Bye Buddy!! {Recap of his 2013 sneaky ways}

Til next Christmas season Buddy...always great having you in the house during the month of December! Here's a recap of all his sneakiness for the last 24 days!

And now...I present to you my personal fav of the year:  Buddy's re-enactment of Miley Cyrus' & the Wrecking Ball...hahahahaha...it's just too much!

Dear Santa....

Kapri wrote Santa a letter this year, after we got back from the Holiday Train - she was so excited to actually WRITE him a LETTER... cannot believe how great she is with writing her letters these days, both upper & lower case:

She thanked him for coming on the Holiday Train ride, and sitting with her to talk about what she wanted for Christmas - a jewelry box and a unicorn doll. Then we sealed it up, addressed it to the North Pole, and took it to the Post Office so she could buy a stamp & mail it off all by herself.

About a week later, we woke up one morning and Buddy was at the top of our Christmas tree holding a BIG, beautifully decorated envelope, which had a fancy reply letter from Santa himself (with a little help from moi!). She was sooo happy to get such a personalized letter from him!

I definitely plan to make this an annual tradition with K from now on ;-)

Hey Buddy - great to have you back!

On my birthday, our yearly tradition is to get the house decorated for Christmas...since Dec. is the next day. I just love decorating!

We also do it that day, so that our Elf on the Shelf, Buddy...has his special place to land when he flies in from the North Pole that evening - the top of our Christmas Tree...snuggled up by the warm light of the star.

I should note:  Buddy underwent a quick...very mild surgery this year as well - he now is the proud owner of BENDABLE LIMBS!!

It was pretty easy really....just found a little how-to online, and I had all the supplies on hand. It took me probably 45 min to do all 4 limbs from start to finish. SO excited to be able to place him in funny positions/places and have him holding onto things himself, instead of TAPE everywhere!

Welcome back to your home away from home Buddy!

Christmas Eve - Until Next Year, Buddy!

I am NEVER wrapping all of *Santa's* gifts last minute again... no idea why I thought that was a good idea to begin with!! With all the other things I try to get together on Christmas Eve...wrapping should be the least of my worries. So next year, I'm doing it ahead of time... hiding them well... and focusing my energy on other important, last minute things!

We/I almost forgot to set out Santa's cookies!!! Sheesh, that would've been bad... but luckily I remembered when I was putting K to bed... so we jumped up, plated the cookies, poured the milk, set them on the fireplace and took a few pics:

Having hours of wrapping ahead of you... knowing full well that your child will probably wake up between 6-7am - yeah, NOT good. No amount of coffee can help that.

Anyway - we finally got mostly everything done...yay! Thought I gave the easy things James - all he had to do was fold & simply place inside boxes... we both know I'm the pro-wrapper between the two of us ;-)



And I have to say, I'm officially OBBBsessed with these little Santa gift tags I found HERE {this chick has TONS of free printables for every holiday!!} - think I'll use them every year!!

Here's a recap of Buddy's 'efl-capades' this year (& here's 2011):

click for an enlarge photo to see the detail!

The picture with Buddy & Jessie, sitting next to the iPhone - was pretty funny.... Buddy took a few 'selfies' on the iPhone, Kapri thought it was silly!

Christmas Decor & Buddy the Elf Returns!

{I'm only 23 days late in posting this...but oh well, it's my blog...and this month has proven itself to be the craziest, busiest...most stressful month of all 2012 - so that's my super valid excuse (for myself!) - but I'm post-dating to keep things in order...because I'm sorta OCD like that.}

We're back from our responsibility-free weekend in Vegas *sigh*...now time to get geared up for the Holiday season...which also means our dear friend Buddy the Elf (on the Shelf) makes his return to our home for the month...Kapri just couldn't wait to see him!

We got our fake tree up (SO much easier than real - to each they're own...we used to, but this just makes sense for our fam at the moment). We dusted off the decor boxes and hung them all with care. Kapri was such a big help this year now that she's older...it's so much fun to have her as my little helper! PS - check out that pose she made when she saw I was about to take a picture...who is this kid?!! LOL

Side note - this little burlap winged angel I made on a whim after seeing THIS on Pinterest. My MIL saw it and loved it... so I gifted it to her for Christmas - I can always make another!

I got my awesome Christmas Card Holder hung up, that I made 2 years ago...love it so much... and it filled quickly:

(pic taken AFTER Christmas...packed!!)

And here's our friend Buddy, who came last night...bringing a sweet letter to Kapri and a fun new door wreath for us (made by moi...ssshhhh):

It'll be fun to see all of Buddy's "elf-capades" every morning... yay for the holidays!

Call me Santa's little elf!

Christmas Eve this year was spent entirely in the kitchen...prepping food for our family Christmas brunch, baking a ridiculous amount of cookies, and baking 4 huge batches of homemade granola (for gifts). Kapri was such a trooper - she slept for a good while during her nap, then hung out with me...then back & forth from the living room to the kitch...she's good playing by herself when mamma needs her to ;-)

I also made some seriously cute holiday gifts on Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve - literally these were the only two days I had to start AND finish them all. Phew, glad i did it in time...barely! Check them out...click here.

And of course I made a special big cookie batch for Santa, with a big mug of ice cold milk. The only way I got K to pose next to these cookies (and without eating them), was to promise her one of her very own...she did good - ps, I love bribery:

Before heading off to bed, Kapri got to say farewell to our beloved Buddy...I explained to her that Santa would come while she was sleeping to drop off her special presents, and our little elf would hitch a ride back to the North Pole with him to work on more gifts for the next Christmas. I'm excited to come up with new hiding places for him when he comes back after Thanksgiving 2012.

Here's a recap of all his hiding places - there's also a full online 'scrapbook' of Buddy's adventures here

James worked late Christmas Eve - so we literally didn't sit down to wrap presents until around 10:00pm! Next year I'm definitely going to wrap as I buy - instead of all at once the night before! As we stumbled upstairs around 11:45, I snapped this pic - oh my nice clean house, it looked so nice...before the gift-opening-paper-chaos that was just a short 7 hours away.

Meet "Buddy" - the newest addition to our fam

We started a new tradition this year, the Elf on a Shelf, who was adopted into our little family on Dec. 2, 2011. James *helped* name the elf "Buddy" (how appropriate right?). His 'job' from Santa is to watch over Kapri each day, no matter where she goes, and magically fly back to the North Pole each night to report back to Santa whether she's been naughty or nice.

And since he's a mischievous little elf, upon his return from the North Pole he hides in different places throughout the house. So each morning when Kapri wakes up, the first thing she'll do is find Buddy. To make this simple for James & I to find a spot for him each night, I typed up a list of special ways we'll 'hide' him or set him up (he leaves on Christmas Eve & hitches a ride home with Santa after he delivers gifts):

We even got to register our new Elf online, which then gives us access to our very own 'scrapbook' to document the tradition with pictures, videos & a short description of each page! I love it...I'm obsessed, officially:

Kapri keeps asking Buddy to be on the 'NICE' list, tonight she even told him ALL about our day - so hopefully this will help with the mega attitude she's had lately, HA! {wishful thinkin}