Christmas is coming....

Well I think I am ready for Christmas. I have had my Christmas shopping pretty much done since before we moved but I just picked up the last of the last minute "things" so we are ready to spend lots of time with family for the holidays. For FHE the other night we had a little lesson on the nativity and then we built our gingerbread house. It's a lot easier if you don't have to make the gingerbread, it's already pre-made with all the candies you need right in the package!

It took everything in me to stop the kids AND Jeff to not eat the candy before we were done. We ended up having quite a bit of leftover candy in the end but I just wanted to be sure we got the house nice and decorated before they ate all the candy.
The other day I was busy cleaning the house and the kids were being quiet...not fighting! Cody was busy playing with one thing and Jaden was busy doing another thing. When I finished in the room I was cleaning I found this taped to Jaden's bedroom door:
I love how she even drew the right number of fingers and toes! I didn't even have to tell her how to spell Cody's name or anything. She just did it on her own. She told me she has a secret password too so if Cody knocks on the door and says "BEST FRIENDS" then he is allowed to come in her room. Then she proceeded to be busy "at work" and a few minutes later there was a sign taped to Cody's bedroom door as well:

She voluntarily excluded herself from coming into Cody's room. And Cody uses that sign to his advantage. He always reminds Jaden about the sign and says "Dee Daden...no Daden allowed in my bedwoom."

So is it just my family or do you all have one of Santa's elves that is assigned to your family? Our family elf's name is Mortimer. Mortimer used to check up on me when I was a kid and he is assigned to check on our kids and my siblings kids. On Sunday we were at my mom's house for dinner and the phone rang. When my brother answered the phone he was surprised to hear Mortimer on the phone calling to check up on the kids. We had a long chat with Mortimer and found out all sorts of things about elves such as how old they are..."as old as the stars". Thank goodness for being able to block your phone number so it doesn't show up on caller ID, as well as a voice changer on my brother's phone. He sounded so cute!!! The kids had a blast talking to "Mortimer" and they have actually been pretty well behaved since then!!!