Christmas: Part I

I am finally tackling a Christmas post.  I have put it off for a while but I need to get it done before March.  I will probably break it up into a couple of posts so I can try to cover most of it.

So here is Part I...

Our elf, Clyde, arrived at our house a few days after Thanksgiving.  He comes each year and keeps an eye on the boys for Santa.  He reports to Santa each night to tell him if the children have been naughty or nice.  It is a clever idea and the women who invented it are filthy rich.  If it helps my kids behave for a month then hey...it can't hurt.  

The problem was that Carson could have cared less if the elf saw him push his brother or not listen to his parents.  I would remind him that the elf was watching and would tell Santa if he wasn't being nice and to behave if he wanted presents.  To which he would reply "I don't care. "  So it didn't exactly work but we still had fun with it.  

The morning he arrived he made cinnamon rolls.  Most of the time he sat on a shelf or hung from the chandelier.  But he got into a little trouble too.  He ate Carson's Halloween candy and tried fishing for burger face.     

While we were in Wisconsin, at my Moms house we watched The Grinch and Carson really liked the movie.  His sassy-ness was a little out of control while we were in Wisconsin (it usually is, since he gets used to being the center of everyone's attention).  So when he was acting up we would do what every parent does during Christmas and remind him that Santa is coming in just a few days and to behave if he wanted any presents under the tree this year.  So after watching the Grinch his response to us was "I hate Christmas.  I don't want any presents."
It was really hard not to laugh because he was dead serious and would say it with his angry face.
Wonder what his face would have looked like Christmas morning if there really weren't any gifts for him?      

Carson got a kick out of the shindigs that the elf pulled but hopefully next year he'll get more into  the behavior part of it.

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It was nearly impossible to get a picture of the boys for our Christmas card.  I would have liked a family picture but we really had no one to take it and I really don't want to remember myself with my hair how it is.  So the less pictures of me the better.

I tried 3-4 different times to take some pictures of them most of the pictures Maddox was crying or not looking.  My blood pressure was probably through the roof just trying to get one...just one picture of the boys together smiling.  Seems easy but its not.

I thought some thing in front of the tree would be nice but all they kept doing was waving this damn stick around.   

So I took them outside...and we got this...

cute pictures, but nobody is looking at the camera. 

All Maddox wanted to do was stand at my legs.  

So to the park we went and I strapped Maddox in the swing so that he could not move and we finally got a picture...not the picture I was hoping for (Maddox's face is blurry...ugh) but it captures both of them perfectly.