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Sunday Funday: Adventures of Kenny the Elf 2016 (Week 2)

Week 2 of Kenny's antics brought along more laughs from the kiddos and some fun activities. It's funny. We spend a lot of time before December blocking out dates for random things but life always gets in the way and we end up reorganizing a lot of activities as the month goes on. As long as everything gets in there which the main idea behind planning it all out in advance. I would hate for us to get to December 23 and realize that we forgot something we really wanted to do.

On Day 5, Kenny brought out some of the mega bloks and made himself a throne. Kenzie and Will thought that was hilarious. Will was amazed that he had Kenzie's light up wand and Kenzie immediately noticed that he made himself a crown. They think he is silly. This has definitely been the most fun of any year we have done this yet. Kenzie is super into it and Will thinks he is hilarious. We always remark about how Will does some things so much earlier than we expected based on what is "average" but it is definitely because of his big sister. Like his imagination. It is so much more developed at just over 2 than Kenzie's was at the same age but we attribute it to him playing pretend games with Kenzie. So, at 2, he is getting way more out of this than Kenzie was at this age.


Our activity for the day was picking out the kids' Christmas outfits. We like to get dressed up for Christmas Eve. We usually go to our church's Christmas Eve service and then go to dinner at Buca Di Beppo (one of our favorites) but our church isn't having a Christmas Eve service this year in lieu of having a Christmas Day one, which we will also attend. We found out recently though that the church that is the anchor of Kenzie's preschool is having service on Christmas Eve. Apparently last year they had a family service that used glow sticks instead of candles. The kids are going to love that if they do it again this year. Anyway, I digress. So, we get dressed up for that every year. We don't dress up too often so this is nice for us. Plus, it lets the kids pick out a new, fancy outfit each year and they love that. Kenzie had been eyeing this red dress the last time we went into Burlington Coat Factory. (Side note: I totally can't recommend that store enough for things like this. We don't want to spend a ton on something they may not wear too often but they have really nice outfits.) Unfortunately, when we went into the store this day, the dress was gone. Kenzie was not happy. After some debating (and about 3 potty trips for various kids...) she was leaning towards a black and white dress but then I caught a flash of red out of the corner of my eye. It wasn't in the right section or even in her size section but we walked over and managed to find the dress she wanted in her size! She was elated! She already has shoes so she was super excited about her Christmas Eve outfit. Then, we went over to Will's section and found two options for him. Both were pants, a shirt, and a vest. One had a pocket square and one had a tie. We tried on both vests and then decided on the outfit with the pocket square because it was a little more casual and we think he can likely wear it (or at least the individual pieces of it) again after the holiday. Will also needed some new shoes as he only has a brown pair and his tennis shoes. We managed to find a more casual pair of shoes that worked perfectly. Just in time too because his brown shoes are getting too small. This kid has some feet. Size 8! Seriously. It's ridiculous.






On Day 6, Kenny decorated the kids' bathroom. He left stickies on the mirror and wrapped the picture hanging in there as well as a container of baby wipes and a container of lysol wipes. The kids took quite a while to find him because this was the first time this season he moved from the main area of our house. Once they did though, they were so excited.


Our activity of the day was to decorate the inside of the house. We always save this as an activity because Kenzie (and now Will) love to help with this and it can be an entire afternoon project usually. We started with putting Kenzie's ornaments on her tree in her room. It was fun to do it with her while Will was napping because we didn't have to worry about him bothering her. Then we moved on to the rest of the house once he woke up. They were most excited about hanging their stockings, I think. Our house is finally looking like Christmas. The only thing remaining was to tinsel the tree because I like having Steven's help with that.











On Day 7, Kenny decided to try to be an ornament and he was so well camouflaged that we had to point the kids in the right direction after they wandered around for a while. Will was walking through the house calling, "Kenny!!! Where are you?" Like he was going to answer. It was hilarious. We figured he would probably want to do this particular trick before the tinsel went on the tree because that would be a pain if he waited until after.


Our activity for the day was to mail our Christmas cards. I mentioned that sometimes things are thrown in that we have to do anyway but the kids love this task too. They love going to the post office and putting letters in the box. Who wouldn't? ;) This was a nice activity to leave until the end of the day and do with Daddy too so we managed to figure out how to do that. It involved me feeding the kids dinner and bathing them in time for Steven to literally walk in the door around 7 and then turn him around to walk back out with us to go to the post office. So, yes, that means we took the kids to the post office in pjs. At least we all got to do it together. When we got there, we learned that the automatic postage machine was messed up and could only print large stamps that you could order 5 at a time. And we needed almost 50... Thank goodness both Steven and I were there because it would have been madness had I been alone to do this. The kids ran back and forth from him at the machine to met at the table putting the stamps on. It took longer than usual, but we made it and the kids each got a stack or two to mail.






Day 8 found Kenny in a sticky situation. Haha! Okay, I'm done. He must have tried to start helping to decorate the kids' doors (the activity of the day) and got a little stuck. He ended up taped to the wall. I think this was the kids' favorite so far. They both laughed hysterically and talked about how silly he was.


Like I said, the activity was to decorate the kids' doors. I usually start prepping for this a week or so in advance and already have an idea of what each door will be but I've been crazy busy between kids and work and Steven has been even busier so we both forgot about it beforehand. Plus, Kenzie is at the age now that she is going to have an opinion and want to choose her own decoration. I already had an idea of making a train on Will's door which was fairly easy. The worst part was cutting the tracks. He loved it. I gave Kenzie an option between a snowman and a present (both of which have been done before and I know is easy enough but cute once finished) and she immediately said, "Snowman!... But make it a girl." Um... okay. After some googling, I came up with a few ideas. The bonus was that I only ended up needing scrapbooking paper in various colors as I already had the tulle for her "scarf". I put most of Will's on his door for him but both kids helped with the snowgirl because she was much easier to apply. Kenzie loved how she turned out. Both kids had to show Daddy their doors when he got home because they were so happy with them.

On Day 9, Kenny decided to draw minions on our bananas. He is certainly silly. The kids think minions are hilarious so this was fun for them.


Our activity for the day was to go to Mt. Dora to see the lights. We often refer to it as Light Up Mt. Dora but technically that only happens a couple times during the season. First when they light up downtown for the first time and then again when they do the snow and sledding (which was actually the day after we went, I think.) The rest of the time, the lights are on downtown and in the marina so we just walk around to see the lights. The kids like lights and getting out of the house so it is still fun to do and fairly low key. We had to keep it easy because we have a big weekend and Steven had a doctor's appointment on Friday that kept him out later than expected. We are working really hard to not eat out much at all so we had to reorganize a few days and ended up with Mt. Dora on this day so that I could make dinner before we left the house. We left the house a bit later than we planned initially but made it to Downtown Mt. Dora around 6:45 or 7 so it wasn't too bad. Then we promptly drove in circles trying to find parking. Mt. Dora has a very small town feel but is still packed at certain times of the year. We finally left the beaten path and parked a bit farther away and walked. It wasn't bad. The kids LOVED it. Once we convinced Will to leave the warmth of the stroller (he had his little hands tucked under him), they kids ran in circles yelling about the lights and generally just being overexcited. After seeing the lights at Donnelly Park, we headed over to Sunset Park where they set up a big Christmas tree that is synced to music. The kids loved that. Will just screamed and pointed "Christmas tree!" as we got closer and closer to it. They ran around the tree some there too just laughing and carrying on. It was fun. Then we walked over to the marina. The person that owns the boat storage place there does a massive setup every year. Kenzie remembered it from last year and wanted to make sure that we saw the place with the baby Jesus. She was so excited to see it. It was a lot to look at but eventually we went back to Donnelly Park to let the kids run again. We packed it up about 8 even though the kids would have probably run around all night if we let them. We live pretty closer to Mt. Dora so the kids made it home awake but were OUT just after we got them each in bed.




















On Day 10, Kenny decided to show his school spirit. (It's been a busy week for Steven and myself and that elf has been moving pretty late at night so we are thankful that the kids are still easily amused.) He wrapped himself in a UCF necklace and hung out with the snowman that was the "U" in "UCF".


Kenny was showing some Knight pride because our family was going to go to Light Up UCF as our activity that day. I've mentioned before that I LOVE living this close to our alma mater. We get to do fun things like this (or football games) every year if we want. We love this event. Kenzie remembered it immediately and remembered that she wanted to ride the train. Last year this was the first ride she ever rode on her own without one of us. Will didn't ride last year because he was too small go to on his own (even with her) but this year he was definitely going on that train. He wasn't going to let us leave him out of a train ride. Anyway, after a very long day... Kenzie had a birthday party for a dance friend and we spent over  hours at the park for that where other than periodically stopping to eat, she ran and ran and ran. Daddy and Will went to Palm Coast to help Grandma and Grandaddy get their Christmas tree and then Will hung out with Grandma while Daddy helped Grandaddy go Christmas shopping... We headed over to the East side of Orlando. Kenzie actually fell asleep about 5 minutes before we go to Steak n Shake but was super excited when she woke up at one of her favorite restaurants. We love this place on weekends. Every $8 you spend, gets you a free kid's meal. So, we get one free. Score! After everyone ate every bite of food on their plates (albeit slowly in Kenzie and Will's case), we packed it up and headed over to UCF. The kids were super excited. We elected to let Will walk because I know we would never keep him in a stroller with all the excitement. It's funny to me that we are at this point in our lives now. These kids are getting so self-sufficient. Kenzie at the party was awesome. I just kept an eye on her and off she went. I got to chat with another mom from dance for a while and other adults. Adult interaction is awesome. Haha! Anyway, I digress. The kids practically ran to find the train. We wanted to make sure it was still there before we bought tickets as they sometimes change things around year after year. This year they changed an older kid ride and rearranged everything but right where it was last year... the train. We got the kids' tickets. We did the math. It was $1 plus tax per circle around the track per child. Holy cow! But they were so excited. They ran right on when it was their turn and laughed, smiled, and waved the entire way around. After the train ride we walked around and watched people ice skate. One day we will let the kids do that too but they are still too little right now. We laughed at the people ice skating outside in short sleeves. Florida. There was also a small craft fair that we browsed and then we found the area where they were going to play The Polar Express. We found spots and the movie started. It was LOUD though. So loud that I was covering Will's ears and Daddy was covering Kenzie's. The kids were super into the movie but eventually Daddy and I had enough of the blaring sound and had to get up. We told the kids we would try to record it on TV. Will was amazed with the train and Kenzie was just watching intently. Hopefully they will like it in its entirety. We then walked back through and took a few pictures before heading out. It's an easy night (other than the drive there and back) but the kids love it. All the lights, the train, and everything to look at. We had fun.














On Day 11, Kenny must have been playing with a few of the Mickey's in the house (there are more but he apparently couldn't get them to hang in the tree without falling.) The kids took a while to find him and when Kenzie spotted him first, she put her hand on her hip, and (sassily) declared that Kenny was in their playroom tree. It was hilarious.


Our activity of the day was to go to Disney Springs to see the new lights show. We went down to Disney Springs before dinner to walk around some. We knew there was a Tree Trail with Christmas trees decorated to match various movies so we wanted to do that before dinner. We parked where we knew we wanted to watch the light show from and then hiked across Disney Springs to get to the Tree Trail. If anyone hasn't been to the Springs lately, we definitely recommend going. It is so nice since they opened the new portion. Anyway, we found the trees and Kenzie immediately announced that she wanted to take a picture with the Rapunzel one. She refused to to take pictures next to any other trees until she got to that one. We looked at them all and then (finally) near the end, we found the Tangled tree. She jumped up and down and wanted her picture taken. Then, she was fine taking pictures with any other trees. Weird kid. Will just ran from tree to tree looking at them. Periodically, it would snow and the kids would run around getting all excited about that. By the time we finished the trees, Will was chanting about eating dinner. We had to make a stop at the Lego Store though first to let the kids play for a few minutes. They love that and I love that they have sanitizer hanging on the wall. They built a bit but then we had to start heading back towards the Marketplace to get a place to hang out to watch the lights. We made our way back around and were early enough to snag an area along a low wall where we camped out and ate lunch. At this point, Will was practically eating his shirt or something. He was apparently going to starve to death or something. The kids inhaled their dinner. It was something to behold. We then had to sit around and wait for about 30 minutes for the show. We made friends with some people sitting around us and chatted with them for a while. The kids did remarkably well for being told not to get off the wall because there were too many people in the area. The show started right on time and to say it was impressive would be an understatement. I think we read somewhere that there are 300+ drones. It was pretty cool. The only downfall was how short the show was. This is the first year so I'm hoping for more next year but it was still really cool. I got a bit of video of the end of the show. Kenzie and Will loved it though. Kenzie was so excited about all the colors and Will just keep oooohing and aaaaahing. We made it out of there fairly easily and were home with both kids still awake. Not sure what is up with them staying awake lately when we leave places at night but they are going to sleep as soon as we get home (after they watch us blow up the Santa in the front yard every night) so it's not a big deal.




















Here is the video of the end of the show...


Another week in the books. Let's see what Kenny brings next week!

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