The Monkey Vine

Mommy, where are we going today?

We have implemented a behavior chart for Doodle Bug a few weeks ago. If he completes his chores and follows his rules, he earns stars. When he reaches a set number of stars, he earns a reward. His rules are:
1. Make his bed
2. Brush his teeth
3. Pick up toys
4. Eat quickly (normally takes him 1 hour to eat a meal!)

Well, his first reward he earned a trip to Dave and Busters!! You can see him holding his reward chart!

Below, Dad and Doodle Bug are racing motorcycles.

The following week, Doodle Bug earned his stars and we went to the Nature Park.

The park had an indoor area that contained animals and information about them. Here is holding the antlers to a deer.

We Just thought this tree was funny looking, so Doodles hopped on for a picture!

Of Course, Daddy and Jitter Bug had to get in on the actions!

Ooh!!! A pine cone!!!!

We've been having so much fun!! Doodle Bug has been so helpful around the house and we have been having lots of quality family time on the weekends. Today, Doodle Bug earned a trip to Sea World!!! I would've included pictures, but I'm having issues!!!! If anyone knows how to solve this problem, please help! I can view my pictures on my camera, however, when I plug it into my computer, it says the disc needs to be formatted. It's already been formatted, so I don't know what is going on with the disc. I'm so upset because we got some really good pictures, and we can't get them off the disc! Ugggghhhhhhhh!

Oh my, is it really December already!?! Where has 2011 gone???? Well, we started the month out by visiting Downtown Celebration to see it "Snow"... Florida Style! What? You don't know what Florida snow is? Well, according to Celebration, it's throwing soap suds all over you!!! Blogger had some technical problems and won't let me upload the pictures. Hopefully, tomorrow, they will be uploaded.

Next, we went to Bass Outdoors to see Santa!! Doodle Bug cut pictures out of magazines to show Santa what he wanted for Christmas. Among the many things, he narrowed it down to two: a train and an iPad. Read on to see if Doodles gets what he asked for...

This year, our family was visited by an Elf! He arrived right after Thanksgiving. We had to name him in order for him to get his magic. Doodles chose the name Flippy. Flippy sat in various places at our house and "spied" on Doodle Bug and Jitter Bug. Every night, when we fell asleep, Flippy flew to the North Pole to give Santa a Report of DB and JB's behavior.

Then Flippy would fly back. He always landed in a different place. Sometimes, he would get into the pantry, or he would rearrange things in our house. Below are some pictures of some of the mischief that Flippy caused...

One night, Flippy snuck into Doodle Bug's room and painted his nose red like Rudolph!

Doodle Bug was not happy about this and quickly rubbed off the paint. Hopefully, Flippy doesn't do this next year!!

Sometimes, he just played with our toys!

... and sometimes he got into the pantry!!

On December 22, we went to Tavares to ride the Polar Express!! Doodle Bug was beyond ecstatic to ride a REAL train as you can see by his big, cheesy smile!!!

...waiting for the train to pull away!!

We started Christmas Eve off by creating a Gingerbread Train!!

A few years ago, when I was born, my mother started a Christmas Eve tradition. She would serve Italian food (like lasagna) and after we ate dinner, we would get a quick visit from Santa Claus. Santa would bring us a few gifts and then tell us that he would come back later that night to leave a few presents under the tree.

Well, this year, I carried on the tradition. Hubby and I had a HUGE Italian feast!! Lasagna (not my mother's recipe ;) chicken parm, sausage and peppers, anti pasta platters...

For dessert, I made a homemade Tiramasu Cupcake. It turned out so pretty that I just had to take a picture :-)

After we ate dessert, guess who arrived???

Santa is here!!! Doodle Bug loved Santa!! He was not shy at all. Jitter Bug, on the other hand, isn't too sure of him.

Santa handed out a few (too many) presents to the kids and then he was off!!

Doodles and Jitters opened their gifts...

Someone was excited to get clothes!!

And someone was super excited to get more hot wheels!!! (I'm sure the 237,549,982 hot wheels that he already owns are NOT enough)

That night Doodles noticed that he didn't get the 2 things that he really wanted: a train and an iPad.

The next morning, he raced downstairs and to his amazement he found what he was looking for. He kept shouting, "I must have been on the Nice List!!"

I'm going to need to have a word with Santa because when Doodle Bug asked for a train, I was thinking of something small, like the size of a hot wheels car. Next year, we will be a little more specific on our list!!!!!!

Jitter Bug received her first purse! Complete with a mirror, lipstick, and a bracelet. It's probably the cheapest purse she'll ask for :-) If she's like her Mama!!!