I LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND BACK!

Holidays are so, so, so much fun when you have little ones around! NO ONE ever told me how much more awesome life gets when you have babies!!!

We don't have an Elf on the Shelf this year, but we have been having some elf antics going on around our house!  We found this little elf flying through space on Priya's spare oxygen tank on December 16th!  She's been into all kinds of things since December 1st.  Yesterday, she was baking cookies.  She has used our furniture as a jungle gym, taken rides in the dryer, roasted marshmallows in front of the fireplace, rowed a boat in the bathtub, and all kinds of things!  She is the busiest elf I have ever seen!  You never know where she will pop up next!

Mike's parents, brothers, Uncle Cecil's family, Mama, and Lee's girlfriend is joining us for Christmas.  It's going to be a FULL house!  This will be the first time Mama gets to meet Priya!  We are excited for Christmas around here!  To gear up for the big day, we started off the month attending a neighborhood live nativity, we've gone on several drives to see how neighboring towns and cities have decked their halls, and Priya and I made holiday crafts with our neighbors across the street. The only think we DIDN'T do was get Christmas cards sent out, and I am still feeling a little bad about that--especially this year!

The big news on my side of the family is that both my sister's family and my parents will be moving into new digs before the end of the year!  I can't wait to go home and see their new places!  I wish we didn't live so far away--especially during holiday season.  They are MISSED!

As we come to the end of the year, we are SO THANKFUL for the greatest gift 2013 has given us, our beautiful, amazing daughter!  Forget candy canes!  Life has never been so sweet!  She brings wonder and joy and so much love to our world!  When you bring a child into the world, you want all that is good in the world to multiply a hundred-fold for THEM!  You wish like never before that wars and hunger and disease would be banished from the earth forever!  I guess that is one of the messages of the season--how a small, helpless baby can come into your world and change everything!  Let us make the world better for everyone's children and live every day with a little more peace, joy, and good will towards others!

ELF ANTICS, Days 1-17