That's Bunnnnkkk...y

You guys, it's December 1st!  Can you believe it?  This time last year we were frantically getting ready for our trip to Hawaii so we didn't do much of anything when it came to holiday decorating.  We did gifts for our extended family and a few gifts for Olivia, but didn't do gifts for us.  Our gift was spending the holiday together as a family in Hawaii.

For the ten days that we were here, we started the tradition of the Christmas book advent calendar.  I knew I wanted to do that with her again this year and have been adding a few more to my stash over the last couple of months {and when I was doing all of my nesting/organizing}.  A few nights ago, I wrapped all of them up and they have been tempting her ever since.

In addition to this tradition, I knew I wanted to bring the Elf on the Shelf into our home this year.  I think it is such a cute idea and thanks to Pinterest, I've noted lots of fun places for him to perch each morning.  I knew I wanted to do something special to introduce Olivia {and Sydney} to our scout elf and when I saw Meredith's breakfast, I knew it would be the perfect thing.

After watching the Elf on the Shelf program on tv with Olivia, I stayed up late Wednesday night decorating the playroom and getting the breakfast materials all laid out.  I printed off a few printables from the TomKat Studio {woohoo for a Cyper Monday sale} so we could send a Letter to Santa and then wrote the girls a little note from their new elf.

I woke up early this morning and prepared our mini donuts.  While this was fun, it definitely was a labor of love!  Those pretzels don't always break where you want them to and the black gel I used didn't want to stay on the powdered donuts, but I think they turned out great!

My parents came over once Olivia woke up {love, love, LOVE that she slept in until after 9} and she was so surprised to see them here as well as seeing her playroom all Christmas'd up!

She opened up her present that was waiting in her chair and was so excited to see that she was going to have her very own elf.  If you know much about The Elf, you'll know that if you touch him, his magic may disappear, so she was very leery of holding him or getting very close to him.  We reassured her that he didn't have his magic until we named him and if she wanted to look at him, now was the time to do so.

{She got that shiner yesterday when she was attempting to get a mini candy cane on the shelf in her playroom.  Perfect timing for family Christmas photos, don't you think?}

To be honest, I was a little worried about how naming the elf would go.  Olivia LOVES to make up nonsense words and I was afraid we were going to year after year have an elf named Awoobywa.  She asked us for some help and quickly decided that our elf would be named Bunky.  But then, a few minutes later, she said, "No, his name is Elf on the Shelf!"  So, for awhile he was referred to as Bunky the Elf on the Shelf.

I read the book that comes with the elf and then we all enjoyed our breakfast of donuts, hot chocolate and milk.  Then we did our best to write Santa a little letter, but she quickly lost interest in that and we are still working on Sydney's letter.  ;)

Afterwards Olivia said, "That was a gooood party!"

Olivia is all excited about Bunky flying around and wants to see him fly.  If you know the story, you'll also know that he's supposed to land in a new place each morning, but we've been so excited about it, especially seeing Olivia's reaction to him being in a new place, that he's been in quite a few different spots already.

On her Christmas tree in her playroom...

In the kitchen on the pot-hanging rack...

On the chalkboard in Olivia's room....riiiight by her crib.

I'm not sure Olivia has enough self-control all of the time to behave perfectly, but once Bunky was in her room for naptime, she was as good as gold.  {Knock, knock, knockin' on good ol' Bunky's wooden head.}  When she first saw him in there, she said, "OH, Bunky doesn't want to be in here.  This isn't a good spot for Bunky."  Ha ha, smart girl.  Smarter parents.  

Bunky made his way from Olivia's room to our mantle and she looked up at David and said, "He really IS magic, isn't he?"  Goosebumps, I tell ya.  Goosebumps.

We have one more advent calendar hanging up and haven't opened anything up on that one yet today.  There are a few trinkets already placed in each day and I plan on just writing out some holiday activities for us to do in some of the other dates and pulling that out each morning.  I'll do my best to post the book/trinket/activity for each day.

If you've stuck with me for this whole post, God Bless You.  You must really love my kiddos.

Happy Thursday from the Valley of the Sun!