Elf on the Shelf

Last year I saw a cute little red elf at Jenny's house. She said it was "just a little thing we do with the kids." I had no idea it was a thing, thing. Elf on the Shelf is a cute little tradition we have now started. Santa sends an elf to your house. Each night your elf will fly back to the North Pole to let Santa know if the children have been nice or naughty. When the elf comes back sometimes mischief is to be had other times fun. Thanks to Pinterest I was able to see lots of mischief other elves have made in their homes.


Our elf wasn't able to join us until December 3. As soon as we finished reading the book that the elf brings we named our elf Manny and determined our elf is a she! 


Our first morning with Manny the children found her in the fridge with the milk. She had turned the milk green! Goldilocks said, "I love Manny so much. I want to make her a doll." And Little Bo Peep added that she wanted to make her a book. I had decided to make Manny a skirt because I really didn't want to order the official skirt and wait for it to arrive. We got to work and left her gifts under the tree. Little Bo Peep even left a note telling her about the gifts. That night I got to work hacking our elf. I found a tutorial by Kim on making elves bendable and grippy and added her feminine touches. I'm still trying to find the perfect earrings for her.


The next morning we found Manny sitting on top of the Christmas tree. 

And she had found her gifts!

She even posed for me with her new gifts.

"We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup." ~Buddy

Who has two thumbs and needs to clean the top of her fridge?! This girl!

Manny must have used all her magic to move all the couches around the tree and gather everyone for a Christmas tree gazing powwow.

Silly elf turned our Advent tree upside down!

During rest time Manny played a little hide and seek in the glass cupboard.

Manny got into the ice cream and ate ALL of it and left a mess behind! Crazy elf.

I'm not sure who laughed harder over the graffiti. Our house has entered the bathroom word phase. Poopy, butt, pee-pee, stinky, etc. have all been banished to the bathroom. It didn't take long before Little Bo Peep realized she could just stand in the bathroom and say these words over and over, but it has eliminated a lot of the obnoxious talking. However Manny did not keep the written words in the bathroom, she added a speech bubble to the girls' picture, "stinky poopy butt" and added a nice fart to Little Bo Peep too! Brad and I laughed hysterically when we doodled on the frames we found Manny's doodles. And the children got a good chuckle the next morning!

Manny brought doughnuts for breakfast and even made some for herself! She must have found the recipe in the Tiny Treats book.

 I think Manny misses the snow at the North Pole and had to make a snowman one way or another. 

 We are looking forward to the other fun mischief Manny will get into over the next two weeks!