Howie

One of the tough things about this Christmas is that we haven't decorated AT ALL and Madison Claire is crazy about all things Christmas.  Our decorations are boxed up with 1/3 of our old house so I didn't even know where to begin to find the right boxes.  That, combined with the fact that we were going to be in Nashville on Christmas day, made me decide not to decorate.  Well, every time we leave the house at night, Madison Claire will exclaim - "Mommy!  I see lights, EVERYWHERE!" It's precious and it breaks my heart because she should have lights at her house, but we don't this year :(.

So...in an effort to have something to get in the Christmas spirit, we decided to do the Elf on the Shelf this year.  Patrick picked one up for us at the bookstore over Thanksgiving and we were excited to bring him out when we got back to Memphis.  We named him Howard, and are calling him Howie.   It is A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E!  Every morning, when Madison Claire wakes up, she says "Where's Howie" and goes looking for him throughout the house.  When she finds him, she always gasps, and says "HOWIE!".  She will usually then tell him "good climbing" because he is up high.  

Some days she will report to Howie if she got in trouble, or just tell him hello and make sure he is still there.  I was on the fence on whether to do it, but I'm so glad that we did!  

Pointing to Howie up in the corner

Waving to Howie