Our Elf on the Shelf

Meet "Reindeer" our Elf on the Shelf.  He arrived for the very first time to our home earlier this month!  Xavier thinks he's pretty cool.  We asked what he wanted to name him, and he said "Reindeer" right away!  He was super-excited about his North Pole breakfast, powdered sugar donuts, the candy canes, and most of all, the colored Christmas lights he can put in his room.

We read him the book and tried to explain how the elf works.  He is loving this thing!  He wakes up every morning, tip-toeing very slowly around the living room and kitchen, kinda hunched over & quietly, whispering "Where's the Elf?  Where'd he go?  Oooh, Cheez-Its (stops to consider opening the box, then proceeds on his hunt)....Where's he at?"

We explained to him that when he's bad, the elf won't move.  He was bad one morning, went downstairs to find him, and saw that he moved.  "Why did he move?  I was bad."  He was good at night, so we had to explain that he moved before the elf saw him act bad.  He keeps us on our toes!

Xavier always wakes up so excited to find out where the Elf moved.  Most times, he simply moves from one place to another (Xavier still gets such enjoyment from this!!), and sometimes, usually on the weekends when there's more time, he will roast marshmallows or have a snowball fight.  We even got in a good chandelier swing!  The best ones are where the elf plays with his toys.  Xavier thinks it's the funniest!!

The funniest thing happened last night when I was calling for Xavier to get in the bath:
Me:  Xavier?
*no response, he was one room over*
Me:  Xavier???!!!!!
*still no response*
Me:  Xaaaaaa-vieeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr?!

*he runs in*
X:  Owwww-iii-sssssoooonnnnnn!!!!! (Allison)

Christmas Traditions

Our town has so many Christmas events, it's hard to keep track!  We have a few traditions we inherited from each of our childhoods, and we added a few more this year.  The first weekend in December is always the biggest.  The tree lighting ceremony was a favorite, where we roasted marshmallows, made s'mores (Xavier only ate the chocolate), and took a horse-drawn carriage ride through a gorgeous part of our neighborhood.

Our town's most popular event, "Christmas in the Park", lets kids visit a Santa who knows every small detail about the kid, including best friends, favorite Christmas song, etc.  Xavier had a personalized visit with Santa and it was the greatest thing!  When he gets older, he'll enjoy it even more, and may even be shocked that Santa knows his Elf's name and Christmas traditions than only we know about.  After the visit, we took a warm bus ride (weather was too cold for the horse-drawn carriage ride through the park, fine by me!!) to the shelter house where Xavier played corn hole and made ornaments.

I feel like it's my job to make holidays as memorable as possible.  And not with presents or over the the top Pinterest projects, but to make every day things more exciting.  I can still remember making cutout sugar cookies every Christmas when I was a kid.  There's something great about having messy, flour covered counter tops, with Christmas music playing in the background.  I'm so impressed by Xavier's cookie making skills, so much improvement from last year!

We are spending lots of time in the snow, building a snowman (and throwing snowballs at and destroying with bats) and forts.  I'm already looking forward to the next snowfall.  I'm excited to make our traditional "snow cream", where the main ingredient is freshly, fallen snow.

Look at the determination!

Batting practice.

We are also planning to do "Elf Yourself", make reindeer food, and surprising Xavier with a day of ice skating (assuming he can stand up in the skates!) and hot chocolate.  I say it all the time, but seeing the holidays through the eyes of your kids is the most magical thing in the world!  It's so easy to incorporate these easy things into the day to make each day just a little more fun.


So make pancakes.  Make magic.  Make memories.

Xavier's Christmas List

On Black Friday, after Xavier scared all the girls on the mall playground with his zombie voice, we saw Santa (no line at all since everyone's scoring deals in the stores).  While we waited for our turn, I asked him what he was going to tell Santa he wanted.  He said, "a bie-sih-kle, tennis [racket], and monstohr truck".  We had been working on saying bicycle and was proud he said it right!  He asked me to listen to him a couple more times.  When it was his turn to walk up, he stood in front of Santa (didn't even site down on his lap) and said, "bicycle, tennis,...." then Santa picked him up.  After he finished, he got right off his lap and said, "Okaaaaay, bye!" and waved.  No picture, no nothin'.  And I'm making a mental note to always hit up Santa on Black Friday!

Every year, since he was a baby, we have been making a Christmas list for Xavier.  It's fun to look back on each year and see how it's changed.

While we were building our snowman, I thought it would be fun to ask more detailed questions about Christmas and save his sweet little answers for just about ever.

What is the best part about Christmas?

Pwesents!!

Where does Santa live?

In uh Chwistmas house.

What are the names of Santa's reindeer?

It's name is Elf.

What do you think Santa's favorite food is?

Cookies!!

What are you getting Daddy for Christmas?
A bicycle!! (I tell him he already has a bicycle.)  Hmm, no, I'll get him uh.... I'll get him...AIRPORT FIRETWUCK.  Yea!  I want dat!

What will Santa bring Daddy and Mommy for Christmas?
He's getting uh tie.

And what about mommy?

Uuhhh, oh shoot. It's weally cold outside.

Christmas Mini's

I've finally got Steve onboard with these mini sessions.  He used to dread them, but now that we've been doing them and looking back on them, we are all finding them necessary!  I usually do 2 mini sessions each year, in the fall and at Christmas, where the entire family participates.  This Christmas, we used the same photographer who did our pics last year and they turned out wonderful!

Here, he's trying to do a "Sssshhhh Santa's coming" pose, but I love his bare foot in the air!

Xavier's favorite things so far have been seeing colored lights on houses (he literally loses it and says Oooohh I want that!), Jingle Bells (which he refers to as Chwistmas Bells, but still sings the correct way), and the Trans Siberian Orchestra's Carol of the Bells.  He loves the boom booms at the beginning.  There's so much excitement that I just want to bottle it up and keep it for ever!

Oh Christmas Tree

There is nothing better than kids experiencing the magic of Christmas right before your eyes!  Since Thanksgiving, our home has been filled with festive things, including Christmas music on repeat and the smell of my favorite pomegranate/orange scented candle.  Xavier was so excited to put up the tree this year, when we mentioned it, he screamed to Steve to, "get it! get it!".  Steve put the tree up while Xavier was in his bath.  Xavier then helped me put on the ornaments and hang the stockings.

I always did annual Christmas ornaments for my childhood tree, and I want to carry that tradition on to Xavier.  Eventually, we are going to get him his own tree that he can hang all of his yearly ornaments on.  Out of all the ones on display at our local Hallmark, he picked out the "motorcycle" (Harley Davidson)!  Just like Grandpa's!

Christmas can stay forever, we are loving it more than ever!  So much to be excited for this time of year!

Halloween 2016

This was definitely our most fun Halloween yet!  Xavier's age right now is SO MUCH FUN!  While Steve carved our pumpkin, we let Xavier use the carving tools to carve an apple. Worked like a charm!

Not in the mood for a picture, and I was a tad irritated.

But, we went back a few days later, and he asked me if he could sit to take another picture.  He said, "I'll smile this time.  I'm a good boy."

Not another one, Mom!

We took him to Target a few weeks before to pick out his costume.  He wanted to be Iron Man (Hulk came in a close second).  We were all set to go the day of til Xavier asked me to be a witch like in his Room on the Broom book and he asked Steve to be a monster.  So I took the day off work and shopped for costumes. When I picked him up from his sitter, he saw my eye makeup, pointed, and said "why your eye green?"  He was so puzzled by it.  And he remembered it the next morning and was excited I had taken it off!

On the days leading up to Halloween, we talked about how Halloween was coming, so the day of we told him Halloween was here!  He stopped, looked kind of startled and said "It is?  Let's go see it.  Out the window."  :)

We set out a bowl of candy on our front step and joined Xavier on his hunt for candy.  He loved to say "twick uh tweet" and "thank you" and we managed to get him through more houses this year than last year's 6 or 7.  He loved to see all the Halloween decorations and always asked if he could touch them.  His bucket was getting full and after about 45 minutes, he said, in classic Xavier style, "I'm ready go home."  It started to get cold, the warmth from the coffee and bailey's a neighbor passed out was wearing off, so we headed home.

It seemed to end too quickly.  The days leading up to Halloween, all Xavier talked about was if Halloween was here.  It came and ended in about 2 hours.  As we walked from house to house, some of the older parents mentioned to us that they remembered when their kids used to Trick-or-Treat and how much fun it was for them.  They took special notice of Xavier and his cuteness, and I could almost see them thinking back to when their kids were kids.  It was a sweet reminder of the limited number of costume making, face-painting, hand-holding Halloweens that we will have in our lifetime.  And I know we will cherish every single one of them.
Now on to Christmas fun!!

Potty Training 101

Three keys to success:  M&M incentive, get rid of the diapers, don't cave in :)

It's harder for parents, trust me!  We first tried potty training when Xavier was around 2 and a half.  He was really excited to do it, we got him an elmo potty with musical flusher, and a Boon potty seat that goes on the regular toilet.  He caught on to peeing really quickly, but we didn't do away with the diaper just yet.  We mainly wanted to just introduce the potty to him to see how he'd take it.  

(note the puppy pads underneath the small potty!)

After a few weeks, the newness wore off and he refused to sit on the toilet.  It became a fight between us.  We knew it wasn't the right time and held off for a few months.  

Right before his third birthday, Xavier's babysitter held a "potty training boot camp" and all the kids were asked to show up on a Monday in underwear.  I was incredibly new to this.  What size underwear is he?  Am I supposed to buy Pull Ups?  What if he pees on the way to the babysitter's house on Monday?  

When we dropped him off to the babysitter's house, he stripped down to only his undies, so he'd have easy access to the toilet.  He did pretty well the first couple days, only a couple accidents at the sitter's house.  He still wore a naptime diaper, so he saved him pooping for nap time :)  We took him home with underwear underneath a diaper in case of any accidents.   Then removed the diaper when we got home.  We asked every hour if he had to pee.  After a week, he started going on his own.

After a week, he started going all on his own! ;)

And it helps that he had fun underwear to show off!

He started holding his poo pretty badly, to the point where we had a major panic attack one night where he couldn't get anything to come out.  So we started him on a half-cap full of Miralax each morning in his milk.  He had a major accident in the tub one night, but the 15 inch piece of poo came out so easily, it cured his fear of it hurting!  From that point forward, he always went in the toilet.

He was on night time/nap time diapers for about 6 weeks, then one night we ran out.  He had been dry in the mornings, so we gave it a shot.  He woke up dry and he hasn't worn a diaper since that night!

One of the last pictures I have of Xavier wearing a diaper!

We had it easy compared to some stories I hear from other parents, but there were some days it was so rough and I wanted to throw in the towel!  But with time, he turned out to be a pro!