nap because they're having so much fun.
Camden is the easiest baby to take care of, just like Adyson was. He doesn't ever fuss unless he's hungry or tired. He'll just lay there and play. He's so quiet, sometimes I forget he's here!
Then we get to do it all over again when Marcella gets home from school.
Elf on the Shelf - Here we go!
So, we jumped on the bandwagon and got an Elf on the Shelf. Her name is Koda. She's named after our beloved German Shepherd, Koda Bear. The girls still haven't gotten over her so to make her live on, she's now our new elf.
I wish I had taken more pictures of this elf, some of the things she's gotten into. I didn't really care if we had an elf or not. I never was the kind of person to go along with everyone else, but this time I'm in. I'm having a blast with this elf and shockingly, it's working! Marcella and Ellen are getting along so well these days, I can't remember the last time I had to yell. The first day, Koda arrived by appearing on top of the curtain rod with an arrival letter. That very day, the girls noticed that Koda had a tag on her butt. (insert a slap on the head here) They thought that since Koda had a tag, then she was stuffed and not real. Here comes Dad to the rescue: He said that since there are so many elves and they all look alike, they have to have tags on them to tell them apart. Then once they get claimed by a family and receive a name, the tag gets cut off and made official. Clever, huh? Marcella just thought the elf got a new outfit and Santa forgot to cut the tags off.
We were going to keep this elf simple and just move it around the house. Umm... no. That's too boring. So Koda has taken a trip to the dining room light, had a tea party with Barbie and a Monster High monster, she's made friends with each of the girls' favorite stuffed animal and she's peeked her head out of the kitchen cabinet door.
One night we forgot to move Koda. Completely forgot about it until the girls found her still hanging upside down on the curtain rod. Just as I was trying to figure out how to move the elf without the girls figuring it out, Jeff told me to leave it alone and tell the girls the elf is testing them. So I told them: "I think she's testing you to make sure you're paying attention to her..." With confused looks, I said, "Well, no one talked to her all day yesterday and no one said good night to her...." BINGO! That worked. Ever since the girls have been talking to Koda, showing her their school work, and saying good night.
Ellen showed Koda her Nutcracker she got when her grandma and I took her to see the Nutcracker. So Koda wrote the girls a letter...
Grandma Linda has made it a tradition to take each grandchild to the nutcracker when they were young. The kids get to pick out their own nutcracker and they were proudly displayed at Grandma and Grandpa's house every Christmas. Marcella went when she was about 6 years old and this year was Ellen's turn. Grandma Linda has gone to the nutcracker 9 times. That's 7 grandchildren, a daughter-in-law (me) and granddaughter-in-law.
Counting down the days 'til Christmas.... Entering panic mode. We haven't even started shopping yet! We have "special connections" with Santa because of Jeff's work. He works on Christmas day this year so Santa said he'll make a special trip to our house the night before Christmas eve. We're already short on days. 'Tis the Season!!!
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