Jackie's Zipping through

This morning we found Jackie zipping by!


Hanging around.


Hannah looking up, good morning.


Jackie had a special surprise hanging from the line- Elf seeds.

"Sprinkle the seeds over a bowl full of sugar. Sprinkle water and wait until morning to see what grows! Love Jackie"

The girls are having a blast looking for Jackie in the morning. Addison is getting into it as well. The upcoming week is going to awesome! I have 4 days left of work, Hannah has 4 days left of school. Sunday we have the Spencer family Christmas Party. We will be bringing Cleo home with us on Sunday, and she will stay with us until Christmas Eve (when our families come to our house for a family get together). We have plans to take the girls to PIR for the light show. There will be some last minute Christmas shopping and some baking, lots of baking in the upcoming week. Oh there is also my office potluck and Secret Santa Exchange. Hannah will be off from school for 16 days, and I have 12 of those days off! A much needed break from work.

Here's to a wonderful upcoming week before Christmas!

Love-
Jessica

Holiday fun just keeps on coming!

It's December and we try to include lots of special fun holiday activities, for our kids and for me (I'm a big kid at heart when it comes to Christmas!).

So we made a trip to the mall- I know we are crazy. But we wanted to get Santa pictures. And we were not the only one.

While we waited for Santa, Rudolf was walking around. Surprisingly both girls were happy to go give him a hug and pose for a quick photo.



Addison, couldn't catch her looking at me, but that's alright.


After an hour of waiting, we finally made it to Santa's lap! This was the best shot we could get, but that's alright. I was surprised that Addison did not cry at all. She didn't want to talk to him, but that's okay too.



After the Santa wait and visit, we promised the girls that they could ride the train, that was going on outside of Nordstroms.


They look quite happy to be on the train don't they?


Jackie was found this morning crusin' in the Pink Barbie car by the front door. Surprisingly Addison did not attempt to touch Jackie today, though she did tell us a few times "I don't touch Jackie."


I think Jackie was having  a fun time in the car.


Love, J.

Letters

It has become a family tradition for us to mail letters at the Macy's mailbox. What makes that so special? Money gets donated to the Make A Wish foundation with every letter that is mailed to Santa. So we wrote/drew our letters and mailed them today.




And I should have noted, that I wrote this blog while I was waiting in line for Santa. The girls and Jason were off a the arcade- since the line for Santa was LONG!

Love, J.

More holiday fun

Photo 1: Peppermint blossom cookies. A new twist on and old favorite (peanut blossoms). These are super nummy!

Photo 2: Jackie brought new coloring books. She and all the reindeer were coloring in the books. It didn't take Addison long to touch her! Hannah was nice enough to take Jackie away and put her in a bowl so we saved her!

Photo 3: Addison in the light dusting of snow we had this week.

Photo 4: Hannah at the bus stop in the light dusting of snow.

Photo 5: Jackie decorates our fridge!

We even packed in watching the Christmas Ship parade this week. Love it!

First week of December 2013

We found Jackie sleeping in the linen closet one morning- and in the presents were jammies for the girls. 

SNOW! It wasn't too much, but was enough to really mess with traffic!

Beautiful snow covered (sort of) home. And yes check out the Christmas lights and inflatable, we are all decked out now in our home. 

J. 

Addison's 2!

Addison Grace Spencer- She turned 2 today!

We had a family party in our home, and what fun we had. 

Our theme was puppies. 

Goody bags for the children- 

Pupcakes

Biscuit cookies. 

Great Grandma Eva, and Addison. 89 and 2 years old! It's taken Addison some time to warm up to Gma Eva, but today she was smitten with her, it was super cute!

Gma Eva got Addison a zebra (Tillie) and there was a note attached that asked Addison to help her sleep at night. Tonight she took her to bed and was quickly asleep with Tillie in her bed. 

Tillie came with a matching blanket- Addison has the same blanket from when she was born. 

PRESENTS! It took her some time to unwrap them, and realize it could be fun, but once she realized it was okay, she went at it. 

Presents and family. 

Cleo gave Addison a Penguin- so sweet!

Aunt Michelle gave Addison and guitar that was dog themed! So cute. Addison kept saying "I singing"

More presents. 

Ireland played with her Great Grandma Eva, and Papa Dan. 

Sorta trying to smile. 

There's a smile!

The 5 girls playing with the Klip Klop Princess House. 

8 years of marriage, 9 years together, 2 children, our youngest turned 2 today! What a wonderful family we have created together. 

Addison is such a wonderful girl, and so curious. She's growing up so fast and I can't believe she is 2 now!

J. 

Jackie goes for a ride

Our elf was missing this morning. We couldn't find her anywhere. That was until we piled into the van to go to grammy and papa's. Then we found her buckled into the back seat of the van!

Elf on the shelf update 12.5.13

Jackie's been having some fun. . . 

A little dance on the mantle. 

Jackie and 2011's nutcracker

Jackie hiding in Addison's room. I can't blame her for finding high places to hide. 

She was chilling with the nightlight turtle. 

She brought some new window clings for the girls to put up. 

Again hiding in a high up spot.

Jackie's got some tricks up her sleeve. . . won't you wait around and see what they are!

Love, J. 

Elf on the Shelf day 2. . .

As you can see I'm going to try to keep the blogging tradition of sharing with you what our Elf Jackie is up to. As well as I'm trying to get caught up on some very important blogging that needed to happen last month that I failed to do. So keep checking back and you may find that I have added additional blogs. It might take me a couple nights, maybe into next week to get caught up, but it will happen! I have some fabulous photos that I need to share with the family!

Jackie, day 2. We awoke to find that she was on the mantel playing with Daddy's nutcracker from 2011. 

Yes, that nutcracker is a girl, it was afterall the year that we had Addison and I thought it was fitting that Jason recieved one female nutcracker to join his collection. 

Keep tuned for further Jackie adventures. 

J.

Jackie returns

In our family we started a tradition with the Elf on the Shelf in 2012. Our family elf, Jackie arrives on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and stays with us until Christmas Eve. This year was the same.

Jackie arrived in style, she was sure to set up a North Pole breakfast for our family of four. She brought us santa hats (strawberries set on top of bananas), peppermint elf pillows (peppermint marshmallows), snowy donuts (powdered sugar donuts), and snow man soup (hot cocoa, w/ candy can mixed in and marshmellows). Jackie this year made some fresh banana reindeer cakes (banana bread with chocolat chips sprinkled on top.

The table was decked out and ready for when the girls awoke. I was woken up to "Mommy, Jackie's here. It's real it's real it's real". My 5 1/2 year old was extremely excited about Jackie arriving. My 2 year old didn't really understand what was going on, other than she was going to get to have a donut for breakfast and that was pretty exciting for her as we try hard to not do a lot of sugary items especially not for breakfast!

Both girls devoured their North Pole Breakfasts. Thankfully there is only one rule about Jackie. "Do not touch her, as she may lose her magic." The girls so far (we are only on day 2) have been able to keep this rule in mind and follow it. They understand that Jackie is checking on their behavior and will report back to Santa about whether they are naughty or nice.

I found the oldest several times throughout the day standing at the dinner table (as Jackie was positioned in a bowl on the dinner table for the time being) talking to Jackie. I heard her mentioning things that she wanted for Christmas and I heard her talking to Jackie as if she was a best friend. In some ways it was super cute to see that our daughter was taking it seriously that Jackie would take messages back to Santa. And in other ways sorta creepy that our daughter was talking to the elf doll so seriously. But either way our tradition is continuing in our home and we are excited that the holiday season is upon us yet again. We hope that Jackie will be bringing a few fun things again this year to do, as well as playing a few pranks on us.

Table all set out. 

Kiddo place setting. Jackie brought new kid plates. 

Snowman soup

Snowy donutes

Reindeer banana cakes. 

Close up of Jackie!

Peppermint elf pillows. These were Addison's favorites. 

Each girl had a letter from Jackie and Santa waiting for them. 

Girls exploring the table. 

Santa hats. 

Welcome back Jackie. 

Stay tuned to see updates about the adventures that Jackie will be having this year!

Love, J.