It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Our Christmas tree (not without a rather humorous struggle) is up and Jack (our Elf on the Shelf) has come back to visit. It's looking and feeling like Christmas around here.
We decided to put up our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. Our tree is getting kind of old but it's so pretty that we keep putting off buying a new one. Well, this year it gave out on us. We got it up and I put all the lights on it (which I tend to go a little overboard with, but it's so pretty.) John got underneath it and attempted to slide it back into the corner and the truck decided to not hold any more and the tree collapsed on top of John. So, picture John and I laughing hysterically and me being 8 months pregnant trying to pull an 8 foot tree off of him and Taylor crying because it scared her so bad and she thought John was hurt. It was quite the scene. :) Anyways we got it up (with the help of my dad and some pvc pipe) and decorated and it's beautiful.

Jack the Elf came back to visit us this year and Taylor was super excited. She's really into it this year. She loves getting up in the morning and trying to find him. We've been reading the story about him and there was a movie on tv about the Elf on the Shelf so we've been watching that too. 

 

She did have one little incident where she touched him. John and I had to scramble and figure out a way to teach her that you have to follow the rules. The story says that if you touch your Elf he will lose his magic and won't be able to return to the North Pole every night and tell Santa whether the child has been good or not. She felt horrible and cried and cried. I told her that we could send Santa an email apologizing and asking if he could fix Jack. We got a response from Santa saying that he knew Taylor was very sorry and that he would send some magic dust that we could sprinkle on Jack and make him all better. :) While we were sitting at the table, the doorbell rang and we heard a "Ho Ho Ho" from outside. Taylor's eyes lit up and she ran to the door. On the step was an envelope addressed to Taylor from Santa and Mrs. Claus. Inside was a small pouch of Magic Elf Dust (glitter) so we went and sprinkled it on Jack and healed him right up. All was good and we knew Jack was able to go back to the North Pole because he was in a different spot the next morning. Taylor was excited and vowed to never touch him again. :)