A few Christmas traditions

Mostly so I don't forget next year in case Daddy isn't around to remind me… I'm making a little list.

This being our first year together as a family for Christmas, the Giant and I made our goal to establish our traditions this year with Cheyanne. Some things we did were great, some things not so much for this year, but we had fun trying to make the most of the season together.

Besides the typical gingerbread house/sugar cookie decorating/ watching Christmas movies traditions, we started other fun traditions too.

Examples:

Reading Twas the Night Before Christmas before Christmas Eve bedtime

Sprinkling oats and glitter on the front lawn for the reindeer because they like oats and the glitter is to help them find our house

Checking the fireplace before bed to make sure Santa isn't stuck up there yet. Nope, not yet.

Not sure this one worked out like I'd hoped. An overnight french toast recipe I found on pinterest. It was not as good as I'd hoped it would be.

We left Santa cookies and milk. He loved his homemade gingerbread cookies.

Homemade advent calendar. We had two each day. One was Daddy's, a chocolate advent calendar similar to this one and one homemade by me. I sewed each baggy and stuffed it with a related bible verse, thing to do for the day, and 2 M&Ms. Daddy's was more popular...

Santa left Cheyanne a message in the mirror before he left. 

It was pretty busy around here Christmas Eve… so Santa told us later.

Our adventures with Ralphie

I mentioned a while ago that we've adopted our first elf and his name is Ralphie. He arrived at our house the day after Thanksgiving and has kept us on our toes ever since. Cheyanne loves to find Ralphie every morning and see what kind of mischief he was into the night before after his long trip back from the North Pole. 

Want to see a few things Ralphie has been doing? I'll post more later.

Apparently Ralphie was tired one day because we found him napping in Cheyanne's dollhouse after a little popcorn snack.

We found him overseeing the nativity after laying out our advent baggies (obviously we were a day behind in that). Oops. Thanks Ralphie for the reminder.

 He loves a good tea party gabfest with the gals. I'm not sure in which way, but I assume the best because he seems to have a thing for the orange haired fairy doll. Chey enjoyed finding this in the morning as she loves tea parties.

Like I said, he seems to have a thing for the orange haired ladies. They rode the stocking choo-choos.

 Messy Ralphie.

Apparently toilet paper can be used as Christmas decorations… who knew?!

Its a bird! Its a plane! No, its Ralphie flying around on the fan!!

We love our Ralphie! I can't wait to see what he comes up with next. Speaking of which… its late… gotta go! :)

Uh oh Ralphie, you're in trouble now

As one of our advent tree activities, we made Christmas cookies last week while Daddy was home on a quick work break. I think they lasted for all of 24 hours in our house.

Cheyanne's favorite part of decorating cookies is eating the sprinkles of course. She really couldn't care less about the cookie, but don't mess with her sprinkles.

Well, during nap time, Ralphie apparently got into her cookies and had a little snack.

She is pissed. Not just a little bit. I mean, she gave him the stare down and pointedly said "No Ralphie" when she discovered what he had done. She insisted on eating his cookie that he didn't finish.

She sat like this staring at him the entire time eating her sprinkled cookie. Ralphie, I think you crossed the line this time. You don't mess with Chey's sprinkles.

Gingerbread Tradition

With this being the Giant's first chance at making holiday traditions with Cheyanne, we are covering our bases this year. He really wanted to make sure he helped make Cheyanne's first Gingerbread house.  She loved it- decorating the house, eating the candy out of the bowls, picking the candy off the roof and eating it… she loved it.

Busted Chey Chey.

She was so proud.

And then she held this pose eating the candy until I got a few pictures. 

Look at that house!

Now if I can just keep little hands off of it long enough to dry and last a while.