Wishful thinking??? :) Braeden loves these pjs he got recently. :) He decided to "model" them the other night...

This Thanksgiving saw us beginning a new fun tradition. My parents sent us an Elf on the Shelf set the other week. If you haven't seen this it's so cute! There is a book that describes the elf that comes to your house during the holidays to report your behavior to Santa. You can't talk to him or touch him. Each night he flies away to talk to Santa and returns in a new place the next morning where you need to find him.

I had set out the elf just before the kids woke up on Thanksgiving. We read the book and after the second page I asked them if they thought an elf like that would come to our house. They just shook their heads. I suggested they look around and Olivia started pointing and jumping up and down. They just stared at him. Braeden was our big skeptic saying there was no way that he would fly away at night. They named him Tom. Tom Maximilliar??? Too funny!

We had a great Thanksgiving. Olivia's morning was a little rough. She often doesn't sleep well the night before a holiday or something big and her body NEEDS sleep. After a nap time I said good morning Olivia, Happy Thanksgiving, and we started our day over. We watched some of the parade, I cleaned out the refrigerator while making dinner, got some vacuuming and laundry done, and the kids and I watched some of The Santa Clause. Olivia kept talking about "Tom" and where he would end up the next day. She hoped he didn't come on her bed because she was afraid of rolling over and squashing him! :)

That night Braeden was out of bed about 3 times in 30 minutes. I finally asked him why he was out of bed. He got this huge grin and said he was waiting for Tom to fly away! Oh too funny! I said he needed to get to bed and that Tom wouldn't move while he was up and watching. He just smiled and said that he needed to watch. I smiled back and said he needed to go to sleep. He finally did.

This morning, Braeden just stared at the place where Tom had been yesterday. Then Olivia, who didn't sleep much last night for the excitement of Tom moving, took his hand and showed him how Tom was now sitting at the top of the bathroom mirror. It was so funny!

This morning, we were out the door at 6 am! I haven't shopped black Friday since I've had kids. Mostly because I Christmas shop year round really. Whenever I find great clearance items I know the kids will love I grab them and keep them in rubbermaids in the storage room. Then at Christmas I don't have much to get. BUT, there were some great items I was hoping to snag for birthdays and such. The boys' day care was open and they said I could drop Olivia off there too since they don't get many kids today. So I was off to Target at 6am. I got just what I wanted and got in the longest line I've ever seen wrapped all the way around to the back of the store! But it moved quickly.

Then off to Walmart, only because they had a 20inch girls bike for $29 I was hoping to get Olivia. She outgrew hers and I had made her a deal. Since we've been working on bedwetting, I told her that she could earn 50 cents for each totally dry night where the alarm didn't wake her up, and when she earned half of a bike, I would match it. She easily has earned half of this bike! I put it in her room tonight before I picked them up and she screamed of excitement when she saw it. :)

I also got to finally see Twilight. Why is it that a silly Vampire book/movie has so many enthralled??? I don't know, but I LOVED the books! Read all 4 in 8 days! I have been so excited about seeing the movie! It was good! :)

After getting the kids we grabbed pizza and my friend J and her three came over for dinner. It was a fun evening!

On a final note/update. I'm trying Mountain Dew "therapy" with Braeden. :) I've been reading up on ADHD recently as I think we're headed in that direction with him. We lost our weekly babysitter recently. I think it was more that she didn't understand setting boundaries and keeping structure, which he needs, but she quit nonetheless. I have a new one who is interviewing Tues, but I see a need to try something with him at the same time. So, speaking with moms of ADHD kids and others, I have heard that for many Mountain Dew works to help "these" kids focus and gives them that "edge" on their behavior that can really help. He has been a different kids the past couple days. Don't get me wrong, he's not perfect, not a robot, but not off the wall jittery and unable to sit still. He's had a few time outs and has taken them without issue, and without literally climbing up the walls of the stairway. It was a PJ and movie day today at day care and his regular teacher wasn't there, but even they said he had a really good day. I'm giving him a small cup in the morning, at lunch, and in the afternoon and will keep it up for a week. I want to especially see if they notice a difference at school. I'm hopeful that this can help and we can bypass medication, at least for now. I'm not a big proponent for medication, being a teacher and parent I've seen it overdiagnosed, but I've also seen it make a huge difference in some of my kiddos too. It's such a fine line. The funniest thing is that I've had to actually coerce him into drinking it a couple times! :) What 4 year old needs reminders to drink his Mountain Dew!?

Tomorrow we are off to the Schaumburg area to see Bolt with friends of mine and their two little ones! I can't wait. Woo Hoo! :) And Sunday, back to church which we missed last week from being downtown. I missed it!

Finally, a random shot from when we were in Chicago last weekend... Love the architecture!