I realize this has absolutely nothing to do with baking.. but I've had a bunch of people interested in what I've been doing with our boys elves that I figured it wouldn't hurt to share. Don't worry.. I'll leave you with a pic of my most recent cookies before the end of this post. I can't go the ENTIRE time without talking about cookies :)
Ok back to the elves. The boys ended up getting an elf for Christmas two years ago. I thought it was the creepiest thing in the world and they had no idea what it actually meant so he stayed in the box that year. Last year we took him out, they named him Peanie Cup and he sat on the shelf.
In the same spot.
The entire time.
Now if any of you know anything about Elf on the Shelf this is a HUGE no-no. The elf is supposed to be their own personal scout elf who flies back to the north pole every night (EVERY NIGHT!!) and tells Santa if you were good or bad. It is the best and worst idea ever. It keeps the kids somewhat in line and gives me an awesome one liner that gets them to straighten up very quickly.. BUT it also makes you work every night trying to find a new interesting place to put the damn things. I figured if I was going to do this I was doing it right.
I ran out to Target and grabbed another Elf so both boys had their own scout elf. It just seemed rude to have one for both. I know.. it makes no sense. Whatever, it's how I work.
The second was named popcorn and so began the pure shenanigans of Peanie Cup and Popcorn. I didn't realize the first day what I was getting into..
See. Simple.
Then I started seeing other peoples posts with their elves doing crazy things and the ideas just started popping into my head. I had one idea I knew they would absolutely love so I had to do it.
We get the boys the Hess toy every year so I figured what a better way to surprise them with the Hess helicopter AND tackle one night of elf mayhem.
Little did I know I would be contemplating what to do with these damn elves ALL day. I think about what I could do for about half the day. I have so many thoughts on what I want to do I end up staying up until 2am thinking of ideas, gathering everything I need and actually executing what I'm thinking in my head. It's ridiculous and you probably think I'm crazy but getting up with them in the morning and seeing them run out immediately looking for where they could be and getting SO excited when they finally do find them.. it makes it totally worth it.
The 3rd day was easy... I had seen so many people have their elf toilet paper the christmas tree and made it look adorable. I had to try :) Nothing major. The only thing I did was made sure there was some popcorn by Popcorn so the boys could understand who was who.. actually that was totally for me.
Somehow my children at 4 can tell the identical elves apart no matter what I do to them. They tell ME which elf is which and correct me when I'm wrong. It's ridiculous.
Anyway..
4th day.. I realized after setting up the whole banister sliding scene my kids would NEVER find them. We have stairs that come from the front door straight up into the apartment. They aren't allowed over there unless we are leaving or the gate is up and they hear daddy coming home.. they like to run and say hi.
So I realized I'm an idiot.. 30 minutes of trying to get everything exactly how I wanted and they would never find it since we had no plans of going out that day. This is where the little foot prints and pb cup wrappers came in. Who knew this would be the part that my one son loved the most. He still talks about the foot prints and it's almost two weeks later. (wow.. have I REALLY been doing this for two weeks??)
Mustaches make everything better.
6th day.. another typical elf situation. They drew on the boys pictures.
I'm sticking with my previous comment. Mustaches make everything better.
I knew I wanted to do something with football and the boys love the little fiki football field I got them. When I had the one propped up on the goal post I just looked at the other and realized these elves were PERFECT for the "Tebow Time" pose. With a ridiculous amount of tape and extreme patience I LOVED the end result.
Day 8 Popcorn made the boys pb & chocolate chip cookies for being so good the day before while Peanie Cup tested all the chips. I did NOT go crazy with the flour and mess like most people do. I want this to be fun. Not an actual chore for me.
Spending an hour cleaning up a mess of flour and sugar everywhere is not fun OR amusing. For anyone.
Toilet bowl fishing for day 9. They were so excited that one of the elves actually caught a goldfish.
Just make sure you either have two toilets or you are completely certain that you don't have to go after you set this up. No bueno.
I decided to do two ideas at once for day 10. If I was going to do the whole candy thing I wanted to make sure they both got to do something. If you decide to do the m&m saying most people stick with mini's or they just write be good. I had to be an overachiever. Sprinkles are SO much easier, less messy and more festive than flour or sugar.
Believe me.. save the time and annoyance of trying to clean that up.
I'm also going to add a little warning here.. if you are going to do this make sure you watch or clean up the area quickly or your children WILL steal more candy then you actually want them to take. 7 am and m&m's do NOT mix.
Movie night.. it's pretty much self explanatory. I have to add I do not like that they are in the yankee chair
(I'm a met fan.. yeah I know. Mets & Jets. No hope for me. I know and fully embrace it).
Oh and I also want to add that the little bowl they are using as a popcorn dish, that's actually an olive bowl. I love it. My friend brought it back from California for us. Pretty sure you don't care about that part but it's too late now.
Day 12.. donuts from the north pole. They even brought back little elf donuts for themselves.
Cheerios, frosting and sprinkles.. thank you pinterest.
Ok.. Day 13.
You can laugh at me, tell me I have too much time on my hands (which I really don't) or call me pathetic. I don't care. This is my FAVORITE elf situation so far and my boys completely agreed.
They were a little confused at first but after a double take they realized it was them in disguise and they thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I cut up wrapping paper and drew everything to make these little outfits. Thankfully the boys actually took a nap that day so I was able to make everything at that point.
I kind of wanted to leave them in the same spot until the next day but didn't feel like dealing with the aftermath of the boys thinking they didn't report back to Santa that night.
I could just picture the meltdown that would have happened if they didn't think their good behavior was reported back to the jolly fat man up at the north pole.
I was NOT prepared to deal with that whole thing. Off again to think of a new spot...
Day 14. This is where I am to date. I still have to make up tonights scene but I still don't know which idea I want to do. The sad thing is I will probably set up a few different situations before deciding on the final one. That happens about every third or fourth night. I'm taking this WAY too serious.
This was just tricky because I had to wait to steal the boys lightning mcqueen slippers after they went to bed. That gave me time to make the little roadway form felt and I threw in the little Rudolph characters to add a little Christmas touch.. Done!
I honestly still have no idea what I'm going to do tonight but hopefully it's nothing super time consuming. I still need to pick up the million cars all over the floor. I mistakenly let the boys go to bed without telling them to clean up first.
Awesome.
I'll have to remember to post at some point in the coming weeks all the other things I end up doing. For now I will leave you with a pic of some Christmas cookies I made recently and if you have any cute things you've done with your elf post it below.. I'd love to hear your ideas!!
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Thanks for reading!!
~E
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