Santa's Helper

I want to make sure and jot down a sweet Christmas exercise at Palmer's school.  The magic of Christmas was exhibited in full force every day for several weeks and the whole experience made the season extra special.

Upon returning from Thanksgiving break, Palmer announced that an elf on the shelf had arrived in his classroom.  Since we don't do elf on the shelf at home and Palmer hadn't had an elf in his classroom in previous years, he was super excited to finally experience a magical elf.  Palmer assured me that he was extra good in the classroom since the elf, "Pines Christopher Jeffrey," was watching.

A few days later, Palmer came home and broke the news that he may not be around much because "Santa needed his help."  Palmer wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but Palmer was willing to go to the North Pole or wherever Santa needed him.

Palmer learned that the North Pole was short on elves and all of the second graders were going to apply for the position.  Over the next few weeks, the kids put together resumes, wrote essays, application cover letters, and prepared for an interview with reps from the North Pole HR team.

The kids got all dressed in their best elf gear for the big interview and were so excited to have a chance at the job (although one of Palmer's friends was stressed because he would rather go to Mexico with his family instead of the North Pole on Christmas Eve.)

In the end, the kids were all designated "Very Special Elves" and given stickers to spread to people at Christmas time who seemed sad and needed a little extra Christmas cheer.  We were a little relieved to learn that Palmer would stay with us this Christmas, too.

-Bethany

November Recap

Although I mentioned, I am going to move this blog to a new space (@thejordanjourneys on Instagram) at the end of the year, I'm not fully abandoning ship just yet.

Allow me a moment to stop and relive our family memories from November...

Palmer wrapped up his first season on the DAC golf team.  We learned a lot from the experience and enjoyed the weekend tournaments.  I think Palmer is going to spend the spring semester doing some clinics and inter-club play to continue to refine his young game.  I enjoyed caddying for Palmer while Rick was out of town one weekend.  Palmer said I had very good advice and was a fantastic caddy, so I was pretty stoked about the experience.

Meanwhile Grace gave her all on a "pedal bike."  She is in that gray area between scooting around easily on her balance bike, but not quite tall enough for her new bike.  We'll keep working on it.

And Grace finally got her turn at a father-daughter campout.  A group of dads and girls roughed it despite a complete downpour for a few hours, they had some fun and soggy camping time.  Also, one of the dads is a legit chef and cooked a pretty amazing campfire meal after the girls went to bed.

The next few weeks were dominated by a few major local home tours.  Our house project was selected as an interesting participant for a Dallas-area architecture tour and also a neighborhood tour that benefitted local public schools in the hood.  We estimate that about 4500 people came thru the house over two weekends and we spent much of the fall in preparation for these tours.  A few snaps from the weekend...

 

And of course, the Lakewood Home Tour weekend wouldn't be complete without its thematic auction party.  Rick was out of town for that night, so I went solo as Anna Wintour for the New York theme.

Right after the last tour, we relished in the joy of making a mess in the kitchen once again:

Did I mention I am a new cub scout den leader?  Oh yes.  Three of us moms have decided to tackle the (quite large) task this year.  We've been working on our many badges and enjoyed a guest speaker,  the school's priest, and also a field trip to a Hare Krishna temple to learn about religious tolerance.  Grace and another little sibling are the den's mascots, complete with blue and gold matching cub scout bows.

Pretty quickly into the month, we jumped directly into Thanksgiving preps.  Rick and I decided to maximize the week off from Palmer's school and go to Rosemary Beach for the week of Thanksgiving.  By doing so, we missed Grace's Thanksgiving feast, so I got to sneak in on the dress rehearsal during the week before Thanksgiving.

 

Thanksgiving at the nursing home with GG:

We stopped by the lake for one of our last hurrahs (with the Stoltz family) on the way to the beach.  Side note: we've made the family decision to sell the lake house.  After giving it our best all, the family has decided to move on to new memories elsewhere. 

As mentioned, we went to Rosemary Beach for the week of Thanksgiving.  

 

On the way to Florida, we stopped in Mobile at the USS Alabama to explore the old naval ship.  The kids had a ball pretending all sorts of scenarios as we toured the upper and lower decks.

 

Once in Florida, it was such a refresher and good family time at the ocean.  Temps ranged from 50s to 70s and when the sun was out, the kids were happy to get in the pools and ocean.

 

Meanwhile, we were happy to sit and enjoy the sun

Nana joined us for a couple days, including Thanksgiving Day.  We enjoyed having her there and she endlessly read books to Grace.

We hit up the 5k and 1 mile fun run on Thanksgiving morning.  We were so proud to see Grace and Palmer both run the entire mile without flinching.  Everyone did so well.

Pre-dinner Thanksgiving photo shoot.

We went to the Pearl Hotel for dinner and loved not cooking this year.

 

Capping off the trip the same way as everyone else in town...

Moving onward to December!

-Bethany