The Merry Month of December...

has been packed full of fun and has flown by for our family.  Here are some of the activites that kept us busy this month...

On December 5th, we went to our mailbox to find a box addressed to the O'Donnell Kids with a return address of S.C. at the North Pole.  When we opened it we found that Santa had sent one of his elves to live with us.  We named the little guy Dash and legend says that our little elf would return home to the North Pole each evening to report to Santa on Emory and Ellie's behavior for that day.  As long as no one touched him during the day, he would return to our house before the next morning and pick a new hiding spot to spend the day and watch the children.  We had lots of fun looking for Dash each morning.  He's a very creative little guy and found some fun places to hide in our house!

 

On Christmas Eve, Dash left with Santa on his sleigh after our presents were delivered. We will miss Dash and hope that he will return next December to stay with us again for a while.

Owen and Piper got into the Christmas spirit too with t-shirts of their own.  Piper's red shirt said "Santa's Little Helper" on the back and Owen's said "HO, HO, HO."  They were just too cute!

Each year we alternate which child gets to put the star on the top of the tree since that is such an honor.  This was Emory's year and he was so excited.  He giggled a lot while trying to stand on Dan's shoulder to get it up to the tippy top of the tree.

The night of the annual tree lighting in our neighborhood turned out to be one of our first colder nights.  It was perfect for horse drawn carriage rides through the neighborhood, warm hot chocolate and cookies and of course the lighting of the Palencia Christmas tree.  Here are Emory and Ellie in front of the big tree with their friend Sydney Solms.

 

Each year in December, Ellie's teacher, Mrs. Ledford, takes her group of first graders to a local nursing home to sing carols for the residents.  The class had fun making cute reindeer tshirts using thier foot and hand prints to wear for their performance.  They practiced six songs for a couple of weeks and put on quite the show.  It was so cute and enjoyed by all -- students and residents alike.

The weekend of December 12th and 13th , Emory played in his first 3v3 soccer tournament.  It had been  beautiful all week , but by the time that Saturday morning arrived a cold front came through with lots of wind and rain.  Emory's team, named the Kickers (wonder where they came up with that name!), was able to get in three games before the tournament had to be ended early due to weather.  It was a cold, wet day but Emory said that he loved it none the less.  We all really enjoyed how fast this type of game goes and all of the scoring opportunities compared to a regular game of soccer with a goalie.

As the last week of school for the year finally arrived, it was time for all sorts of fun in Ellie's class.  First it was a cookie swap (yummy!), followed by an afternoon making gingerbread houses and finally the last day of school was all about Reindeer Games.  I was so glad that I was able to rearrange my schedule and be at school with Ellie to share each of these fun events with her.

Isn't this just too cute... a house, a tree, a marshmallow snowman and even coconut snow.

 

On December 15th, Ellie had her Induction Ceremony into Girl Scouts.  Based on her being in 1st grade, she is a Brownie at this time.  Here she is with her Brownie Leader, Mrs. Theresa, repeating her Girl Scout oath. 

Ellie has a great Brownie troop with about five friends that she already knew.  Through Brownies she has also met six great new girls her age and participated in lots of fun and educational activities already this school year.

With Christmas fast approaching, we had to hurry on out to visit Santa and pass along the Wish Lists before it was too late to get them to him.  The kids were both so excited to share what they wanted with Santa and listened intently as the other took their turn.

 

It was especially interesting to Dan and I that after listening intently to both Emory and Ellie, Santa asked them it they had been really good this year.  They both smiled and said yes with great enthusiasm but Santa suggested that maybe there was still a little room for improvement.  Could Dash have been talking to Santa each night after all ???

Emory's Christmas Party brought lots of fun games this year.  There was a package wrapping relay (who knew so many 4th graders had no clue how to wrap a present?!),  a package passing game, a snowball spoon race which can be seen above and a few rounds of the freeze dance which Emory and his friend Alex are doing in the picture below.  The kids really enjoyed the games and they were fun to watch for the parents!

The last day of school before Christmas break is always a school wide pajama and movie day.  For Ellie, it was also her Reindeer Games day too.  Her class participated in 5 different reindeer craft centers that the class rotated through.

Dan helped with the stuffing of some of the cutest reindeer that I have ever seen.  Here's the whole group of them together at the end of the party.

Fun activities like these make me wish that I could be back in first grade again!

Merry Christmas, Mill Creek Elementary.  We'll see you again next year!

It's time for the fun of Christmas break at home!

On December 22nd, Ga arrived at our house after a very, very long 11 hour drive from Richmond.  She was tired but we still convinced her to take part in our sugar cookie decorating.

Mmm, sprinkles!

Thanks for helping, Ga.

Ready for the oven!

We hope that Santa will like them!

(See the "gator" cookie?  It's Emory's favorite one that he  made.)

On December 23rd, we all went to visit Winter Wonderland at the St. Augustine Ampitheatre.  Believe it or not, even in Florida we can have outdoor ice skating with real ice, an ice sliding hill, an elf village and a large fire pit where you could make your own yummy smores.  Mmmm.

Fun at the Elf Village where it snowed (miniature bubbles, that is) when we arrived.

Slipping down the Ice Slide.  Probably not as fun as sledding in the snow, but a fun experience for Florida!

We saved the best for last that evening.  Nothing is better than warm smores on a cold winter evening.

It's finally....CHRISTMAS EVE!!!!!!!!!

The kids woke up excited and it only increased as the day went along.  Our friends the Stalvey family (Brian, Maiko, Brianna and Ashton) came over to have dinner with us.  We met the Stalvey's about ten years ago when we were all four taking our childbirth class at St. Luke's Hospital before Emory and Brianna were born.  It's been fun watching Emory and Brianna grow up as friends, even though we don't see them anymore as much as we would like to.

Before dinner all the kids went straight to the hot tub.  It was chilly but the water was sooo warm.

After opening our new Christmas pjs from Ga as we do each Christmas Eve, we had to drive down the street to our neighbor George's house for one final check on his Christmas coundown clock.  It's kind of hard to tell with the flash on the camera, but it says only 2 hours, 42 minutes and 56 seconds left to go.  Better hurry off to bed before Santa show up!

Just before bed, we got out our Santa plate that I painted for Emory before his first Christmas. Emory and Ellie each chose one of their favorite sugar cookies, a cup of milk and baby carrots for the reindeer. 

Next we headed outside to sprinkle the magic reindeer food that Mrs. Ledford had prepared.  Ellie also added 9 baby carrots this year - one for each of Santa's reindeer and Rudolph.

Finally, all of our preparations for Santa were ready.  We snuggled on the couch for a reading of the Night Before Christmas and then the kids were off to bed. 

Was that a Ho, Ho, Ho that I just heard???

Thanksgiving Trip to Richmond

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we kept the kids home from school and settled into the car for our drive to Richmond to share Thanksgiving with our family.  The kids were so excited to see everyone again and to get to play in the piles of Fall leaves on the ground that we just don't get here in Florida.  As beautiful as the leaves are, it's still really hard to leave our sunny weather with temperature in the low 80s!  Emory and Ellie just didn't understand why they couldn't wear shorts as we headed north since it was so warm here when we left.

Our last few trips have gone really smoothly  but this was our first trip with both Piper and Owen.  The puppies haven't spent much time in the car but finally settled in for the ride and went to sleep after taking their medicine from the vet.  Ellie decided to take a nap too after we were stuck in a long back up due to road work and ending up spending over 10 hours in the car.

Our late arrival made us miss the dinner that we had planned with Kenny, Leigh-Emma and Jack but Kenny took the next day off so that we could spend some time with Jack.  It was so much fun now that he can talk a little and really play.  The kids had fun reading books with him and playing outside with balls and toys.  Owen and Piper enjoyed checking out someone a little more their size too!

We had beautiful weather on Thanksgiving day  as we headed over to Tammy and Dante's to spend time with everyone.  We took Piper and Owen this year and they had the best time playing outside with the other dogs. 

Gee and Pa brought Thanksgiving presents for the kids and Ellie especially enjoyed reading books to Gee.

Emory and Ellie couldn't wait to get onto Uncle Dante's tractor again and had so much fun driving around and around the house.

Thanksgiving dinner was incredible as usual thanks to Chef Dante.  The dining room was beautiful too.  Here's Ellie posing with the Ledford Lion that she brought home in the Travel Backpack from school.  Ellie wrote journal entries about all of her adventures with the Ledford Lion during her trip to Richmond.

We had one last visit with Kenny, Leigh-Emma and Jack before heading back to Richmond.  Look at all of those cute kids!

After our fun visit to Richmond, it was once again time to load back into the car and head south.

Thanksgiving at School...

November was a fun month with lots of activities at school.  Ellie's class had a Thanksgiving Feast for all of the children and their parents.  It was extra special for the kids because they set up a restaurant on the stage of the multipurpose room and had the feast catered from Cracker Barrell.  The children all made the cutest tshirts and displayed some of their Thanksgiving writings.  We all enjoyed the Feast!

Emory's class acted out a few short skits in the classroom to celebrate Thanksgiving and then enjoyed turkey subs.  Mmmm!  Sorry that I forgot to bring the camera that morning!

Emory's First Visit to the Swamp

On Saturday, Emory made his first visit to The Swamp to see a University of Florida football game.  It was a perfect day to go see the No. 1 team in the nation play football and also his last chance to see Tim Tebow while in college. Tebow attended Nease High School which is just a few miles from our house and is the high school that Emory will attend one day.   Emory has decided that he really likes UF and that for now it's his college of choice.  He's still young though so maybe there's still a little chance that he'll decide to become a Hokie!  :o)

Emory went to the game with his friend Duncan and his dad, Mark.  Emory and Duncan have been in the same class for the last three years, are neighbors and Duncan's dad coached their flag football team last winter.

We're hoping that Tim Tebow and the Gators hang on and become National Champs again!  GO GATORS!

Report Cards

Emory and Ellie brought home their report cards for the first quarter last week and they each did great!  Emory made straight As again and Ellie made all Ms and Ps, which are the equivalent to As for first graders.  We are so proud of each of them!  Keep up the good work, Emory and Ellie!!!

Emory's teacher, Mrs. Tipton, was also just named Mill Creek's Teacher of the Year.  Congratulations to Mrs. Tipton!!!  She has been Emory's teacher for second, third and now fourth grade.  Emory really loves being in her class and it has been so much fun to watch this group of kids grow up together for the past two and a half years.

Happy Veteran's Day

We wanted to wish Pa and Uncle David a very happy Veteran's Day!  At school on Tuesday, Emory and Ellie attended an assembly honoring Veterans and you were both thought of and talked about a lot.  Emory said that he wished that you could have both been here to go up on the stage with the other Veterans in the audience.

Today the kids had the day off from school and were sweet enough to get up and let Dan and I sleep in a little bit.  When I did get up, I found them sitting at Ellie's art table drawing together ( a sweet and rare occurrence!).  The cutest part was that they were singing the Star Spangled Banner together.  While it comes over the morning announcements each day at school, they've actually been practicing it for the last week or so for the Veteran's Day Assembly.  They got most of the words right in the beginning but then started to make up a few as they went along and finally just looked at each other and agreed to give up.  It was so cute though.  I wish that I had had the camcorder handy to tape it. 

Happy Veteran's Day to all of our Veterans. 

We really appreciate all that you have done for our country!!!!!!!!!

Halloween Fun!

October was a month full of lots and lots of fun...

Ellie had a great time at the Bat Bonanza in Mrs. Ledford's 1st grade class. They learned all about bats, did bat crafts and even had a party with food shaped like bats!

The Fall Festival at Mill Creek Elementary came next and it was so much fun!  There were inflatable slides, bouncy houses, a petting zoo and lots of carnival games.  Ellie couldn't resist getting her face painted as a cute little puppy.  Emory was too busy running around to the rock climbing wall and bouncy houses to stop for a picture.

We made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch in Mandarin with the Stalvey girls.  Dan and I met the Stalvey's in our childbirth class before Emory and Brianna were born.  Each year Maiko and I have met at the Patch and taken them, and now their sisters too, for pictures together dressed in costume with all of the pumpkins.  It's so fun to see them grow up together-- but how I wish that they would just slow down a little bit!

Emory and Ellie each picked great costumes this year.  Ellie chose to be an artist and together we made her costume.  We loved splattering all of the paint on her smock, making her pallette and candy bucket and finding a cute beret for her to wear.  Emory is really into reading all of the Harry Potter novels (he's on number 5 right now) so he was the cutest Harry Potter around.

To our surprise, Ellie and Emory were both able to fit into the Pumpkin Carriage again this year.  It's always been a favorite and makes a really cute picture but each year I think that this will be the last time that they can fit through the very little door.

They could  even still squeeze into together... but it was a tight fit!  Will they make it next Halloween???

The night before Halloween is always pumpkin carving night at our house.  It's just too hot to do it any earlier here in Florida.  The pumpkins will rot -- yuck!  Ellie chose a bat for her pumpkin since she has learned so much about bats from Mrs. Ledford and now knows how cool they really are.  Here she is poking the holes for the bat pattern into her pumpkin so that we can carve it.

Here's Emory doing the dirty work of getting the seeds and all of that other stuff out of the inside of the pumpkin.  For the first year ever, Emory and Ellie cleaned their pumpkins all by themselves.  It makes the pumpkin carving much more enjoyable for Mom and Dad  :o)

While the kids were cleaning pumpkins, I couldn't resist dressing Piper up in her hula skirt and lei for a couple of cute pictures.  She's such a sweet and patient puppy!

Next it was Owen's turn.  The pirate hat that we had for him was a little too large and kept falling off of his head, but he fit just right inside of Emory's pumpkin once it was all cleaned out!  Look at that cute little tongue sticking out!

Owen was such a good sport.  He let me take lots and lots of pictures.

Aren't these three just too cute???

Here's Ellie's pumpkin.  She named her bat StellaLuna after the children's book by the same name.  Doesn't StellaLuna look cute hanging upside down from her branch?

Emory designed his own scary pumpkin this year rather than using a template.  Daddy helped him carve it after Emory drew the design on the pumpkin.  Look at all of those teeth!

After watching the GA-FL football game (Go Gators! - now that the cHokies are falling apart all we've got left is to cheer for Tebow) it was finally time to head out for some trick or treating.  Ellie made a cute paint bucket to collect her candy in but Emory wanted a pillow case so he could get LOTS of candy.  He quickly figured out how heavy lots of candy could be when you're trying to run with it and dumped some of it into the bag on the golf cart.

What a scary group!  Emory and Ellie had friends over for dinner before trick or treating and here they are all decked out in full costume and ready to head out the door.  Thanks to Ga for staying at our house and passing out our candy to all of the little kids in the neighborhood.  It allowed Dan and I to go out on the golf cart with all of our friends and watch the kids trick or treat.

Notice anything different about this guy?  He went into full Harry Potter attire with the black hair and all.  What a mess that spray on hair color is to apply but it looked great.  All night long I had trouble finding him running around because I didn't recognize the black hair!

Ellie was too cute and this really was the perfect costume for her!  She loves art and is always drawing something for us.  It was lots of fun to make the costume together with her too.  Ellie has lots of great ideas and is very creative.

The kids all took off at a full sprint from house to house for at least 20 houses.  Even with the golf cart it was a little tough to keep up with them because their group got so spread out.  The girls definitely took the lead this year and left the boys to trail behind.  It was a warm night here in Florida and the kids were definitely feeling -- and looking -- it!

The jack-o-lanterns looked great on the front porch and Ga said that they received lots of compliments through out the night from the trick or treaters.

When we finally got home a couple of hours later, Ellie couldn't wait to count her candy.  I'm almost embarrassed to put the final count in print -- 125 pieces of chocolate and 125 pieces of other types of candy.  Emory brought home the same amount.   We'll definitely be taking this to school to share!

Many thanks to Ga for making the long drive to St. Augustine to spend Halloween with us again this year.  It's been about three or fours year since she's done that with us and it was lots of fun.  We hope that she'll make it an annual visit and stay longer next year!  We love you Ga!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  xoxoxo