Catch Up on my Elf

Let's just say that life got a little hectic the last few weeks of December and mom hasn't had a chance to help me edit and upload photos :) So I can remember where he was, here are all the other places that Sly showed up until he went back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve!

He borrowed my hot chocolate mug (and made a mess in the process). He did it wrong, though, because he forgot to add the water!



He hung upside down on the Christmas Tree!



He borrowed mom's vacuum cleaner - he must have vacuumed after I went to sleep because it was plugged in and the family room had been vacuumed by the time I got up.



He watched over the nativity set.



He made some cookies with the mixer. He must have eaten them all, though, because he didn't leave any for me! How rude!



He made a Christmas tree for me out of my legos! He made a mess and left a few blocks out - I cleaned those up when I got up (I was careful to not touch him, don't worry!) He even left the tree for me when he left that night.



He played my guitar! I helped him a little by strumming the strings (again, being very careful not to touch him).



He played my favorite game...6 Nimmt!



This one was pretty cool - he left a note for me saying that there were only 3 more sleeps till Santa's visit!



I think Sly drank a bottle of wine this night :)



On his last night, he hid in the presents under the tree and left me a Merry Christmas note!



I had a very Merry Christmas and hope you all did, too! An update on that in a little bit...

Early Morning!

I was up pretty late last night, so mom figured she'd get to sleep in at least a little this morning. Not so much! I was WIDE awake at 5:30. She tried to get me to go back to sleep to no avail. We got up and had breakfast and she tried to get me to play quietly, but I was *really* cranky (gee, I wonder why).

I found Sly on a table playing with my Little Bits set! It's an engineering circuit set that daddy got me. I don't play with it every day, but I was pretty upset that Sly was playing with it today and I couldn't :( Dad said tomorrow we could play with all of the different circuits, though!



I'm getting a little less cautious about getting near the Elf - let's see how close I can get without actually touching him...



I ended up painting and making a card for Grammy (we'll send it as soon as we get stamps, I promise!) Coffee wasn't helping mom and she was really tired. After lunch, she tried to take a nap, but the doorbell rang, I woke her up, and she got a call for work, so that didn't work and she was pretty frustrated. We ended up just getting up and going shopping.

Mom and I had a fun dinner date and went to Macaroni Grill. She told me I could draw on the table and that was AWESOME! I even got a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert :) Mom had Blood Orange sorbet which was also quite yummy! We stopped at the book store on the walk back to the car and mom bought me two new books - Snowmen at Night and a Pete the Cat Christmas book. I've read them both at school, but thought they would be nice to have at home.

Note to other parents, though - don't take your kids into a book store right before Christmas when they sell Elf on the Shelf...I got quite upset at some adults picking up the Elf to look at it - I told them that it would lose it's magic!

Teacher Conferences

What a busy day today! Mom had to take a day off because my school closed at noon for our parent teacher conferences. She had PT this morning, so I went with her and then she dropped me off at school. Once again, I behaved *really* well at PT, and patients, therapists, and doctors all commented on how good I was. That made mom so proud! Mom's foot is finally starting to feel better. They started a lot of new strength training today and she was able to use some of the weight machines for the first time. She's been having trouble with one of her toes going numb, which worried her, but after talking to her doctor today sounds like it's unrelated to the surgery and not a huge deal (at the moment, at least). Her doctor said if it got worse that he'd see her any time and without an appointment, so that was nice.

She dropped me at school and went home to work for a few hours (she says that people who work in insurance don't ever really get any time off in December since January 1 is a very busy date for them). She picked me up a bit early and we went to Noodles and Company for lunch (my very favorite). Then we headed back to school for mom and dad's conference with my teacher.

I did extremely well in all of my assessments and scored the max amount of points in every area except one (pattern recognition). I've only really learned one type of pattern (A-B-A-B), so we'll work on others. Given that I'm in a pre-school class (for kids who are 3 at the start of the school year), the assessments aren't too surprising given that I turned 4 less than 3 weeks after the start of the school year and have had a lot more time to learn the things that we were being tested on. There's a HUGE difference developmentally between a young 3 year old and a young 4 year old.

Mom and dad are meeting with the director of education at my school next week to set up the plan for helping me get ready for Kindergarten next fall. There are unfortunately no spots in the Swing pre-school class for the spring (they follow the pre-school curriculum for the fall, but the Pre-K curriculum for the spring), but my teachers and the school will work with me to ensure that I'm ready (curriculum wise) for Kindergarten next year. We're pretty sure that there will be a spot in a private Kindergarten class at my current school in the fall (our first choice), but in case there isn't, we're going to explore what needs to be done for early entry evaluation into public Kindergarten (second choice, but we need to make sure we don't miss deadlines just to keep the option open).

At any rate, mom and dad are THRILLED with my current school. I don't think dad thought mom would ever be truly happy with one of my schools, but she really loves it (as do I).

We went home after the conference and mom let me watch the Tinkerbell movie while she got some more work done. Then we had to leave to take Razzy to the vet to get her rabies shot and physical exam. Mom put her crate next to my carseat, so I was able to comfort her while we drove to the vet. They took us right back and Raz got to get out of her crate and made herself at home on the table. The vet says she looks great, but is still pretty fat :) She's 15 lbs, which is pretty big for a cat. We're supposed to put her food out twice a day, let her eat, then take it up during the day and again at night. We'll see how that works - when she's out of food, she finds stuff to knock over, which can sometimes set the alarm off! But she needs to lose weight, so we'll have to give it a try and I'll have to try to make her exercise more (laser pointer, feathers, whatever toy she'll play with).

Oh yeah - I almost forgot! Sly moved from my stocking to mommy's stocking! I yelled at him when I saw him this morning and told him to leave mom's stocking alone!!!



Mom, dad, and I all got in the car and were going to go shopping tonight - we got about a mile away and mom looked at the clock and realized that she forgot that I had swimming tonight (in 20 minutes)!!! We turned around, rushed home, grabbed a swim suit and towel and mom and I rushed over to the pool. We made it about 5 minutes late, but that's not too bad. I did a great job today and spent a lot of time actually swimming by myself. One of the skills I have to pass to go to the next level is to hold my face underwater for 10 seconds - I made it to 7 seconds, but that's HARD! One more week of swimming for this session - we'll have to check the schedule to see if I go again next session. It's super convenient to my school now that the new location is open, so that really helps.

Good night all!

Ghost from Halloween

I had a rough night last night :( I was having dreams about the Ghost from Halloween (must have been in a book that I had in my bed). I was up crying several times and mom had a hard time calming me down. Mom was SO tired this morning. And of course she had to take me to school pretty early this morning so she could get to a meeting in Virginia.

Sly showed up in my stocking this morning!!! I was SO excited to find him! I told mom I thought he'd leave me something in my stocking.



We'll see where he is tomorrow! I'm pretty sure he's been telling Santa that I've been a good girl!

Quiet Time

I think Sly needed some quiet time. He grabbed a book and climbed (or flew) to the window above the front door!



One more full school day - Friday's a half day so mom and dad can have their teacher conferences. Later!!!

Hungry Elf

Sly must have wanted a midnight snack :)



I was worried that we couldn't use the fridge all day, but mom was able to open the doors without touching the elf, so we were good :)

We made latke's at school today! Though we made them with bananas, which mom can't figure out. She says they're not supposed to have bananas in them...We had fun mashing up bananas and potatoes, though, so I don't care if they weren't quite "right."

I was pretty tired and had a total meltdown at bedtime. I was sad because I hadn't had my vitamins (mom just hadn't given them to me yet), then I was sad because I was going to miss the elf at bedtime, then I was sad that it wasn't Christmas yet, then I was sad about 10 other totally random things. It was clearly a case of overtired child! Needless to say, we went upstairs, brushed teeth, cuddled in the dark for a few minutes and went right to bed.

Pardon the red, puffy eyes, but mom thought this was a funny pose :) G'night!

Happy Monday

It was back to school and work today...I did a good job listening and got ready pretty quickly this morning. I picked out my clothes last night, so that helped. I was still pretty tired and didn't want to take my Santa jammies off, but I was excited to get back to school to see my friends, so it didn't take as long as it does some mornings. 

Guess where I found Sly this morning??? He was on ANOTHER light! In the dining room this time :) Doesn't he look funny just hanging up there???

School was fun - we're talking about the holidays and I'm learning about a lot of holidays that people celebrate around the world. I was decorating a mitten with "holiday" colors when mom picked me up. Really, they were whatever colors we wanted :) I even got to glue some cotton balls to the bottom of the mitten. They're going to hang the mittens on display in the hallway at school - I can't wait to see it! 

We stopped for sushi on the way home - yum!!! I got my usual - avocado roll and vegetable roll. I ate ALMOST all of it, plus a piece of mom and dad's, plus half a bowl of miso soup. Such strange eating habits for a child, huh? I had a few pieces of avocado roll and vegetable roll left, so mom packed them for my lunch tomorrow. I like being able to take my lunch to school - it's a little more work, but I get some fun lunches :) 

Good night all! I'm rockin' my other Santa jammies. These aren't *quite* as cool as the others because they don't have Santa hats on the feet. But they'll do!

Funday, Sunday!

I was SO excited for today! We had a play date this morning with my friends, Casey and Cameron. They're sisters that I used to go to school with. The weather was *supposed* to be nice today, so we met at a playground. Needless to say, it was cold and foggy, so the whole playground was soaking wet. Thankfully I had picked out some fleece pants, so they did a good job soaking up the sogginess from the slides. But it got pretty cold. My gloves got soaked, so mom gave me hers (which were white). Hers also got wet and DIRTY, so she'll have to wash them!

Mom rode her bike and I did my yoga DVD again when we got home. I'm getting a lot better at some of the balancing poses. Dragon Breath is my favorite, though! Daddy went for a run while we were exercising. When he got home and we were all done, we all went shopping and bought all new dishes! It's been a long time coming and it was time to pull the trigger. Now to run them all through the dishwasher and switch stuff out of the cabinets. Lots of work, but well worth it.

Mom got me some new Christmas jammies the other day. How cool are the feet??? Santa's hat is separate from the rest of the jammies, so I kind of have to hold it up. I told mom these are my FAVORITE jammies ever!



Guess where Sly was this morning??? He was hiding on the kitchen light! I told mom he flew there and decided to sit and take a rest :)



I told mom I want him to be in kitty's stocking tomorrow, in my stocking the next day, in mom's stocking the day after, and in dad's stocking the day after (that's the order they're hung in on the mantle). We'll see where he decides to show up tomorrow!

Didgeridoo!

That's right, Sly tried to play daddy's didgeridoo! Dad got up with me this morning so mom could sleep in. When mom got up, she asked me if I had found the elf. I told her I had and that he was playing daddy's instrument that sounded like "dooooo dooooo." I couldn't remember what it was called! I told mom he was too small to actually play it, though - he'd fall the whole way through!!!