Here are the last few days of Rocco-

Ryan is really scared of the grinch so Rocco and his posse were wrapping Christmas presents and when the Grinch tried to steal Christmas they roped him in with tape.
Rocco made Christmas cookies.
Rocco built a winter wonderland with tp and even had a snow slide.
Ryan was amazed!

Pink milk?

Ryan was such a stinker this morning. I was excited for him to see that Rocco turned the milk pink but when I asked him what he wanted for breakfast he said pop tarts! So I asked him to get the milk out of the fridge anyway and we could drink milk with b'fast. When he saw it he was floored. This was a fun one!

Kid's Choir Musical-Angels, Lambs, Ladybugs & Fireflies

Well, we managed to attend every Sunday night in prepartion for the Christmas musical this semester at church. It was the story of all the creatures who attended the birth of Christ and told from their perspective. Ryan got to be a blue spider. The costume he loved, but sitting on a step the entire time was not his cup of tea. He is much to much of a performer to sit still the entire time. If some drama teacher could harness this in the future we might be seeing him on the big screen some day!

Elfcapades

Rocco got into the laundry and slung it all over the house including the kid's tree leading up to the washing machine. There he left Ryan some new white t-shirts. Guess he couldn't find any in the laundry!

Light Lookin'

One of our favorite traditions at Christmas time is to drive around town to look at the Christmas lights. I couldn't get great pics but here are some of our favorites.

Christmas parade fun!

These are the fun benefits of living in a small town. This was an old time Mayberry like Christmas parade. Nothing flashy but fun with good friends!

We forgot about the elf magic but it still happened!

Oh the shame......we did it....we forgot to do the elf thing after Ryan had laid out crackers, sprinkled him and everything. We had such a busy weekend with the Sunday School party over at our house and then teaching Sunday School, then the Kid's choir performance. On Saturday night we just plain forgot. So the funniest thing happened. Ryan woke us up and said "come look at what Rocco has done." Yes, my son pretended to be his own elf and did this mischief--how sad is this? He even broke up the crackers and turned the water mug over to make it look real. Oh dear...he is so smart. We asked him if Rocco really did this or did Rocco not do anything and he kept up the "lie." Should I laugh or be concerned? he, he...

Our elf had to fend for himself

Last night we had our dress rehearsal for the church kid's choir performance that will be this Sunday. So when we got home we were rushing to get to bed and Ryan forgot to set out the crackers to feed Rocco. He got the water and sprinkled him, but forgot the crackers. I was so glad bc I saw this idea on elfcapades and thought it was cute. Ryan actually had brought his legos down and even said maybe Rocco would like to play with them. So Rocco built a ladder out of legos to get into the cabinet and get the crackers. All the cabinet doors were open in the kitchen like he was searching for them and legos were scattered all over. When Ryan got up and saw it he wouldn't let Scott in the kitchen. He said "Oh Dad, you don't want to see this mess!"

Rocco is still at it....

Tuesday mornings are Scott's morning to go to Men's Bible study which means Ryan usually comes and wakes me up and we have breakfast together before school. Well last night for some reason I decided to set my alarm. I ended up hitting snooze a couple of times but finally got up about 7:20-well the problem is we are suppose to leave the house at 7:30 for school. I ran upstairs and scared Ryan as he was in the bathroom. I told him to hurry we had to get ready fast and dash out of the house. He did pretty good and he doesn't have a "hurry" bone in his body. On the way out though we had a good laugh as we saw Rocco flying in circles on the ceiling fan. Ryan said he probably wanted to get dizzy.

I'm posting for tomorrow too bc it's going to be a busy day and doubt I will get to blog. Rocco is swinging on the chandelier with a note from Santa saying he is checking his list and the boys better put on their thinking caps and listening ears. The hats are compliments of Santa.

More Rocco

This one is for in the morning! Rocco got Ryan's night vision spy glasses and brought new nerf bullets! They are gonna be stuck all over the walls too!

Sunday morning--last night we brought Aiden's new big boy bed up from the basement and had it in the study temprarily and the boys loved jumping on it, so this night Rocco took all the couch cushions off and was jumping on them.

We went to see Santa on Saturday, 12/4

Had the place to ourselves on Saturday morning! Couldn't believe it. I'll scan the professional pic in sometime later. It turned out cute! Didn't know if how Aiden would do, but he loved it. He just hugged on Santa and sat there forever! Ryan of course asked for something new that he has never asked for before!

Rocco messed up Ryan's room!

Ryan got in trouble today and had to clean his room so Rocco took a lot of Ryan's shirts out of his closet and tossed them all over his room ---but he also brought him the new Christmas rocks shirt!

Rocco updates...

The next morning we found Rocco in my van trying to get to the post office to send a letter to Santa to update them on Ryan and Aiden's behavior. (forgot to take a pic)

Magic Elf mischief day #2

Rocco stacked some of our books in the shape of a Christmas tree....(sort of.)

Rocco has arrived!

Well it's officially time for the world to join us in celebrating the most wonderful time of year. It is funny all of the traditions the world has to celebrate this time of year including the all famous Santa, Christmas trees, house lights, yard decorations, and yes the magic elves. At our house we choose to partake in all of the fun and jolly goodness, but one thing that we hope to communicate is that all of this pales in comparison to our One True reason for celebrating this time of year and that is the glorious birth of our Savior Jesus.

One of our family traditions is to have a family devotion at night on the special "Christmas cloth." When it's time for the devotionals, Ryan will grab the special Christmas cloth (aka an old tablecloth) and we all sit on the floor by the Christmas tree and have our family devotional which of course revolves around the story of the birth of Jesus. The boys love using the toy nativity to demonstrate the different aspects of the story. Aiden is well, learning his part in sitting and listening. I feel so blessed to be their mom. They know so much more than I ever was even exposed to at this age. Thank you God for this glorious season that we can celebrate your Son's birth!

The more "magical" things of Christmas are fun too. Our Magic Elf named Rocco arrived this morning. For those of you who don't know, we have an elf that visits us from the North Pole each year around Christmas time. This is not an ordinary elf though. He looks just like a stuffed toy during the day, but at night if we sprinkle him with the magical snow flakes and set out crackers for him, he comes to life and does all sorts of mischief in our house. He has been great fun in the past. You can look back at posts from previous years and see some of the mischief he has gotten into. This year he was found in Ryan's stocking and he brought the movie "Elf" for us to watch and get into the seasonal fun. I'll try to keep up with some pictures of the fun he brings to our home. I can't imagine what he is going to do tonight!

Thanksgiving

This was the first year that Scott was able to get off work for Thanksgiving on both on Wednesday and Friday. We had a great weekened! We drove over to Scott's family on Wednesday and the boys enjoyed playtime with his cousins. Then Thursday was the big turkey day. We celebrated lunch with about 30 or so family members on Scott's mom's side at his Granny Turner's house then supper was at Scott's parent's house for his Dad's side of the family. We were all turkied out by the end of that day.

We drove back home that evening so we could be home for Black Friday shopping. I know call me crazy but we sincerely needed the discounts this year. So on the drive home we decided to stop at Toys R' Us in Douglasville, GA which was opening at 10pm. Well that was laughable! The line just to get into the store was a mile long. Seriously...a mile long. It curved and curved around the parking lots of the grand shopping center. I thought I wanted to stand in line and just see what the store was going to be like, but after waiting about 30 minutes I decided it wasn't worth it. As we came on home I got another wild idea to stop at the Wal-mart in Leeds, Al for the midnight sale. I know, call me crazy again! And it was crazy. It was so crowded. If you've never experienced a Black Friday midnight sale at Wal-mart, well, let me just say there is a whole breed of humanity that you haven't seen. These people were serious! They were laying their bodies over pallets of merchandise to guard their spot in line until they unveiled things at 12:01. And when the clock struck, I began to fear for my life. The boxes began flying and I nearly got hit by a huge cardboard crate pallet sized lid. I had to jump back and I bumped into the person behind me. Then to top it off, the hot item that they were all shuffling for was not the latest greatest toy. NO, it was towels for $1.33 each. Now, I know that is a cheap price, but come on, we are talking Wal-mart quality here. The Sherriff's department was there but they wouldn't have been able to do anything if a serious riot had broken out. Well, it wasn't quite that bad but it was wild. Memories...for sure. When all was said and done I got some good bargains and finished my shopping for the boys at 1:30am as they slept in the van sound asleep. I've been asked if it was worth it and I have to say this year it was. I was able to save a ton and still provide for others for Christmas! We got home about 2am that morning and went straight to bed.

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