Elf and Penguins

Natalie, Eric, and I went to swim team practice tonight then Dollar Scoop Tuesday at Baskin-Robbins. We drove by another Baskin-Robbins a couple of weeks ago and Eric said, "Look! There's a Dollar Scoop Tuesday!" Since that's how we seem to refer to it, that's what he thinks is the name. Too funny.

We got this in the mail today. My mother-in-law sent it for Natalie and Eric to be opened before Christmas, so I let them open it after their shower/bath. I was surprised that Natalie did most of the opening. Eric just watched, maybe because he was pretty tired. He wanted her to read the accompanying book though, and she did. The book says that they're supposed to name the elf. What would you expect them to name him? They named him "Red" of course! I was a bit amused that Eric, when he heard that "Red" was supposed to watch them to see if they're being good, said that he didn't want "Red" to watch him. I'm curious to see how he reacts to him in the coming days.

I just told Alex about Red and how I put Red in his room for tonight. He wasn't familiar with the "Elf on a Shelf" story so I told him. Alex replied, "That's a little creepy." I had to laugh, especially when Patrick agreed. We'll see how it goes...

Speaking of Christmas, we put up our tree and some of the Christmas decorations on Saturday. This is the Hallmark Keepsake ornament that Natalie picked out this year. She loves penguins and she and Eric both love the ornaments that play music. This one plays "Jingle Bell Blues" or at least I think that's what it's called. I asked her to hang it up high so Eric couldn't reach it. I can just see him hanging on it and pulling the branch and potentially the whole tree down with it. Of course he heard this and said that he wanted to reach it. Maybe I'll have to rethink that...

Speaking of the color red, Natalie's favorite color (and mine) is red. I found these penguin place mats at Target. At first I only saw the red Santa ones and the green penguin ones. She saw them and said that it would be perfect if they had red penguin place mats. Needless to say, she immediately approved these when I brought them home. I saw some red penguin shirts at Gymboree yesterday that Natalie would love. I'll have to tell Grandma about them. ;)

This one is a bit off-topic, but I thought I would include this picture of Alex wearing his brand new headphones. He was listening to music instead of participating in the tree decorating. We were all wondering what was up with him. Anthony even started calling him "Grinch". There was some laundry that needed to be folded and Anthony said that we should make Alex fold it before he could play any video games. Of course those headphones are so good at blocking out everything except the music that Alex only heard part of the conversation. He thought Anthony was suggesting a "punishment" for him and we were letting him. That really hurt his feelings and made him retreat even more. I love Alex, I want him to be happy, and the headphones make him happy, but I suspect that we will have a lot more problems with communication than we already do. Sigh.