The Elf Project and the Dentist

Well the projects are wrapping up around here. This is one that I found on my favorite blog heidisongs. http://www.heidisongs.com/Free_Downloads/assets/Guided_Drawing-Christmas.pdf

I took this to Brandy and she did some with the kids and then Waylon and I did the Elf at home. So much fun. I will have to take a picture of the ones he did at Brandy's as they are super cute and will be hanging up in the future Christmas's around here! I just love the way they all turned out. They did a Santa and Rudolph.

Then we FINALLY completed the second foam house. Well thanks to Papa and his skills he was able to figure it out. Too bad it still does not look like this. The problem with foam houses is they are just that, foam! Even all the glue won't keep these things together around a boy who just wants to take them apart. So I will save the picture and parts and maybe next year HE will want to put it together instead of taking it apart. Oh well, they were cheap fun and looked good for a little while.

THE DENTIST

Then it was off to the dentist. This apt was important as this was going to be Waylon's first for EVERYTHING~ X-rays and ALL. I had told the gals before we arrived that I wanted him to go first so he had no time to think about it and I wanted x-rays and everything done today. He is too old to not have had all of this done already and thankfully he did WONDERFUL.

I was so proud of him as he sat down in the chair and did not even hesitate and leaned back and opened really wide for Susan. In the meantime she is talking and asking him all kinds of questions and he has his mouth wide open. Needless to say he finally relaxed and chatted her ear off a while and then they began the cleaning. He was great and got all of his teeth polished and flossed and then we tried to do the bite wing x-rays but the new equipment they have is just too big for his little mouth. So we did a panoramic x-ray instead and I was so shocked at everything we could see in this x-ray.

I mean I DID work for a Pediatric Dentist and saw plenty of x-rays, but I guess because this was MY CHILD'S there was just so much more to look at. Even Dr. Smith had a lot to say about it too.

I took a picture because I wanted to show Jake. But you can see all his teeth coming in (Dr. Smith thinks he might be missing one tooth on the upper left but it is still to early to tell) His molars in the very back on the bottom are in the bud stage and are just in the first stages of growth that is why they have a bubble around them the uppers are not in yet or it is a little hard to see on the x-ray. You can also see his nasal cavity too. Just such a cool picture to look at I think.

Then there is this one. Who is 18 months and still has this THING!!!! Now she only has it in her crib and rarely has it in long just long enough to fall asleep. The fact that she HAS THIS THING disturbs me.  I had originally said that I was going to have her off it by Christmas, but she still has it! I need to just do it and take it away I promise she will not have it much longer!!

Gingerbread Houses and Cookies Oh MY!

Well isn't this a lovely shot! I know but this seems to be the phase right now of what he wants when I take a picture-true goofball. This day was totally fun and I hope it becomes a new tradition of ours.  We made a gingerbread house and even though the whole putting it together process was a true PAIN until daddy came to the rescue Waylon did enjoy putting the decorations and things on it. As you can tell he did a lot of the decorating and I tried to do my best with the icing. OK so this whole process, now that I am reflecting on it again was not my favorite activity of the season, but one every kiddo needs. :-)

Here is Mommy Preferred picture of the finished project!

This was the FUN part and one tradition I hope continues. We had a girls night with Kids and hung out and decorated a few cookies, watched Polar Express (well the kids did), drove around the neighborhood and looked at lights and then the Girls decorated the rest of the cookies after the little ones went to bed!

Connor got in the action of decorating cookies too but most importantly he polished off the entire cookie that he decorated~

Waylon decorated about 4-5 cookies before he became bored with the idea. I guess it is good I did not go CRAZY making all these crazy sugar cookies right?

Then it was time for Polar Express.  Now this time last year Waylon wanted nothing to do with any movie unless it was Cars! I am happy to say he has grown a lot and watches a lot of different movies now.  He fell in love with the movie Polar Express this year. We borrowed it from Brandy for a week or two and watched it EVERY NIGHT until we gave it back to her. Toni even loved the movie. She has this spot on the floor that she goes to and claps her hands and says "yeah" when the movie starts.

Then after the movie we ate pizza and got all ready for bed.

Once the kids were ready for bed we all loaded in the Tahoe and drove around the block oohing and ahhing over the lights in the neighborhood. Poor Mom and Aunt Pat were in the way back but it made for good memories listening to them giggle over everything back there.

THEN THE REAL FUN BEGINS! The kids are all in bed and we got to work on the cookies. I think I made 3 dozen cookies and it took us maybe 30-45 minutes to decorate them all. We are by no means true decorators when it comes to decorating cookies. I have no idea how some of these people make these beautiful sugar cookies these days~they are almost to pretty to eat. We decorate ours the best we know how and that is JUST THE KIDS. We don't lick our fingers though during every cookie-only some of them. :-) We had so much fun doing this and I look forward to the days when the kids can do ALL the decorating and we just watch...Will that ever happen?

December Already?

I sit here and look at what I just wrote and then look at my camera and think "no way is it December already and only a few weeks away from Christmas!" But it is and here we are...so sadly Thanksgiving there was not ONE picture taken and I never blogged about it. It was very nice and one of the few years we went to just one house and enjoyed our time. Although the guys all left right after we ate to go Elk hunting, so I guess Thanksgiving was a little short for us.  November was hard because Jake was out of town working and then almost every weekend he was also on a job, scouting or hunting so we were together 4 days I think that whole month...So I guess I am just glad the month is over and the holidays are just around the corner.

  Some December fun is already happening around here. We went and saw Santa and Toni struggled with it. Poor Waylon was a great sport but we all were just trying to get her to stop crying in the photo and this is the shot we got. Minus daddy but it is still a good one.

   We have been working hard on getting all the decorations out and up. It took us two weeks to get everything done but the house (inside and out) looks beautiful.  We even got SNOW the day we finished up which was totally awesome. We were so excited because it actually covered the rocks and Waylon was up long enough to see it. What a great memory.

This is what it looked like at 7:30 the next morning! So cool!

We have also had a new addition/tradition join our family for the month! His name is Elfy and he is our official ELF ON THE SHELF. Elfy returns to the North Pole each night to report back to Santa about how Waylon was for the day.  Then each morning he is in a new spot to watch over Waylon. This elf is pretty amazing, he really does KNOW everything! He has only been in places where Waylon can find him and also he appears in places where Toni cannot reach him. One of the main rules he has is if you touch him he will lose his Christmas magic and then be unable to report to Santa to tell him about how your day was.  Elfy has been up high near lights or on top of the entertainment unit and he even was sitting in our Christmas village one morning!

Waylon's favorite place so far was Saturday's spot. You see, we watched the TV special all about Elf on a Shelf. He LOVED it and it was so fun to listen to him comment on the elf and ask questions and then during commercials he would get up and talk to the elf. The magic was amazing in the room. That night Waylon wanted to leave him (Elfy) some cookies and milk. So we left him some by the fireplace and we were all amazed that in the morning it was all gone and he had eaten the cookie and drank the milk. I guess Elfy was pretty Thankful for the treats as he left Waylon a note on his white board with magnet letters saying "Thanks" and a candy cane! What a surprise!!!

I probably could have done a whole blog just on him, but we are getting ready to do our gingerbread house today, cookies next weekend and we also have another foam house to build. So as you can see there is still PLENTY of Christmas fun to be had here at the Pickard's. Oh yeah and I did a guided drawing lesson with him yesterday on an Elf. Ahhhh why do I have to be working full time, this MOMMY JOB is SOOOOO much better than being a teacher right now.

Until the next blog~Enjoy

This is the first foam house Waylon and I did. We added it to our
Christmas village as one of HIS houses to play with.