December Dailies {the advent begins} & Wally the elf {& his mischievous ways}

Throughout December we opened the advent calendar drawers each day.  Grayson loved getting up and asking first thing if he could open the drawer.  He loved the chocolate, of course, but was even more excited for me to read the slip of paper that told us what fun activity we'd be doing that day.  Beckham just laughed & loved following Grayson around to do it.

We did lots of fun things-many of which I incorporated into our regular activities or things we had scheduled anyway-but the boys didn't care & it was more about doing them all together which we all loved.

We also had an advent Santa of sorts.  We glued on a piece to his beard each day which was a lot of fun for the boys.  Seeing his beard fill up just made it more obvious to Mommy how quickly December was passing by.

We all adored having Wally live with us during the month of December.  He was a really great house guest although he got into quite a bit of mischief, too.  He even caught himself on camera a few times!  During the day he would hang out in his place & just chill.  He'd keep track of the boys behavior {although he was a pretty lax elf} and then fly back to the North Pole each night to report to Santa {although he got so little sleep he forgot to fly back a few times, too} and we'd find him in a new creative place each morning.  Beckham had to look forward to this tradition a bit more.  I swear Wally talked to him because every morning I'd get him out of his crib and he'd run-almost immediately-to wherever Wally was hiding and point & laugh & say his version of Wally.  Crazy!  Grayson got a big kick out of some of his hiding places and we are so excited for Wally to visit again next year.

 When it was time for him to go back to the North Pole {several days after Christmas...we just couldn't get him to leave!} he left the boys a sweet note & took a picture of himself back on his shelf.  The boys loved the note the next day.  We love you Wally!