Elf on the Shelf 2013

It's that time of the year again and our Elf, Peppermint has brought a new elf into our home. His name is Jingle Bells, or just Jingles. If I thought one Elf was mischief, two elves is chaos! Because I wasn't sure we'd be able to tell them apart, one has added peppermint stripes to his hat, while the other has sewn a Jingle Bell onto the tip (get it? it goes with their names)

The first day they arrived after we decorated for Christmas on our tree (not pictured)


Followed by brining our Lego Friend advent calendar (alternative-chocolate count down) and a note saying to let the count down begin!

They borrowed my phone, changed its ringtone to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and added all of the free Elf on the Shelf games. They were caught playing.

Then they set up an elf help desk One candy got the girls a question answered, 2 got them a wish! (although nothing was ever answered, we've decided the elves wanted to just get candy from us!)

 

The following day they decorated the tree with what else? the girls socks and underwear (and toilet paper, of course!)

 

 

Then they went fishing in our sink

 

The original elf taped the new elf to the glass window (mouth taped, of course)

 and is shooting nerf darts at him (he is of course, blindfolded!)

 

 

 

We went to Grandmas and the girls were worried that our Elves wouldn't know where we were. Amazingly enough they showed up on the ceiling fan as super heros

 

 

 

We went to bed late that night and forgot to leave our shoes out for Saint Nick. Luckily Jingles and Peppermint were there to help the girls out!

 

 

The Elves then decided to individually wrap the girls lunches in left over Christmas wrapping, complete with joke and bow. I took this picture before it all went into the bags. The elves left a note saying " Don't worry about your lunches, we've wrapped it up for you!" They were so surprised when they opened their bags!

 

 

 

 Jingles got Peppermint back by playing operation on him!

 

The were trapeze artists

 

 

 

We finally got around to making the sleeping bags out of the fabric grandma got our elves. We found them the next morning camped out under our tree.

 

They decided to be famous cereal icons.

 

 

 

 Then they captured the Grinch (which is funny because that is my nickname). The "cage" is from Costco- the girls chocolate Easter bunnies came in them. I tied it to my doorknob.

I went online, found a Grinch coloring page, shrank it down to size in paint, added holes and yarn and I was done :)



They decorated our bathroom- the only room in the house not decorated. We have battery operated Christmas lights that are usually on the girls backpacks around the elves and toilet.

I used puff paint to write on the mirror and toilet-I couldn't find my window markers and I am fighting off a cold so I'm just lucky I did this..

 

They were confused on the Holiday and hid Easter eggs around the house
 

They made a Christmas list

The girls have decided these are the things Santa is bringing- I think they will be a little sad when they find out that we didn't get the Frozen Castle- too flimsy :(


After watching the movie "Elf" with Will Farrell, Peppermint and Jingles thought his spaghetti sounded good and wanted to try some for themselves

The note says "Buddy was right, this stuff is good" (yes, I purposely misspell every now and then and then)

 

(ingredients: pasta, a little sauce, marshmallows, jelly beans, m&ms, pop tarts if you have them-we used oreos, chocolate syrup and of course syrup!)

 

 

 They decorated our fridge like a snowman- they are on top of the fridge, but because our fridge is against the wall in an apartment, it was hard to get it all in.


Our friends made our elves some mittens, scarves and vests. So naturally our elves had to strut their stuff down the run way with the Barbies and Monster High dolls and other toys watching.


This is where I almost lost the game. Since my oldest doesn't always fall asleep before me (sad, but true) I don't move them until I get up (about 4-5am) and so they were still in her room when she went looking. I kinda convinced her that maybe they were playing a trick on us.

Here they are in the fridge building a snowman out of two cuties. I printed off an Olaf from "Frozen" because we love love loved that movie. The girls go around singing their songs all day :) Anyway I made a note saying "Do you want to build a snowman?"

The girls painted their noses with food coloring



They began drawing pictures of each other




And they are saying goodbye. Reminding us to leave cookies for Santa




 

We got an Elf on the Shelf

Alrighty, at first I must admit I did no want one of these "creepy little elves" in my house. I didn't get the point in them.. I assumed it was to keep an eye on your kids so that they knew Santa was watching (which is actually true). So I bought a different elf at Safeway and called it our Elf on the Shelf and named her Tinsel. It wasn't until I came across them on pintrest that I decided I had to have one. The things people do with these dolls are hilarious. We bought ours over a month ago with survey points I earn so it cost me nothing but time. The reason he is in different spots is because every night he flies back to the North Pole to tell Santa what he saw that day. You don't have to even do silly things with the elf. All he has to do is move spots. Someone just got creative and decided to.

Now there are a lot of people out there who do not do them. I've even seen a blogger bad mouth the parents who do. I feel like that is taking it a little far. If you don't want to do them, that's fine but don't be rude to people who want to. Not doing an elf doesn't make you a bad parent- teaching your child to put others down for wanting to does.

Today, November 24th, We got our elf on the shelf. We decided he shows up right after we decorate the tree. His name is Peppermint, or just Pepper for short. I liked Lenny or Chester- but they were nixed.

Day two:
Taking a nap

 

 Day Three:
Turns the Milk green

We decided he was going to start off doing harmless things and then as the days progress he was going to get more entertaining.

 Day four:
Riding in a sleigh with Mickey and Minnie

Day five:
Cotton ball bath

The lighting in my bathroom is terrible, but here is Peppermint taking a cotton ball bath. You can use marshmallows and your sink. But I only have one bathroom so I can't be too extreme

Day six:
Convinces other toys to play board game
http://elfontheshelfideas.com/

Day seven:
Makes a flour angel on counter

 I didn't go crazy on the flour because I was going to have to clean it up.  Plus I didn't want to waste the flour. An alternative to that is putting the flour in a 9x13 pan


Day Eight:
Roast Marshmallows on a candle

To roast the marshmallow, I stuck it underneath a lighter for a few minutes


Day Nine:
 Hides in a Jewelry box.

Now I would have loved to have done what the original blogger did, but that is extremely hard to do in the dark while your kids are sleeping. This was the closets I could get. Also I just found out through this blogger that they have added wire into their elf's body. See instructions here


Day Ten:
Packs the kids their lunches with random items in the cupboards/house
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023934586/

Peppermint really thought about what the girls might need to eat when they got to school: Sugar, condensed milk, lime juice, an onion, and soup still in a can. To get him to sit I taped his butt down... after he fell off the candle a few times I was determined to keep him where is is.

Day Twelve:
Replaces all photos in the house with ones of himself
(http://www.hollyatnaptime.com/2011/12/funny-creative-elf-on-shelf-ideas.html)

Thankfully when I moved we did not unpack all of our photos or I would have been there all night!!


Day Thirteen:
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023969161/edit/
Elf is playing Santa

I took a cotton ball and small double sided sticky tape to his face to get it to stay. A few days beforehand I hid the dogs under their bed (where they usually are, but closer to where I needed them). We got the sleigh from a Lowes Build and Grow workshop that was promoting Dreamworks "Rise of the Guardian"

Day Eleven:
 Builds Snowman out of marshmallows

 

 I Used Wilton food color pens and spaghetti sticks to make the snow men.  This was by far the most annoying one ever. 1) Because the Marshmallow snowmen kept falling over and 2) I still have yet to doctor the elf to make him bend and stay.

Day Thirteen:
Elf Graffiti- He uses window markers to color all over the bathroom mirrors

 Alright this one kinda happened quicker than I was planning. With my allergies kicking in yesterday I was so tired I went to "rest my eyes" while I waited for Hannah the night owl to fall asleep. Next thing I know I'm waking up an hour and a half into my nap disoriented wondering what the elf was supposed to do (a down side of owning an elf is this moment).

Our graffiti didn't show up as nicely as the other moms who used dry erase markers...


Day Fourteen (open because I'm not home).
 I decided there was no way I was going to try to bring him to grandma's house and get caught.

Day Fifteen:
 Stays up all night watching T.V with Barbie

 

This was a little hard because I had to se it  up right before I left for the weekend. I managed to do it without the girls seeing.

Day Sixteen:
Zip-line Elf

 

This was super fun to do.  First I had to wait until the girls fell asleep last night (of course since they fell asleep in the car they were crazy napped kids who had more energy!). I would have tied it to my tree, but it is one of those fake ones (don't judge me) and it is on a motor. So when the lights turn on the tree spins slowly in a circle. Super awesome. Only problem would have been if I had put the zip line it would have pulled the string into it. So I had to put it on the binds instead.

Day Seventeen
Piggy Bank thief

 

 I made the bag out of tissues, stuffed it with cotton balls and tied it with some yarn. I taped the quarter into his hand. We used a scarf to make it look like that is how he climbed up to the piggy bank. Then at the last minute I decided Aurora needed to be the getaway driver.

Day Eighteen:
He replaced all the stockings with the girls underwear.

Day Nineteen:
Photo Booth with Aurora and Barbies

he backdrop is a flat present I had wrapped.

To make the props you have to go to the original bloggers page and print them out. Getting all the dolls to pose was a very frustrating task. But we got it!

After taking these photos I had to switch the dolls positions because he was eying Rapunzel and the girls would make a comment about him liking Aurora.

Day Twenty:
Builds Fort out of popcorn box

Twenty-one:
Wraps girls door in crepe paper

Twenty-two
Uses Husbands razor

Twenty-three
Elf has a sick day. I thought it was only funny because both girls over the weekend were sick.

Twenty-four
T.P's the Christmas tree

Twenty-five
He reads a nice Christmas story (My favorite!) to some stuffed animals

Twenty-six
Stuck inside the M&M's

Twenty-six:
Potty Humor

Twenty-seven
 Hiding in the candy bowl

Twenty-eight:
Lego Men capture elf
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023438380/
http://www.hollyatnaptime.com/2011/12/funny-creative-elf-on-shelf-ideas.html

I accidentally deleted the main photo of this one off my camera. This is the best I've got- right after this my daughter mentioned her cousin touched the elf and we went into "Emergency Elf Kit" gear.

Twenty-nine:
I can't believe I missed the picture of this. He was sitting on our advent calender and there was a note saying : Santa's coming tonight!


OTHER IDEAS: These are ones I was going to use but eventually were nixed for whatever reason:

1) Elf colors in coloring book or makes a self portrait
2)Does "YMCA" with Barbies
3) Sets up dominos
4) Makes a Good Morning cup of Hot Cocoa
5) Makes mini pancakes for the kids
6)Spells out a message in cereal or candy
7)Builds a real snow man out of shaved ice in your freezer
8) Super Elf
9) Weight lifting elf

Other Pages to visit for more ideas:
http://www.hollyatnaptime.com/2011/12/funny-creative-elf-on-shelf-ideas.html
livinglocurto.com
http://familylifeisgreat.blogspot.com/2011/12/misadventures-of-jingle-bob-elf.html
mikeandbrittanyericksen.blogspot.ca
dirtydiaperlaundry.com