Friday, December 3, 2010

.....a little Christmas spirit.....and meeting Mr. Elf.....

.....December 1st rolled around and it was a blistering cold, windy and rainy day......Stefan was stuck on a business trip, crammed in an airplane center seat for 7 hours trying to get home and my girls were going stir crazy.....my house has been a wreck since Thanksgiving, so I figured why not add some granular sugar and white flour to the dirt piles on my floors?.....Dec. 1st was a great day to make our first batch of Christmas cookies.....


.....and earlier in the day, the girls found and opened the box of Christmas pjs I was saving to unveil on our family Christmas tree decorating night (coming this weekend), but I could not dampen the sweetness of the two of them running into the kitchen, ready to make cookies in their holiday cotton gowns......this unveiling was perfectly fine with me.....it added to the spirit, the crazy fun mess we made and the Christmas tunes blaring in the background as we rolled, sprinkled flour and cut our dough into star and circle cookie shapes......

                                                                                Callie's very own cooking apron is on the list for Santa.....in the meantime, Elsie is happy to share.


......and Elsie loved the fact that the rolling pin is not only pink, but it's the one that Daddy used when he was a little boy.....sure, it makes funny sounds when we roll with it and a little rust trims the handles, but it works just fine for us.....


......and she told me several times that making Christmas cookies is wrilly haaard wurk, Mommy......


.....and just having cookies for our Daddy's return didn't seem like enough on such a cold day, so we threw together a warm batch of potato and onion soup too.....


.....there is nothing like coming home to an apartment full of kitchen mess, sweet smells and happy girls for a weary and hard working Daddy.....


.....and what is decorating Christmas cookies without good friends around?......surely we were not the only apartment full of kids in our building going stir crazy on such a wet day.....so we asked William to join us.....


......and he managed to get out of our house with only a few paws claiming a few of his cookies we were sending him home with.....


.....which was surprising in itself since we did so much eating while showering our entire kitchen and a few cookies with frosting and sprinkles.....



.......but the best part of the afternoon was having Daddy unveil the visitor he met at the airport....according to Daddy, Elsie and Callie were especially picked by Santa to have one of his elves visit us for the month of December.....our elf is magic and only Mommy and Daddy can touch him..... he also can not talk to us or he loses his special magic.....

.....Elsie intently listened as Daddy explained everything about him.....


......each night, the elf magically travels to the north pole so he can report to Santa about who has been naughty or nice.....so each morning when we wake up, our elf; or in this case, Elsie has named him, Mr. Elf, is in a new location.....he is watching, listening and keeping a list of all the good deeds we do.....and I will tell you over the last two days, my girls have behaved exceptionally.....because all I need to do when they don't want to share a toy or they prepare to smack each other in the head with a book because they are mad about something is look at them and say....please be kind to one another, girls......and remember, Mr. Elf is making his list for Santa.....

....and just in case we forget why Mr. Elf is with us until he leaves our home to help Santa with his journey on Christmas Eve, we can review his magical story.....



.....and although this fun new tradition in our household supplements the real meaning of Christmas, we are having a wonderful time with our new houseguest.....


.....now I better go get some chores done......Mr. Elf is watching......