December to Remember

Here is our Christmas card.

We had 3 different shoots to get it done.

I think it was worth it.

The day after Thanksgiving, we (all 5 of us) woke up sick. Flu sick.

We were a NyQuil commercial.

We were sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, suffy headed and fevered.

We were miserable.

By Sunday, we were feeling a little bit better but not enough to go to church. We decided to get out some crafts to pass the time and to get our halls decked for Christmas.

I found these simple, cute craft kits at Target and they were perfect for Chloe and Beckham. We made garland and ornaments for the kid's tree and door hangers for their bedrooms.

It is so fun watching how different they are when they get creative.

Chloe is messy but efficient.

Beckham is tidy and slow.

It was a fun afternoon.

I think that Mr. Poort has a little bit of OCD.

Everything has to be categorized and in its place in every aspect of life.

Miss Chloe would do crafts all day every day if she could.

She loves to create.

Miss Ava's new trick:

No, not eating off of the floor (she has been doing that for a while now)...

She is now a stander!

See...he had to put everything in a row before he could even think about starting to create anything...

The benefit of having a backyard with mature trees is the leaves that fall to the ground. Chloe spent hours and hours raking leaves into piles this Autumn. Because of all of the wind, her piles would get destroyed daily and so everyday she would grab the rake and start making piles again.

(I should say that the wind AND Beckham were the destroyers of those piles.)

While we were at my parent's house one day, I left the room for a few minutes and came back to this.

Hmmm...I wonder who gave her that.

Busted.

She almost finished the whole thing by herself.

You can tell that she is child #3.

I would have probably freaked out if Chloe had sugar at this age.

(not to mention...eating food off of the floor??? Gasp.)

The kids (and I) were SO EXCITED to decorate the house for Christmas.

We decorated the tree together (with a little adjustment by me so that the tree wasn't bottom heavy)...

We cranked the Christmas music up and drank hot chocolate.

Beckham's favorite Christmas song this year? "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"

Chloe's? "Santa Claus is Comin' To Town"

Jasper, our Elf on the Shelf, made his appearance on December 1st. Chloe was so cute with him. Every day (and I mean EVERY day), Chloe would talk to him, leave him notes/lists and even made him a green hat. She was so happy to find him wearing her hat everyday of his stay.

The kid's threatened each other all month with telling Jasper about the other's bad behavior.

It worked...which meant that I didn't have to do much reminding.

Genius invention.

Miss Ava in her "Baby's 1st Christmas hat." She wouldn't keep it on so I had to distract her with food.

Beckham turns everything into a vehicle of some sort. Here, he is using a snowflake ornament to drive his motorcycle.

I love boys.

Me and Jonny P at his company party.

I love this boy the most.