Miller Time: December!

It's December!!! So excited for this month. I absolutely love Christmas - Christmas movies, Christmas songs, Christmas decorations...everything except the cold weather! It can definitely be a stressful time of year (especially this year, it came SO fast), but I am trying my best not to get overwhelmed. I started shopping earlier than I ever have before, have the kids Christmas outfits ordered, and our Christmas cards are ordered as well. We got our tree yesterday and will hopefully have it decorated by the weekend. I have lots of project ideas for Ellison, and we have some fun Christmas things lined up to do!

At the Christmas tree farm...it was COLD!

Once Ellison saw the horses, she was done looking for a tree...she is OBSESSED!

Here it is...hopefully get the decorations up this weekend!

The kids and I (plus Gramma, Papa, and Auntie Kon) went on the Jingle Bus the weekend that Jay was up north hunting. Ellison is very interested in buses, so she was pretty excited! It was a nice little ride around downtown to see the lights, and while we waited to board we got to watch the bear orchestra at Grand Avenue, which is pretty cute.

This week was also the debut of our Elf on a Shelf, which we decided Ellison is old enough to do this year! We are going to do it a little differently than the "traditional" way, but that's a story for another post. The elf arrived on December 1st in a box from the North Pole, and Ellison named him Norman (her favorite name right now). Let's just hope we remember to move him every night! (already came close to forgetting, and it's only been one night...good thing Kellen was up at 3:30 am and I got it done...

With all the Christmas stuff in full swing, I don't want to forget to mention Thanksgiving! We drove up to Mom & Dad Miller's after the Wednesday night Thanksgiving service, so the kids were up pretty late. But both made it through the day with fairly minimal drama. E didn't really do the greatest job of eating, but Kellen really packed the food in on his first Thanksgiving! Sweet potatoes were the clear favorite for him. Ellison was so excited to play with her cousins, and Kellen was absolutely mesmerized by baby Landon - it was so cute how he looked at him! I think those two are going to be great buddies when they're a little bigger. They are only 7 months apart in age!

Helping Daddy make green bean casserole

There's debate over whether these two (Ellison & Isabella) look alike - I think they could be twins!

Planning their own Thanksgiving?

Couldn't get a good picture of her in the turkey hat she made

Coloring Thanksgiving pictures

Cousin love

Watching him get under this table - and try to get back out - was one of the highlights of the day!

Best one we had on our camera - Olivia was NOT interested in being photographed so only 6 out of 7 kids!

Kellen (almost 9 months), Ethan (4), Ellison (2), Isabella (4 - on Thanksgiving!), Logan (7), Landon (7 weeks) - not pictured is Miss Olivia who will be 2 this week!

Ellison did lots of "turkey projects" in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. I find so many good ideas for crafts and activities online, and I get a little crazy because I can't find the time to do them all. But I'm happy that we managed to do some! Sometimes I wonder what people did before the Internet, and other times I think life would be so much easier if there wasn't so many awesome ideas so readily accessible.

Now that the weather is cold, we are on the lookout for fun indoor activities so we don't get too stir crazy! We've started making a weekly trip to the library, and last week we went to Kids in Motion, which is one of Ellison's favorite places. Anyone with fun ideas looking for a play date, let me know!