Bell's Arrival!

On the Sunday that we decorated our tree (Thanksgiving weekend) Bell made his arrival back at our house from the North Pole!  I don't go crazy with creative and funny things every night but I wanted his arrival to be special.  I snuck around like crazy trying to get this set up on our front porch without the kids seeing me and then Craig & I waited for the perfect opportunity to ring the doorbell....

The kids were playing so great and we were excited to see their reaction and then literally as Craig went to ring the bell, Chase & Brady started fighting over the iPad, they both started crying and Chase started running upstairs.  Hadley got upset about something (probably that I wasn't holding her) and started crying and then the door bell rings.  They didn't even hear it!  We were standing by the front door just dying laughing because there really could not have been a worse time for us to try and do this....all 3 were crying!  BUT then we thought...actually this couldn't have been a more PERFECT time for Bell's arrival...we were hoping this would snap them in shape and we went the route with "he showed up because you guys aren't being nice to each other and we need to do a better job this month."  Haa. 

So.....they snapped out of it and were so excited to see Bell the elf back in our house!!

We tried to sit down and read the book but Hads and Brady weren't having it.

And then there were 2.....Chase ended up reading the whole book to me which was absolutely perfect.  I am so proud of my little reader!

Later that night, Chase felt bad that Bell had to be outside all night (it was freezing) so we put a blanket on him and Chase brought him some hot chocolate :)

Later that night we were decorating the tree and Chase said, "Do you think Bell drank the hot chocolate?"  I was about to say "No, not yet" but Craig jumped in and said to go check.  I don't know when he did it, but bless his heart, the best Daddy in the world had snuck around the side of the house and emptied the cup.  You should have seen Chase's eyes when he saw that Bell drank it all gone!  He already believed...but that solidified it right there :)  

(Geez, I practically believed when I saw the empty cup!)

Looking forward to lots of fun adventures and lots of nights of bribing by using our little buddy Bell!