Winston Watch 2016- Part 2

You might remember that the last time we saw Winston he was playing candy tic-tac-toe with Wonder Woman.  You probably don't remember that actually.  I'd be very impressed if you did. 

Well, Winston ate all the candy from the game so on Thursday the 15th he had been tied up with dental floss by the tooth fairy. 

Unfortunately, Elliott touched him that day and Spencer saw it so we had to perform a healing ceremony.  A healing ceremony in our house is as follows: I mix some peppermint extract with some baking soda and then we all sprinkle a little bit on him and tell him, "be well, Winston".  Then I wrap him up in a towel and he has to sleep it off.  Then his magic is back!  It's a miracle. 

On Friday the 16th Winston was in Elliott's room for Elliott's birthday.

He brought Elliott a milky way that I let him eat in the car that day.  That was a chocolaty mess.

On Saturday the 17th Winston was wearing a mask and a cape and was hanging upside down at the kitchen table chandelier.  He had a perfect view of all the action at Elliott's birthday party. 

On Sunday the 18th he was upside down in the chimney.  Upside down seems to have been a theme with him this year. 

Winston may or may not have forgotten to move at night so on Monday the 19th Winston was simply in Spencer's mini stocking in the kitchen. 

And he must have felt so cozy in there that on Tuesday the 20th he just moved to Elliott's stocking. 

On Wednesday the 21st Winston rigged a fancy swing to play on with his friends, Hulk, Wonder Woman and Iron Man. 

And he was wearing one of the pins from Elliott's party, because Winston is silly. 

On Thursday the 22nd Winston brought the kids more new plates and donuts from Krispy Kreme.  Winston was probably very strong in his resolve and didn't get any donuts for himself. 

He was in a juice carafe so he could watch from the table safely. 

On Friday the 23rd Winston was waiting by the laundry room door for his trip to Tucson. 

He convinced the crew from The Secret Life of Pets to go with him. It was also cold that night so maybe Winston was using them for warmth it was a four dog/one cat/one rabbit night. 

Saturday the 24th found Winston perched in a wreath in my parent's kitchen, probably so he could watch all of the Christmas Eve festivities.

On Christmas Day Winston was chilling in a cabinet in my parent's living room.  He had obviously found the ornament Spencer gave him as a gift.  He had a great seat to watch us opening presents.

And sadly, on Monday the 26th, Winston was gone.  Back to the North Pole.  He had left the kids a note, some candy and a dollar each to spend at Disneyland. 

I don't know how to explain it but I do have a gut feeling that we will see Winston again soon, way before Valentine's Day even.  I hope so, because that little fella is a fun part of our lives. 

The eve of Christmas Eve Eve

I am bound and determined to blog about everything that happens before Christmas, before Christmas.  And then I can go into my usual dark days of January funk where it's all too overwhelming and I get weeks behind.

On Thursday the 22nd, otherwise known as the Eve of Christmas Eve Eve Elliott and I went to an awards ceremony at Spencer's school because he made the honor roll.  Letter grades start in third grade at his school so this was the first semester that he could have made the honor roll.

The principal spoke,

and then the third graders took the stage.  I'm still totally paranoid about putting Spencer's school name out on the internet, so I did a lot of editing of school t-shirts for this post. 

We're so proud of him.  He would have gotten recognized for perfect attendance too except he was late one day in December because he had a doctor appointment.  I don't think that's fair and I don't agree with it, but I'm not in charge of the rules. 

I did a Facebook post about Spencer making the honor roll and also mentioned that every year he likes to buy a gift for Santa and Winston.  This is what he picked this year. 

He got a medal after the assembly and showed me when he got home. 

Soon after Spencer came home from school we went and picked Michael up from the dealership where he was getting the oil changed on his car and went over to Monica and Rick's.  Hadley was sleeping when we got there, 

But then we all got to take a turn holding her. 

Then we went out to dinner, 

And we ended the Eve of Christmas Eve Eve by going to see Sing. 

We have been waiting since July for this movie to start.  And it was worth the wait.  A little slow in a few parts, but the end was adorable and the whole thing was really feel good and spirited. 

Festive

We've had a lot of festive and seasonal events going on around here the last couple of days.

Sunday (December 18)

We decided it was time for Santa pictures. The previous three years we have gone to Thorobred Chevrolet to have free Santa pictures taken.  Unfortunately, Thorobred became Earnhardt Chevrolet this past year and they kicked Santa out and quit doing Santa pictures way more than a week before Christmas.  I'm still debating writing a letter about how stupid that decision was.

Here's a look back on previous years.

2013

2014

2015 

(I know this Santa looks like he's made of a strange combination of plastic and putty, but I assure you he was a real person)

After the failure at the car dealership we thought we'd take a chance at Bass Pro Shop.  I mean, how bad could it be?

They ran out of passes before noon that day

This is the Santa we would have seen. 

The kids went on and on about how they really didn't care about seeing Santa and it would be fine to not do it this year, so we took these pictures and then left. 

And then I used an app to add Santa to each picture.  

So yeah, 2016.  Another hash mark in the nope column. 

The kids did have a good time riding the carousel, even though Spencer would have you believe he was being tortured. 

Monday (December 19th)

I went to Elliott's preschool to help him with his winter/Christmas craft.  I went once with Spencer (the first year Spencer did it Elliott was, like, 3 days old and I'm not sure Spencer had anyone show up for him) and twice with Elliott.

We also can't find Spencer's from his second year of preschool.  But if we do ever locate it, this frame will complete the collection.

Tuesday (December 20th)

I taught an art masterpiece lesson in Spencer's class in the morning.  It was the first of the year, which means I have five to do next semester. 

In the afternoon I took December 20th pictures.  I'm not going to do a whole post with all of the comparisons this year, but if you want a quick refresher- go HERE 

It was a struggle to get Spencer to wear pajamas for even two minutes. 

Wednesday (December 21st)

Elliott picked a set of 100 gel pens as his gift when we went to Costco to return a too small sweatshirt that someone at his birthday party gave him.

We actually bought the pens on Tuesday afternoon, but on Wednesday he was very, very, very excited about them and spent the afternoon using them. 

Wednesday night we went out to dinner and then went to the Mormon Temple to see their light display.  There are only four or five Mormon temples in the whole world that do Christmas light displays and since one of them is in Mesa we thought we'd check it out.  

This is from the website:

Join us in a celebration of the birth of Christ at the Mesa Arizona Temple Gardens this Christmas Season.  As you thrill to the sights and sounds of the holidays, we hope that you, your family and friends will enjoy: hundreds of thousands of colorful lights; uniquely illuminated palm trees and flower gardens; an inspiring nativity scene; a display of Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem; recorded messages in English and Spanish and a modern Visitors’ Center open to all.  This spectacular annual display, provided by volunteers, is free of charge each evening of the holiday season.

Here's an aerial view that I got from Google. 

We walked around for about 40 minutes to see all of it.  

These were my favorites.  

The kids loved it.  Even Spencer said, "Wow.  Now this is impressive." Ha!