Ollie on Dec 3

Ollie was harder to find today. Kendall will come up to me and ask, "Ollie watching me?"

My swimmer

Jenna is on the high school swim team. She had her first meet on Tuesday. She has the most beautiful freestyle stroke. I could watch her swim all day (and she would probably love to swim all day too; she thinks her 1 1/2 hour practices aren't long enough!)

Tuesday she swam 1 Junior Varsity (JV) event and 2 Varsity (V) events. She took first in the 200 yd freestyle (JV) and held her own in the 500 yd freestyle (V) event. If she would have swam the 500 yd freestyle as JV, she would have placed first.

Way to go Jenna! She has another meet tonight! 1 JV event (500 free) and 3 Varsity events!

Advent Activity #2 - make gourmet hot chocolate -mix

Advent Activity #2 - Make gourmet homemade hot chocolate

(from my brother-in-law B. L. - printed in our Family Cookbook)

Gourmet Hot Chocolate
1 lb of high quality chocolate (Ghirardelli) - I picked up Andes Mints and Hershey's Cookies and Cream candy bars ... for variety
1 c brown sugar
1 c cocoa

Prepare ahead of time and store. Use a food processor and grind up chocolate. Add cocoa and brown sugar. Put into a container - it will last for months. Heat milk in microwave or stove top until nearly boiling. Add 1/4 cup of chocolate mixture to each 1 c serving of hot milk. Blend using a hand blender until frothy. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream.

Update: We just made this. It is YUMMY! My favorite was the mixture of the cookies and cream candy bar by Hershey's combined with the Ghirardelli White Vanilla chocolate. My kids loved the mint. This is a fun mix to keep around!

Ollie - Dec 2

I spy Ollie ... our Elf.

Kerst has eagle eyes. He was the first on to spot Ollie again.

Our Elf

Our Elf is a Mark Roberts Elf. Candymaker Elf. I wanted something not too frightening (like some I have seen). Something that looked friendly, yet a little mischevious.

Ollie

We named our elf. Jaley and I said the name at the same time.

Ollie.

Short for Oliver.

When we were trying to decide on names for Kendall, Jaley insisted on Ollie.

Our elf observes. Kerst likes to talk to him. Ollie disappears at night and appears in the morning - somewhere in the house. We were warned that there might be a little mischief going on at times as well. Finding Ollie will be a daily event ...

Kerst spotted Ollie this morning.

Advent Activity #1 - meet our Elf!

Advent Activity #1 - "Meet our Elf."

A new tradition I'm excited to start this year! Our own elf has arrived via a "ding dong ditch" holding a letter from Santa explaining our elf's "job".

I got the idea from my niece-in-law, Casey, and from elf on a shelf and am combining it and using a lot of the ideas from another website.


Santa's letter about his elf is here - you can print it and give it to your children to explain this new visitor that will appear each year. Here is a passport you can print for him.