Elf on the Shelf & other Christmas fun

Have you heard of Elf on the Shelf?  I think the basic idea is that Santa sends an elf to your house.  This elf does silly (and sometimes naughty) things at your house while you're sleeping, such as toilet-papering your tree or maybe making a "snow" angel in flour/sugar.  The elf also visits Santa at night to tell him if the kids are being good or not.  I just didn't really like that idea for a few reasons.  For one thing, some of the "elf ideas" would make a huge mess that I would just have to clean up later.  Second, I teach my kids not to tattle - but the elf gets to do that every night?  Plus, on top of tattling, the elf gets to be naughty without any consequences.  So, I tried to find a way to combine Santa & Christ with our elf.  Last year, he did a few silly things and we were supposed to help "teach" him to be a good elf.  This year, I thought I would combine our elf (Elvin) with the scripture advent calendar Heidi gave us last year.  Elvin visits Santa each night and Santa sends him back with a scripture and activity for us to do.  This way, we can have some fun but still keep the focus on Christ.  Elvin is always found in a new place and the kids do love looking for him.  I think I've got an even better idea for next year, but you'll just have to wait for that!

The first night when Elvin came back, Santa suggested we go see the lights, so we headed to Thanksgiving Point.  We had a few pairs of holographic glasses from last year, which make the lights look like little snowflakes.

Some activities our elf has suggested: make paper stars (after reading scriptures about the star that appeared with Jesus' birth), watch the First Presidency Christmas devotional, hug everyone in your family, write your testimony of Christ, wrap Christmas presents, donate mop & bucket to the ward for our ward project, and more.  Each activity comes with a related scripture :)

We also had the Andrews family Christmas party.  They played "what's that great-grandkid's name" which most of us failed, and bingo.  The night ended with everyone getting a candy cane from Grandpa & Grandma Ruth.

 Ruth isn't a huge fan of the dark.  As in, she tells me "I can't sleep, I'm scared of the dark..."  She already has a nightlight, but it doesn't cut it for her.  I bought a glass block and a strand of white Christmas lights from Hobby Lobby.  I sprayed the front and back with frosted glass paint and cut out a Minnie head out of vinyl.  Add a bow, and you have a Minnie night light.  Ruth loves it.

This is how my boys usually fall asleep.  Tristan will have a comic book open on his pillow and a lot of the time, he's hanging off the side of his bed.  Ben has gotten better about turning off his lamp and taking off his glasses, but he still forgets sometimes too.

Thanksgiving and more!

It looks like I've missed a week - I better get caught back up with recent happenings!

My sister is in Arizona for master's school and she's all alone... :(  We sent her a box full of sunshine to keep her happy and hopefully tide her over until Christmas break!

I'm not sure what happened, but all of a sudden Ben lost 4 teeth within a couple weeks.  Including his 2 front teeth, just in time for Christmas.  Now I'll have to teach him the song!  He's asleep and I don't have a nice closeup shot, so I guess you'll have to wait until next week for that :)

Tristan is SUPER into regular Monopoly right now.  It's the strangest thing - he really doesn't have to concept of saving some money just in case you land on my high priced property.  He just spends as soon as he can and trades properties to get full sets.  I think I have beat him once in all the times we've played!

Ruth has a big personality as always.  She took the lid for a game and wore it as a hat.  Didn't want to go to the store without it!  Who am I to say no to that? :)

Wednesday before Thanksgiving it was Free Zoo Day at the Hogle Zoo.  We did get to see quite a few animals, but we had to go in the afternoon, and Ruth deteriorated pretty quickly...  My sister Brooklynne was here on Thanksgiving break from Snow College, and my mom & younger siblings were also out of school, so we made a big trip of it.  We even had Bostyn!  She's at that stage where the most interesting thing is the monkey's butt.  LOL.  Brooklynne is the one in the picture.

This year, with my mom doing her student teaching, I put myself in charge of organizing the Thanksgiving feast.  I brined a turkey, but the most frustrating thing happened.  Despite having thawed for 3 days in my fridge plus one day in a cooler of brine, it apparently still had some frozen parts!  We didn't realize it until we went to carve it and found a completely raw section :(  We cut off the outer layer and put the rest back in the oven - which ended up making the rest of the meat tough and dry.  I think part of the problem was getting a 20 lb bird.  I just really wanted some leftovers!  I didn't take any food pictures or even group table pictures.  I don't think anyone did to be honest...

Thursday evening I went to Walmart with my mom and little brother Tanner to try and get a big Lego brick set.  The deal was quite good - about 3x the normal amount of Legos.  We finally made our way around the store to where they had about 20 of the sets and probably more than 20 people in line.  We thought we'd try our chances anyways and got in line.  It was about 5:50 and the deals were supposed to start at 6:00.  Tanner said he'd be right back and went to go look for something else.  Just after he left, an employee starting tearing off the plastic wrap on a pallet of toys next to us, and it was seriously pure chaos after that.  People figured it must be time, and they charged the Legos.  I ran up there and tried to get my hands on a red box of Legos, but as I reached in, the last 2 were grabbed.  They did have a couple of Duplo sets in green boxes but I really wasn't interested in those larger Legos.  I just kinda stood there, a little disappointed, and waited for my brother to come back.  The Lego line disappeared as they (I assume) dashed off to get other deals.  One guy walked down the aisle towards me and my mom with a cart full of 6-8 Lego boxes.  As he walked past, he handed me the red box I wanted.  I am still shocked that he did that!  I thanked him very much and now I've got an awesome set of bricks for the kids to create with!  It's just another one of those tender mercies to remind me that Heavenly Father knows not just what I need, but what I want too :)