Meet Jack....

This year for Christmas, I decided that I was going to do 25 days of books for Jackson (and Audrey).  Each day in December, Jackson gets to open a new book and we will read it before bedtime.  The first night, the book was Elf on the Shelf.

Jackson opened the book and Elf and then I read the book to him (and Audrey). Jackson seems to get the concept of the Elf and he decided to name him Jack.  Meet Jack:

Jackson was super excited to "find" Jack this morning, since each night he "hides" in a different place. Jackson was super cute this morning.  He told me this morning that he looked for Jack in his room and he wasn't there, so Jack must be downstairs and he wanted me to go down there and help him look for Jack. We started off with a pretty easy spot.  Jackson is only 4.

We had a pretty busy weekend.  Our families came up for Thanksgiving on Saturday.  It was nice to get to spend the time with everyone.  Although, it was kind of crazy with six kids 4 and under.  They all were pretty good.  I can't believe how fast they are all growing up.  Grams and Jason came up on Thursday.  The Basham Family showed up before dinner on Friday.  The Huebschmans and Sadlers and Mamawk all came  up on Saturday.  The kids played games and made a pretty big mess in the family room with all the toys!  It was really fun to watch them all together!

For days before they all got here, Jackson kept asking me when Ayden was going to come over. And then each day after I told him, he was counting down the days until he finally showed up!

We did manage to take a few pictures on Saturday.  I tried bribing the bigger kids with Skittles to behave while I took pictures.  Even Tyler got candy corn.  It wasn't so much a success.  But there were a few decent shots.

The Boys

Fonner Grandbabies

Huebschman Babies

Huebschman Family

Basham Family

 

Elsass Family

And... A few shots of Audrey and

And here's Jackson playing cards on the iPad with Grams.

After everyone was gone, I got the Christmas decorations out and Josh did a good scrubbing of the first floor (including the floor!)

I really enjoy the  Christmas decorations once they are up.  I absolutely DREAD having to put them up.  But it got done!  Four years ago, I went out and bought new stockings for my family.  I bought four of them because we planned to have two kids.  I bought iron on letters (and made sure that I had enough letters no matter what we named baby #2).  For the last four Christmases, I have put up our three stockings.  This year, I needed to find that fourth stocking and get Audrey's name on it.  I was sure that I wasn't going to find it.... BUT I DID!!  I was pretty proud of myself for managing to hang on to it so we all had matching stockings without having to buy new stockings!  Unfortunately, we don't have a fire place (or really any good place to hang the stockings), so they get hung on the coat rack!

And here is the "Colts" tree and my snowman!!