It's a very Mickey Christmas!

We decided to do something really fun this year and took the kids to Disneyland before Christmas as a great big surprise... nothing like leaving behind minus 30 degree temps for mid 80's and sunny!  I'll take two please! So I shall share some pictures from the trip tonight and add more in the coming days when I have a little more time. I hope you are all busy as little elves in the lead up to Christmas and have a very merry holiday with your family and friends! Ho Ho ho!

Elf on a Shelf....

Sooooo, my sister and I decided to get an "Elf on the Shelf" to start as a tradition with my kids (ages 5 & 7) and let's just say it was a complete and utter disaster from the start! We took the Elf out of the box, I lay in bed with the kids nestled on each side of me and read the book to them, then we discussed that the Elf comes alive at night and does mischievous things - I thought it was a great concept - except they were completely hung up on the fact this little stuffed Elf COULD come to life at night that it really freaked them out and they wanted nothing to do with their new Christmas friend! Alas, we finally came up with an alternate plan telling them the next day that we traded in the live Elf for just a plain stuffed one - which we pointed out had a tag attached to his side that said "Made in China" or something and that he couldn't come slice at night because he was just a stuffed Elf toy but that Mommy and Auntie were allowed to make him do funny things once the kids went to bed each night and they bought into the idea so here are a couple nights worth of Elf material - our 5 year old comes down in the morning, sees what the Elf is doing and yells "Good one Auntie!" and laughs and laughs ... Let me know what you think of his escapades so far - the Elf, not our 5 year old - LOL! 

Brrrrrrrr!

Since the last time I checked I wasn't a snowman, I'm not quite sure what to say about the bone chilling cold that set in today other than brrrrrr in a big way! For those of you not well versed in Midwest cold spells we are talking daytime HIGHS of minus 15 degrees then when you factor in the windchill it makes the actual air temp MINUS 30 DEGREES!!! I swear, mankind wasn't made to withstand this cold - sigh - and according to the weather we can expect this frigid arctic air to lock in over us for the next week, here's a shot that I just took which shows it's so cold there are sundogs in the sky (rainbow effect)....ahhhh I feel better already ... Thanks for listening!