A War Room Takeover

 The boys spent an afternoon with me at work last week, as I tied up some loose ends before taking a week off to hang out with them. The office was quiet -- well, at least until they got there -- so we were able to take over the War Room and sequester the energy. The War Room is home to our media team, but we've been able to make it kid friendly with a dry erase board, VCR and a few toys. All of our kids feel pretty comfortable about there.

 

The boys also helped me deliver newsletters to various offices too. We always have a red wagon lying around, so I piled up the boys and my newsletters and went on our little "field trip." The physicians got a kick out of my little elves delivering newsletters and the boys had a blast helping out.

Elf, the elf

I wanted to post some photos this year of Elf, our cleverly-named Elf on the Shelf. He started visiting us the weekend after Thanksgiving and stayed until Christmas Eve Eve.

Some mornings, we found him in pretty inventive places (I've posted a few of those below), but mostly, he jumped around the same five or six spots throughout the month. This was the first year, though, that Jack really got into the magic and went to find him each morning. Here he is "measuring" the length of Jack's stocking for Santa.

 

The first week he arrived, I overheard Jack having a serious conversation in the dark dining room with Elf.

Jack, whispering: "Hey, are you real? Can you hear me? Can you hear me and you just aren't talking?" He proceeded with his first round of Santa requests.

A couple of nights later, we found Elf with the M&Ms on the kitchen counter, a temptation that proved too impossible for Jack to resist. He picked at the M&Ms throughout the day, before accidentally touching Elf. 

 

For all you not well-versed in the rules of Elf on the Shelf, kids can never touch elves. It takes away their magic and they can't fly back to the North Pole each night to report to Santa. Naturally, Jack was a little upset after he touched Elf and decided to have another serious conversation -- or shall we say, intervention --  with him later that day. 

Jack: "Elf, you really shouldn't land on counters, OK? You need to land higher from now on. That way little kids can't touch you. It's too dangerous for you to sit on counters."

We also found Elf in more serious spots too, like in our Nativity scene worshiping Baby Jesus and in our Advent calendar later in the month. 

 

  

Speaking of elves, Jack filled this out at school last month. I think it's a keeper.

Christmas with Grammy and Pop

Grammy and Pop came to Memphis this week to celebrate Christmas a little early. John is working Christmas Day and Christmas Eve, but we found time on his weekend to open presents, tour Shelby Farms' Starry Nights and bake Christmas cookies. 

 

 

 By now, Jack is an old pro at this. Can't you tell?

The finished product:

Looking for Santa's Reindeer

Jack spent part of this weekend looking for Santa's reindeer. It made sense, he reasoned, that if Santa was taking Christmas Eve orders at Enchanted Forest, then his sleigh and reindeer must be parked outside the Enchanted Forest's Pink Palace. We never found it.

We did find lots of trains -- the boys' favorite part of Enchanted Forest. This year, I noticed they added an Elvis portion to the train display. Only in Memphis.

I handed the camera over to Jack at one point and later found dozens of random photos on the camera. One of my favorite: this picture of the Le Bonheur heart.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

Lord of Life Preschool held its Christmas program this week, the only event it holds for the entire school each year. The school sang all the traditional Christmas songs, and the 2-year-olds did a great job of looking cute and ringing jingle bells.

I came prepared with my giant lens on my fancy camera, but forgot to put a card in the camera. In my house, we call that "pulling a Nellann." Nevertheless, I grabbed a couple of shots with my phone of this extravaganza. Jack is on the front row with the navy shirt on. Ben is up top with reindeer ears on his head. 

Courtside

Jack and John's firsthe basketball game this past Sunday. So far, so good. The team won its scrimmage last week and first game, and John has decided he has a couple of great ballplayers on his team.

Jack is still working on the rules, but has down some of the basics: dribble carefully, put your hands up when you are on defense (though I am not sure he always knows the difference) and nail the free throws. He hit his first free throw this past weekend.



Tree Lighting at Le Bonheur

To celebrate one year in our new Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, we held a tree lighting ceremony last week for our hospital staff. John had to work, so I got the boys early and brought them to the ceremony. A cup of hot chocolate and a cookie, and they were set. I'm pretty sure Jack thinks he works there anyway. It amazes me how he just fits right in to whatever situation he encounters.  

See what I mean? Jack joins the choir about halfway through as they sang Christmas carols.