My Elf Army year end Videos...

Its the end of the year. Goodbye 2015, it's been a blast. Lots of fun, laughs, smiles, trials, challenges, and everything else in between. Here's our last quarterly video of 2015. The password is: myelfarmy

My Elf Army fourth Quarterly from Margaret on Vimeo.

OR in case you'd like to see our whole year from start to finish, I've also made a video of that as well. (Each of the Quarterly videos are about 2 1/2 minutes, the whole year video is 10 minutes long.)

From 2015 year in videos

IF you are trying to watch this from your phone and

the movie link doesn't work: try this link to have it play. 

I hope to continue filming our daily life in the new year because it brings us joy. May this new year bring you joy and plenty of daily adventures.

Sickness...

We have been struggling with sickness since Thanksgiving. It's been a little bit of everything. It started off as a stomach bug that each of us had for about 24 hours. Then it changed into colds and a general unwell feeling. Eventually the boys colds turned into pretty nasty coughs. The Friday before Christmas Oliver couldn't stop cough for 5 minutes in a row, so we took him into the minute clinic. Turns out he had the beginning of an ear infection so we put him on medicine for that. The following Tuesday, Lucius came home looking miserable. We figured it was another ear infection like his brothers so we took him in. Found out he was running a 103 degree fever and had strep throat. So we put him on medicines. Lucius stayed home from school the next day (last day of school before winter break). Oliver went to school that day and on Thursday was throwing up. Hooray. So Oliver and Daddy stayed home for my family's Christmas Eve gathering.

This photos was the moment just before completely freakin' out that I couldn't find my eldest child in the house, but happen to finally check his bed and find him fast asleep at 6:45pm.

I think we're all finally getting over this plague we've been fighting and I'm hoping we can all be healthy again by the time the New Year arrives.

Lucius turns six...

Last week Lucius turned six years old. Typically we go out and do something fun as a family to celebrate. Except this year, Lucius got Strep the day before his birthday. He was super disappointed to miss school on his birthday as we had special treats for his class to share. So he and I stayed home during the day. When Daddy and Oliver got home later we went out to Culver's with Mormor and Morfar. After dinner, since he was still contagious, we bought the new Minions movie and stayed in to have a movie night. Thankfully he was pretty excited about all this.

Probably helped that he got to have ice cream too!

 

The next day our very nice neighbor gave them their birthday gifts. More Pokemon cards, which they loved.

Simple pleasures: signatures

Everyone signs their own name on our Christmas cards. It was only a little hard to get Lucius interested but no bribery was needed in the end.

All forty cards are signed and ready to go. Some have been hand delivered, the rest I should really get in the mail soon. 

Dinner with Grandpa...

We all went out to dinner with Grandpa and Grandma on Monday night. It was fun to catch up with them. The boys talked on and off, between the food and the TV's in the restaurant they might have been a little distracted.

Grandpa and Grandma gave the boys new art sets for their birthdays coming up soon. They started coloring pretty soon after coming home. 

Lucius likes that his art set came in a little case. He'd color, pack it all up and then walk around the house toting it around. He keeps telling me it will be good to take with him whenever he goes places. Thank you Grandpa Gale and Grandma Julie for a fun night and the new gifts. 

More Library deliveries...

We went out on Sunday to finish our gifted book drop offs. We found 6 Little Free Libraries, one of which we'd never been to before and wasn't even on our map. Oliver spotted it, yelled out "Little free Library" and we turned around to stop there. 

We even had an extra book to drop at a friends door.

Simple pleasures: mismatch day

The boys are having "spirit week" at school this week. Tuesday's theme was mismatch day. They had the most fun helping pick out the most mismatchiest stuff in their drawers. Here's what we came up with. (Easiest morning of getting dressed we've had in a long time. Everybody was super excited to get to school.)

Sugar cookies and Christmas #1...

Our first Christmas celebration was this past Saturday at my Mom's house. She invited all the local cousins and aunts to come visit. In preparation for Saturday, she made sugar cookies. Oliver was very excited to help cut them out. He spent a good amount of time figuring out which cookie cutter to use and where it fit the best to get the most cookies out of the rolled dough. 

Then Saturday afternoon came and it was a time to play...

And decorate the cookies...

Unfortunately Oliver had a fever so he had to stay downstairs. He was pretty bummed not to have been able to decorate cookies. So a few days later on Monday, Mormor made a new batch and had them ready to frost after dinner. The boys loved creating their edible masterpieces and were discussing who to share them with. 

They filled two whole pans with finished sugar cookies. Thank you Mormor for all the sugar cookie fun and for a great first Christmas gathering.

Giving back...

In an effort to teach my kids Christmas isn't really about getting a bunch new toys and things I came up with an idea. We ordered new books from Scholastic and wrapped them up as presents. Then we spent an hour in the car, visited 10 Little Free Libraries, and delivered 11 new books wrapped for some other kids to find. 

The boys even brought along some of their older books to trade when they found "new" books at a LFL today. "Take a book, Leave a book". 

I am not sure how the little misters really feel about all this but at least we tried to give something to someone else. We use the Little Free Libraries a lot in the summer time. Hoping whoever finds our little presents is excited to unwrap a new book. We have more but the Little Misters did not want to drive around any longer. Giving should be (somewhat) joyful ... So another day.

Picking a tree...

The last few years the boys have helped Mormor pick out her Christmas tree. Again they went with to "help" but were far more excited about "getting lost" to find the right one. While they ran through the trees losting each other, Mormor and I found a nice tree to take home.

Then on a day when I was rather sick and not up to parenting, Oliver and Lucius helped Mormor decorate the tree.

(These photos were taken by Mormor)