Activities
Elf on the Shelf. Like a lot of people we too have an elf who comes to visit us during the month of December. Our elf does not look like most and has wire inside so he can bend. He is magical and reports to Santa how we are doing but our children love him so much that he rotates who he falls asleep with at night. This helps Mom to not forget our little visitor. wink wink. Although he always wakes up and causes mischief once we awake in the morning.
He had fallen asleep with Beck and when we woke up, he had left the room to sleep on our sofa because he wasn't feeling well. He had taken his temperature and given himself a dose of medicine.
Steimle Family Christmas Party. My mom and niece.
Cousin Gift exchange & white elephant
We have a long tradition buying, wrapping and baking for a special family in need. We then get to be an elf on our family party and drop the goodies off. My whole family loves being able to see the joy on a families face when they get to have a Christmas they were not expecting. It really brings in the true meaning of Christmas and helps the little kids learn an unforgettable lesson and memory.
These cookie cutters were given to me when I was 9 years old by my Grandma. The were my dad's when he was a boy and were given to him by a dear neighbor who they had belong to when she was a little girl. Her father had made them for her in 1875 when cookie cutters were not the "IN" thing. I have been lucky to have been given these to keep safe and cherish and I love the few times I have actually used them to make cookies at Christmas.
B had won the cake decorating set that was my grandma's in the 40's at our white elephant gift exchange. After a tough battle between my grown adult cousin and a good bribe for B to take it from her we won! B got his BIG ice cream my Mom had bribed him with and he was excited to make cakes. I thought the decorating set went just perfectly with the cookie set and with both being so old they are very special to me and hopefully B in the future.
J was the lucky winner of a port a tent for the airport in our white elephant gift exchange. She was thrilled…I was not. It had a blow up mattress, alarm clock, and the whole 9 yards. It stayed up for a while until I wanted to scream after tripping over it a thousand times.
Christmas Morning:
We were so excited to have Christmas morning in our own home. It's been a couple years since we have so the kids were especially excited to be in our home.
They woke up with their new Christmas Jammie's on that they had opened the night before. J. had gotten Monster high jammies and B had Curious George.
J was super surprised with the child's golf set she had been wanting, along with her fortune cookie maker, MORE Monster High dolls, headphones, movies, ect.
T was just happy with a bottle full of milk.
B loved his fighter pods and his most favorite, Imaginext Castle, aka Avery's Castle. He had been asking for this and we told him Santa may not be able to bring it since the company didn't make it anymore. It would be hard for Santa to make since he didn't have directions or know how he could make it. Luckily Santa pulled through along with a very special elf who helped a lot and he now could add another coveted imaginext castle to his growing collection.
T. Enjoyed the morning with a nap and then back to play with all of her siblings toys. She loved the new headphones and I loved finding specs of glitter on her face like below. We laughed as we repeated the infamous "Hi my name's chubby" poem
J. was so sweet to spend a lot of time and make us some foil art. She drew the picture of the 2 bells and holly berry by herself and colored it all with markers. It took her a long time. A very thoughtul gift.
