Monday, November 29, 2010

Stone Soup

Vinny made Stone Soup at school. Dawn did a nice blog post about it. Check it out here:
http://chandlercronicles.blogspot.com/2010/11/stone-soup.html

Thanks for sharing, Dawn!

Fisbee the Elf

I bought the Elf on the Shelf book for Vinny. It is a story where the Elf comes to life at night and goes and tells Santa if you were good or bad each day. Each morning you look for the Elf and see where he moved to when he came back. When we got done reading the book, I told Vinny to blow the elf kisses and we would put him up on the shelf. Vinny said, "Mom, why are you blowing kisses? He's not real. Only the elves at the North Pole are real." I explained that he became real at night because he was magic. Vinny asked me to show him the magic. I told him I couldn't because Santa had to ring his bell and call the elf to the North Pole in order to see the magic. He just looked annoyed with me for being so stupid. I put the elf up on the shelve and we went on with our day. I was starting to think the whole thing was a failure when Vinny says. "Maybe the magic is in his heart and tummy." I just responded that I bet it was. Then he blew him a bunch of kisses. Now everytime he sees a toy he wants on TV he asks the elf if he saw it, so he can tell Santa.
Part of the book is to name your Elf. Vinny named him Fisbee, which is one of the names in the book.


This morning, I moved Fisbee to the Christmas tree. The first thing Vinny said to me this morning was "Did my Elf turn to real?" I told him that I thought so and we went out and looked for Fisbee. Vinny found him quickly and was so excited that he really went and saw Santa.
Vinny told me that he was a good boy all day, and he can't wait to see if he "turns real" again tonight and where we will find him tomorrow.



Here is the story of the tradition from the website www.elfontheshelf.com

From My Family to Yours,

My earliest memories of this charming tradition began when my brother and I asked the all-too-familiar question, "How does Santa really know if we are being 'naughty or nice?'" The answer came in the form of a small pixie elf. Our mother told us how special this elf was. We learned the elf acted as Santa's eyes and ears, reported our behavior to St. Nick himself, and was our very own friend from the North Pole. Each year the elf returned to perform its assigned task.

To my delight, the elf continued its yearly visits as I married and started a family of my own. The children fell in love with the little red elf that arrived every holiday season to watch and listen. "Fisbee," as he had come to be known, became a treasured member of our family. Two of their favorite memories are racing each other out of bed to see where Fisbee had landed after his long return flight from the North Pole, and telling him their treasured Christmas secrets.

There was only one simple rule, and the kids had no problem sticking to it: They were not allowed to touch Fisbee for fear his Christmas magic might disappear. No one wanted to take a chance that Santa wouldn't get to hear how good they had been!

Fisbee, like all scout elves, was under orders not to speak to the children, but grown-ups have been known to send and receive occasional messages through the elf to Santa. One message I sent to Santa was to request his permission to write our story so others could share in this fun tradition. After hours of persuasive negotiation (with a good word from Fisbee and Mrs. Claus,) Santa granted his blessing to the project. To insure only families who wanted a scout elf received one, he arranged for each elf coming from the North Pole to hibernate in its box until it was adopted by its new human family. Being given a name would cause the elf to receive its Christmas magic.

Unwittingly, the tradition provided an added benefit. It helped the children to better control themselves. All it took was a gentle reminder that "the elf is watching," for errant behavior to be quickly modified.

I never dreamed this simple tradition would lead to so many treasured memories for our entire family. It is my earnest desire that The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition® will bring as much joy to your family as it has to mine.

Enjoy this tradition, and MAKE IT YOUR OWN!

With my best wishes for you and those you love,

Carol

Oh Christmas Tree!

We decorated our Christmas tree... I love it! This is the only pic that I could get of Vinny decorating... He is so goofy!


Our Tree!



Thanksgiving

Who wouldn't have a great Thanksgiving with such a cutie pie there! Jules celebrated his 1st Thanksgiving at Grandma's house with us.

Time to get a Christmas Tree!

We went to Pilchuck Tree Farm and got our tree this year. We ended up with a Nordman Fir. It was so fun to go out as a family. We met, Jason, Kenda & Isaiah there.

Vinny didn't want to do a family picture, but I got this one.
Our tree.


Slumber Party

Vinny had a slumber party with his "brother" Nadia, last Wednesday. We went and saw Tangled at the theater, which all 3 of us enjoyed. Then they came back and I thought they went to bed, but later found out that they were up past midnight with Tony... Oops!




Snow!

We got to enjoy a couple of days of snow last week. I wish it hadn't gone so fast!!! Can't wait for more!
Jake and Lucy really had it. They went crazy everytime they went outside.
You can't see it very well, but with the new paint on our house, and the snow, it looked great!



Happy 13th Birthday Kayla!!!

I can't believe that Kayla is 13 already! We went to a party for her last weekend.


Saturday, November 13, 2010

Vinny meets his hero

If you have talked to Vinny about hockey lately, you will know that he LOVES #12 Scott MacDonald. He is obsessed with him. When he plays "pretend" hockey he is always Scott. When he watches hockey on TV, no matter what team it is, if he sees #12 he says "there's Scott MacDonald." When he plays hockey on the Xbox with Dad, quess who he wants to be... Yep, Scott MacDonald.
Last night Scott was signing after the game. We told Vinny that if he wanted to that he could meet him. It is all I heard about the whole game. "Mom, There's Scott MacDonald! I get to meet him!" When he scored, you would have thought it was the most exciting thing to Vinny ever!
So we wait in line for about a 1/2 hour and the whole time he said "I am going to tell him that he is my favorite guy." When we finally get up there, he walks up says hi and then gets his picture taken, then he says bye and we start to leave. We get around the corner and Vinny starts to cry. I asked why and he said "I forgot to tell him what I was going to tell him!" So we walked back over, he snuck his way up, went up to him and said "I like you." Scott was like "You like me?" Vinny just says "Yes!" Then they did a fist bump and we left.
The whole way to the car he had the biggest smile on his face. He talked all about the fist bump and how he talked to him. I have never seen him so happy. He danced around talking about it and told me that "Scott MacDonald is a cool dude!"
To top it all off, as we are getting close to the car he yells out "Tonight's Gonna Be A GOOD GOOD Night!!!!!" (He favorite song.)



Today was a big eye opener for me. I didn't realize that Vinny was old enough to have a hero, and I had no idea that it would mean so much to him to meet and talk to him. He is really growing up!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Our Family

Vinny has been really into drawing our family the last few days. Here are a couple of his pictures. After he draws them, he makes everyone holding hands. It is really pretty cute.

This is our finger paint family that he did last night. He did us in our favorite colors. If you look at the animals, it is a view from the top looking down on them. The heads are at the bottom and you can see their legs up above. Can't really tell what it is by looking at it, but once he explained it, it made total sense.
I think he did a great job on our names. We need to work on our Y's not looking like pitch forks :)

Snow!

After bowling, we decided to go for a drive... once on the road, we decided to go and find some snow. We headed up to Stevens pass, and got out for a few minutes to play. I am so excited for the winter!














Bowling - Strawberry Lanes

Since we all had Thursday off for Veteran's Day, we decided to go bowling. I had a blast (because I won both games :)) Vinny really enjoys it, so we will probably start going more often.







Jungle Playland

I met a new friend through Vinny's daycare, and we have gone on a couple of playdates lately. Marisa has 2 adorable daughters Eva and Emelia. Eva and Vinny play great together, and we have such a fun time. Here are a few pictures from our last playdate on Monday.







Monday, November 8, 2010

Lutefisk Ja Ja

We helped work at the annual Normanna Hall lutefisk dinner. It was a great event, with yummy food!