"Some recent Christmas activities"

Elijah Brooks' gingerbread house

Of course he had to taste the frosting

Visiting Santa at Bass Pro Shop.  EB was very suspicious of him and we barely got a smile out of him.  You can tell from the picture that he was ready to run at any given moment!

Was much happier playing archery :)

And racing cars!

And racing Mommy!

E-Daddy and EB at "breakfast with Santa"

I missed this particular event again this year because of a choir rehearsal!  Maybe next year I'll catch it.  Surely 3 times is a charm right?

Visiting Santa take 2!  Jay said it still took him a few minutes to warm up to him, but he said that this Santa was so good with the kids, and it didn't take long for EB to drop his guard and trust him!  And how precious is this Santa??

Hasn't gained total trust yet, but what a precious, innocent face!

Getting closer - whispering that he wants a "Tonka truck" to Santa.  I am pretty sure we have 100 tonka trucks in this house!

Decorating cookies with Jay

Making ornaments with E-Daddy

Date with Mommy to see the "Living Christmas Tree"!

35 1/2 weeks and counting!  Any bets on when this baby girl is coming?

Our family had the privilege of ringing the Salvation Army bell recently at Wal-mart.  I dare say this may have been one of the most fun hours we have spent together as a family this season.  We had so much fun all ringing bells and shouting, "Merry Christmas" to everyone who passed by.  It was a particularly crowded evening, so that was fun too!  We saw alot of very happy people, and alot of very sad people.  You just never know what people are going through at Christmas time.  Elijah Brooks got the hang of saying, "Merry Christmas" to everyone, and was pretty dismayed when people wouldn't say it back to him. We told him just to keep saying it and keep smiling and showing the love of Jesus. He then decided (on his own might I add), that it might be more effective if he just went up to people very plainly and said, "Would you put money in my bucket pweeeze"???   All I can say is when our hour was up, we had a pretty full bucket of money going to the homeless and less fortunate!!  (As a disclaimer, I promise we didn't teach our child to manipulate people into giving by his cute little self.  After a few times of him saying this, we told him just to say, "Merry Christmas" and let it be the people's own decision whether or not to give).   I have to admit though, it was pretty darn cute, and I couldn't have resisted putting money in his bucket either!

Various families in our church were the bell ringers for the whole day, and we just rotated around.

Seriously cute!

He loved pushing the money through the hole with this paint stick.