Let It Snow

It's been snowing like crazy here and it is COLD!  I mean single digits or less kind of cold.  I'm freezing, but Austen is in heaven!  He's been playing outside and building snow forts for days now.

He loves to shovel the driveway!

What? Doesn't everyone roast marshmallows in a snow storm?

I've been staying inside playing peek a boo with this guy.

What Sam's Been Up To

So, I started the Elf tradition, but the only problem is I don't always manage to stay up late enough to MOVE the stupid thing.  (Yes, I've just publicly admitted I go to sleep at the same time my four year old does.)  When I do stay up past 9 pm I seem to forget about poor little Sam.  Anyway, he is still in a new place every morning without fail.  I'm beginning to think he might just be magic after all.  Either that, or my husband is just the most amazing person on the planet.

The other morning Austen woke up to this...

 A special note from Sam with Christmas jammies under the tree.

Sam even got crazy one night and made a snow angel out of sugar.

Thankfully my husband is a better parent than I am or my son would be very disappointed most mornings.  (I guess this is why people are against the elf....it is WORK people!)

Meet Sam

I caved this year and started doing the Elf On The Shelf.  I always thought it was annoying, but then I read the book that he comes with and changed my mind.  It's actually a really fun tradition and so far Austen LOVES it.  He even picked the name Sam for our elf.

(If you don't know what this is, you've probably been living under a rock or you just don't have kids.  It's an elf you adopt and it comes with a cute back story.  He is a scout elf sent from Santa to help Santa keep track of who's been naughty or nice.  Every night the elf flies back to the North Pole to report the days happenings and then he comes back to your house and is usually in a different spot than the day before.)

Austen races out of bed in the mornings to see where the elf is.

One morning he was playing a game with Woody.

Playing with Austen's prized bouncy ball collection.

Swinging on the fan.

Decorating our mini tree.

Christmas Pictures Or Cuteness Overload

I'm dying over the cuteness of these pictures!  I took them myself too, with an awesome lens that I just got as an early Christmas present.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

We've been decorating our house for Christmas.  Brian is in charge of the outside, so he and Austen started putting up lights a couple of weeks ago to avoid the cold.

Archer loved watching.

He also loved playing in the Christmas lights.

Austen couldn't wait to put up the star (even though ours isn't technically a star).

This little guy couldn't handle all the excitement and fell asleep right in the middle of the floor.

Our finished tree!

Austen is really excited for Christmas this year!

Remembering Fall

Well, it was fun while it lasted, but now it's time to move on.  It snowed and snowed and snowed yesterday and now it's a frigid 10 degrees outside.  Archer and I froze just walking into the grocery store today.  I figured it was time to get up the last of our fall pictures on the blog.

Austen made a huge leaf pile in our front yard that took him all day.  He loved it and was super proud of it, but our neighbor got a little over zealous with the leaf blower and blew the leaf pile away.  Austen was so upset!  He came running in the house saying "Mom, I have terrible news.....just terrible.  Ron (the neighbor) blew away my leaf pile.  Why would he do that?"  Then he asked me how to spell Ron so I told him.  Next thing I know he comes and asks me for a wooden dowel that will stick in our grass.  When I asked him why he wanted that, he showed me a sign he had made that said Ron with a big circle/line over it.  Then he said "so I can put this no Rons allowed sign up."  I thought it was just about the funniest thing ever and even kept the sign for his keepsake box.

Here he is in his leaf pile.

Archer watching.

Then Austen had to pull out the big guns (his words not mine) for the back yard.

And on a completely unrelated note.....Austen woke up last night really sad and wanted me to come in and snuggle him back to sleep.  While I was in there, the baby woke up crying, so I told Austen to stay there and I'd be right back.  I went in to feed Archer and get him back to sleep.  Apparently it was taking too long for Austen and he called out and said "Mom, you said you'd come back."  I couldn't answer or Archer would wake up again, so I said nothing.  He then yells out (while crying) "I trusted you."  Brian and I were laughing so hard.  He's so dramatic and says the funniest stuff!

More Zoo

Some of the pictures from the zoo didn't load in the last post, so this is just an addendum to the last post.

The polar bear had just had surgery, so she was in a special enclosure AND they were feeding her a treat while we were there.  It was so cool, we even got to see her stand on her hind legs and she was HUGE!

I just love this pic!

He loves to get in the eagle's nest.

The seals might have been Austen's favorite.  They were really active and playing with toys and barking.  He kept saying he wished he could swim like that.