That Darned Elf!

He's baaaaaack!
Some of you may have heard about the "Elf on a Shelf" phenomenom.
You buy this creepy little elf who tattles to Santa, sharing all the juicy details of your naughtiness.

That's when we found Christopher Pop-In-Kins. Same idea, but much more cute and less Big Brothery (and also not found in stores by the checkout where your kids can wonder why there are so many of them.)
He comes to our house the weekend after Thanksgiving and stays until Christmas Eve, where he presumably returns to the North Pole to help Santa with Christmas.
Anywho- our elf, Christopher, has now visited three years in a row.
Luckily for me, we have moved three years in a row, so we always have a new house with new hiding places.

This year, we thought it'd be fun to take it up a notch and have Christopher play a few pranks on the kids too. Not everyday, as I am much too lazy, but once and awhile.
So far, it's been fun for all.
The kids enjoy searching for him in the morning and we always love the giggles it brings (unless it's earlier than 6:30 a.m...then we don't love it so much).

I thought it'd be fun to document a few places our leeettle friend likes to hide!
Even when the magic of Christopher wears off, there will still be years of fun thinking of new pranks to play on each other.
This is one of my favorite new traditions.

And this is the evidence of Christopher in 2011.
He thought it would be funny hanging their undies on the tree (yes, they were clean).


Christopher has made some new friends here and they have been playing some riveting games of Uno!


I think this is the first time I have ever been toilet papered.


He even turned the milk green.


We also learned that Christopher enjoys goldfish...


...and apparently so does Little E.
(good thing that the girls were at school because they would've flipped if they saw that Eric managed to not only touch Christopher, but eat his goldfish!


We have a few nights left, so I am thinking of a few extra pranks Christopher may pull on us. One night will involve markers (of the washable variety and one night may include some twinkle lights!) So exciting!

Mr and Mrs 10 Years!

10 years.
3 kids.
8 houses.
7 cars.
100s of datenights.
15,987 hugs.
Undisclosed amount of kisses.
Bouquets of flowers.
A couple pant sizes.
A few tears.
Lots of laughter (the snorting kind).
Quite a few headaches.
Limitless love.
No regrets.

One lucky girl.
One in a million boy.
One Happy 10 Year Anniversary to my never-a-dull-moment honey!

Just for fun- this is what 10 years of mostly wedded bliss does to you!

Nope...she's still here.

I suppose you could call me the world's best procrastinator, later anyway.
I have typed so many drafts to update our lives this past year, but could never make the time to finish, or post.
The funny thing now is I have about eleven billionty things to do today (none of which were sitting here), so I thought it would be a perfect time to update-
And make paper snowflakes,
and watch Wall-E,
and do anything BUT my laundry.

First things first...we finally moved back home, also known as Columbus.
T's work schedule was just so wonky and the yearly relocations were starting to wear on us.
So T changed his position with work, and we moved ourselves back home.

And I can say with certainty, that living so close to our families (and the built-in babysitters I called sisters) has been so so awesome.

We spent the summer catching up with some of our dearest Florida friends (FL is my second home). And enjoying a lazy summer while settling back into our new (25 year old) house.










And we've spent the fall also catching up with more Florida friends...and enjoying the fall weather.









Someone also turned two!
Yes, my sweet little bundle of 8 pound joy is now a full fledged "really-heavy-to-carry-in-one-hand" path of destruction.
And I both love it! (mostly)


And of course- my Halloweenies! For those not in the know- my kids love creating their costumes.
Of course the girls can not fathom being a simple princess.
Oh no! We have a toucan, a "fancy dalmation" and my fav, the UPS guy.




So, in a really small nutshell and for as long as I can bare to sit still in one place to update- we are still here.