The Adventures of Elfie 2012: Part 1

It seems to have become an unintended tradition. During the late fall and winter months, this little blog becomes extremely neglected. It's not that I mean to, or want to, there just are not enough hours in the day. For the past few weeks, our adventures have been never ending; from the first day of pre-school and Kindergarten for each of our little guys, spending time in the classroom, a birthday celebration and cramming all of the holiday prepping into a few short weeks. One day, I will begin sporadic Christmas shopping in July and have it all completed by Thanksgiving. One day.

 

We have also been especially busy chasing Elfie from one end of the house to the other. I have decided to create a 2-part post on the Adventures of Elfie 2012, to share some of the fun we've been having.

 

For those of you who are not familiar with the Elf on the Shelf concept, Santa sends a "spy elf" to homes around Thanksgiving, to keep an eye out on the children and observe their behavior. Each night, the spy elf flies to the North Pole to report back to Santa - good or bad - and then flies back to a new spot in the house. Elfie arrived last year and spent a couple of weeks with us before flying off with Santa on Christmas Eve. Over the past year, I have amassed a drawer full of letters to Elfie and Santa that the boys sent, pictures they have drawn and gifts they have sent. Daddy Elfie was sweet enough to write back to them twice, and you'd have thought they hit the jackpot! Needless to say, Elfie was missed every day while he was gone.

 

So, this year, we decided to make things a little more exciting, rather than just having him sit in different places around the house. Thanks to Pinterest for many of the initial suggestions that help us get going when we hit a block.

 

Elfie arrived the morning after Thanksgiving - and while I was worried at the end of last year that we'd possibly forget to bring him out, we had two little boys who counted down the days to Thanksgiving, knowing their little friend was going to return! He made himself at home with a hot chocolate and slice of pumpkin persimmon pie.

"Mom! Elfie is here! He came back!"

Elfie has been found all over the house... playing the Memory Game...

"flipping race cars" like Clayton taught him the day before...

playing in mom's jewelry box (this was daddy's idea!)...

making a snow angel with shredded coconut he found in the fridge...

chatting with the snowmen about what their cousins in the North Pole have been up to...

Elfie even got a hold of a dry erase pen and marked up the boys' pictures! (another one of Daddy's ideas).

I picked up these hat and antlers window stickers at Target for $4 or $5 and wasn't sure what to do with them... Elfie found them! Looks like he's still got that dry erase pen...

One morning there was even a report card (Daddy again!), Whew! So far, they both still made the good list!

Hanging out on top of the "castle" as the boys call it.

This is a great reminder that there is nothing more important than good friends! Elfie rounded up the snuggle favorites while the boys were asleep, for milk and chocolates. The boys spent the day sharing chocolate kisses with these guys!

The morning of Clayton's birthday, Elfie found the extra crepe paper, left over from the curtain I hung on his bedroom doorway, and created a swing for himself over the dining room table.

The Rudolph in our living room must have been making Elfie homesick... he slung up some reins ... maybe they went for a ride during the night... we will never know... ;)

When Elfie heard that Grammy and Pop were coming for the weekend, he decided he needed to look up this Pop guy... and where else than the Grand Slammers section of the big horn sheep magazine.

The Lego table was a lot of fun, building a village and a train with the farm animal friends.

While Grammy was here, Elfie left a trail of mini-marshmallows from the boys' rooms through the house to where he'd filled their stockings with more mallows. (I didn't get a picture of the trail in time... little fingers ate the trail from the bedrooms within about 5 minutes!)

Catching up with friends at the 49er Stadium in the 49er village.

Mom and Dad got some giggles out of this one! We thought that maybe the new guy was making the rest of the snuggle friends a little bit jealous, so they decided to break in the new Nerf birthday gifts and "rough him up a little"!

 

We've got more Elfie adventures to come, after Christmas, I'll post the rest of the photos.

 

We wish you all a Very Merry Christmas!!