Thanksgiving/Birthday/Halloween Fiesta

We had a great Thanksgiving day. Lots of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gelatinous-mass and cake. We actually packed a few different events into this one day. First, since Olivia was sick on Halloween and never got to try on her costume, we cheated and put her costume on today and got some "Halloween" pictures for our photo books. She will never know the difference. Second, since last week was John's birthday, we decided to wait and celebrate it today to save everyone a trip down to Columbia. And last, it was of course Thanksgiving.
Olivia looked very cute as a pumpkin. We had gotten previews of her in this costume but not in her control bottom tights and little black shoes. She made a great pumpkin.
For John's birthday part of the day, Brooke made a turkey cake.

She took all of this:

And turned it into this:

It was a great desert after all of that turkey, and John was surprised. John got to eat the turkey head after removing all the skewers holding it on. It was a dangerous cake if you weren't paying attention when eating certain parts of it.

When we first arrived, Olivie looked like this:

She was our little ninja girl. We decided to put her in her costume clothes that go on underneath her pumpkin for the ride up so we didn't have to change her when we got there, saving a possible fit that she likes to throw when being changed. After we got to Mima's, we put on her pumpkin and she had a lot of fun walking around and being the center of attention (when is she not?)

She had a lot of fun

And some not-so-fun moments

But all in all, we had a great day and Olivia always likes getting the chance to see her Auntie Steph and Uncle John.

At the end of the evening Marcia gave Olivia a gift that at first disturbed me a little. It was "The Elf On The Shelf." Now, as soon as I heard elf and saw the little picture on the box I kind of squirmed, but it wasn't until I heard her explaining that it moves at night and keeps watch over whether you are good or bad for Santa. That really got my attention. What is this elf that was going to be coming into our house that moves only at night. I had thought I had gotten the house to a clown/elf/flying-monkey free zone. I knew Olivia would be OK because she licked from the clown lollipop Aunt Gail got her when she was born, but that wasn't going to cut it for me. It wasn't until it was explained to me that the elf was something that we moved around every night while Olivia slept that I relaxed a bit. I originally thought it had batteries or something, and as you know, any elf or clown with batteries is really alive, the batteries are just a front to make it look like the toy is a normal innocent toy. So now that I understand how Elf On A Shelf works, this will be a very fun tradition and I cant wait to start it. I can see Olivia in a year or two getting excited as Christmas gets close and she starts wondering when her elf will show up and start watching her to see if she is good or bad. I already have some fun ideas of where to set him. I still may not sleep as well knowing he is in the house but I know I can get over it. Just need a year or so.