The other day I was about to do a post on Loady and his latest adventures, but I first logged into facebook to check out what was going on. One of my friends posted this link: http://peopleiwanttopunchinthethroat.blogspot.com/2011/12/over-achieving-elf-on-shelf-mommies.html <—People I want to punch in the throat – Over-achieving elf-on-the-shelf mommies

 

I read it, and after I stopped hysterically laughing, I realized that I might be in danger of getting punched in the throat. Yes, I do some crazy stuff with our elf, but I don’t make giant messes for myself to clean up, that’s for sure. AND…while I started off strong, I did a trick one night that the boys didn’t get…and didn’t appreciate, so the next day I gave Loady the day off and then he sat in the playroom for a week…and no one questioned it. So see…I’m only crazy like once or twice every 2 weeks! ;)

Here is the trick I did that the boys didn’t like so much (and said things like, “that’s it? no candy? he doesn’t have a job for us to do?” (eye roll). See…Loady replaced all the pictures at the top of the stairs with pictures of himself. They are still there because I haven’t gotten around to taking them out yet.

So then we gave him the day off

 

Loady isn’t our only elf…one day, Brady and Aiden played mommy’s little elves. That was a good day! They helped me stamp the Christmas cards….

 

…and make 6 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange!

 

 

This is just a cute picture of Brady thrown in for fun. This is him sleeping the birthday hat they gave him at school. He wore that hat for like 2 days straight!

Ok…so back to the elf. One night last week, the boys watched Home Alone 3. They were on the couch with Brian while I was doing stuff in the kitchen. I have never heard them belly laugh so much as when they watch those movies! Every time they see one, they want to start setting traps and doing crazy stuff. So…I was inspired and Loady came out of the playroom…and made himself a zip line from the top of the stairs down to the fireplace. Someone (me) had the idea to tape a long tinker toy stick to his hands and someone else (not me) had the idea to use a carabineer so Loady could go down the zip line all day long…and he did

I was actually sitting down to document Loady’s zip line adventure when Brady appeared in the office and asked me to dictate a letter to Santa. He’s got some crazy stuff on his list (like a golf club that hits 11 balls at a time…no, 100 at a time)!

Yesterday morning, Loady was out again and had jobs for the boys to do. Logan was allowed to dress up for the last day of school before break (they actually had a theme every day like jingle jeans – wear bells on your jeans, pj day and wear your favorite holiday colors day. The last day was pretty much anything goes)

 

I bought a small string of battery-powered lights to wrap on Logan. we ended up with them on his hat, but he had no pockets so we tapped the battery back to the waist of his PJs. It didn’t last long. He took them off, according to his teacher, during calendar…which I think is almost the first thing they do every morning. I worked his class party at 2…the lights were in his bag and not even working anymore. They were terribly shoddy and fell apart even before I got him out the door. Thought that counts I guess. Under his santa hat, his hair was 1/2 red and 1/2 green (thank you left over spray from Brady’s party)

This morning Loady was just sitting up in the highest living room window….chilling out. He climbed up there last night I think…around 1….when Brian and I got back from a fun dinner downtown with friends.

Thought this was funny. Santa Logan does his reading homework ;)

Brady had his 4th birthday party at our house last, last weekend on Saturday, December 3rd. He first wanted a dog party, then a spy party, then a spy-dog party then a rock star party…which had the specification of “rock star dance party”. I stopped him at rock star and went to work!! Per usual, I had several activities set up and divided the group of kids into smaller groups to go through all the different stuff. Brian and I had a hard time throughout the party planning really narrowing the whole concept down. Rock star sounds like…you know, rock stars who sing and play music…but there was the whole “dance party” element that was specifically requested. We ended with this:

Each group of kids was going to form a band. First, we planned to use the Lego Rock Band name generator to help them pick a band name (most of them used that name…the big girls made up their own). Then, they would make groupies (pet “rock stars”), go through hair and make up, make tour posters, and then have a dress rehearsal, all earning their way to perform in a concert. After the concerts, there would be an “after party” in the basement – all dancing!

When the kids arrived, they all made a necklace with 4 guitar pics on it. I made the pics from plastic cards and this super cool “pic punch” I got through uncommongoods.com (it was going to be a gift for Brian for Christmas….so he got it a little early). The story on WHY we did the guitar pic necklaces is as convoluted as our entire party planning process….but I turned it into a fun way for the groups to “earn” their concert. Each time they went through one of the 4 activities, they got an “X” in permanent marker on the back of one of the pics. Oh and by the way, I got obsessed before the party collecting gift cards. Target has such cute ones, but you can’t just take them, and the minimum you can put on each one is $5. One day, I went in and put $5 on each of about 20 cards, grabbed some gifts for 2 upcoming birthday parties, groceries…whatever I needed…and then paid for everything with the gift cards. I thought for sure the people at Target would think I was a crazy lady…but no one even batted an eye!!

After the activities, photo sessions with Brian, concert performances and dancing in the basement (which I set up to be “Club 554”), everyone had cupcakes and watched Brady open his gifts. I think everyone had a really fun time…and really colorful hair for at least the rest of that day…maybe the next :)

 

My cupcakes

Red velvet with black icing & red sprinkles. All the stars and decorations are made out of that moldable chocolate.

Here, the big girls work on their pet rock starts (aka: Groupies)

I actually had all these rocks in a bag from a flower thing that I used to have in our downtown Condo…6 years ago! I cut stars out of heavy glitter paper, bought some pom-poms, googly eyes and glitter pens. My friend Jen ran the pet rock star station.

Here is a picture of our friend Connor after he got out of hair and makeup (run by Susan)

These are the left over (left over!!) guitar pics that I made….most of the cute ones were taken before this picture. I thought I would only get 2 pics out of each card, but ended up getting up to 5….so that’s why I have so many left over (anyone need a pic?!)

The big boys, all decked out after hair and makeup doing their craft

A glimpse into the hair and makeup room (the bathroom that runs between the playroom and the boys’ room)

Dress rehersal! We had each group chose a song on Lego Rock Band. My friend Heather then helped them dance around, sing and “practice” before the big show to their song.

Here is Anna and the little boys making their tour poster. I had her leave a paper-sized blank spot at the bottom of each poster for later….

Band pics!! Here are: The Rockin’ Meap Girls

The Snakes!

Exploding Desks!

Front man for the King of Letters, Jackson

…and his crazy hair!

Best album cover picture ever – King of Letters!

Each group had a turn playing “real” instruments for their Lego Rockband song. Everyone else stood up on the balcony and watched / cheered them on

Well, Aiden didn’t stand in the viewing zone…I guess he chose to sit in the action and double-fist mini bagel dogs

Ella and Sarah rock it out to Mylie Cyrus

The Snakes chose Free Falling by Tom Petty. I don’t have pics, but the Exploding Desks did Kung Fu Fighting and King of Letters did the theme from Ghost Busters

 

Time for the dance portion of our party! While the kids were doing the “concert”, I lined the walls down the basement stairs with their tour posters, complete with group pictures I printed off real quick and taped on.

 

Rocking out in Club 554. It’s hard to see, but off to the left of this picture is the banner I made that says “CLUB 554”. I  taped up 2 plastic table cloths (dollar store, thank you) and then sprayed the letters on in black spray paint (that I had laying around the house).

Brady really, really wanted a globe for his birthday! I put it on his list and our friends got it for him (Farm and Fleet $18 – not bad!)

> Eating at our new favorite fast food place, Naf Naf Grill...yummy pitas, hummus and other Mediterranean delights :)
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Logan has recently undergone a slew of missing teeth. They are literally falling out of his mouth left and right! His smile is currently quite the site!

 

The scratches under his eye are courtesy of Aiden and…apparently mom, who hasn’t trimmed Aiden’s nails in a while. Typical wrestling match gone wrong. Check out all those  blanks in Logan’s mouth!!

 

 

oh and p.s. did I tell the one about how Logan lost his tooth last week while brushing? It went right down the drain! Here is what I posted on facebook:

“While brushing his teeth tonight, Logan literally lost a tooth down the drain. It was an epic melt down that ended in a note asking the tooth fairy to find the tooth and put it under his pillow. I guess it's good I actually saved the other, exact same bottom tooth, that he already lost. Who knew gross mom habits would pay off. Now I worry he'll believe in the tooth fairy until he's like 20 after he finds it under his pillow in the morning.”

and an update: the tooth fairy “returned” the missing tooth. It was placed under Logan’s pillow Friday night and he got some $$ the next morning.  Another tooth was lost Saturday at Memaw and Grandpa’s house when cousin Jack accidentally kicked a ball in Logan’s face. Logan called me, en route to Brian’s company Xmas party downtown, to let me know the news. I was very happy given that the lost tooth was an upper one that was starting to look nasty…all sticking out and lopsided. Logan told me that after the pain subsided, he said to Jack, “good job!” Luckily the tooth fairy located Logan and his tooth at Memaw and Grandpa’s house!!

Several years ago, Memaw bought the boys an elf that is supposed to come and visit them during the holidays, do goofy things, leave them treats and generally make me stress out about coming up with clever ideas for 25 straight days. :) This year, the whole Elf-on-the-shelf thing has exploded. All the kids in the neighborhood have one, plus there’s the movie that was just on TV. I actually hadn’t thought about bringing out our elf (his name is Loady…he isn’t a true “elf on the shelf” variety elf….he’s bigger and stuffed), but all the boys’ friends kept asking if our elf had arrived yet. I decided to wait until after Brady’s birthday party this past Saturday (post to come soon). I was excited because the “true” Elf-on-the-shelf has very specific rules:

* Every night the elf goes to the North Pole to let Santa know if you’ve been nice that day

* He comes back in the morning and hides in a new place

* You can talk to him and give him messages for Santa, but you can’t touch him

 

These rules seem not to incorporate stuff that I have to do and plan so it sounded totally do-able. That is….until I started telling the boys about the elf who was on his way here. Logan freaked out. Like literally, I was sitting in the office below their bedroom on Saturday night when I heard him crying. When I went to see what was going on, I found him sitting up in bed sobbing. He told me that he doesn’t want an elf…that it creeps him out that he’ll be “watched” and could I please, please call Santa and ask him to not send us an elf. Oh my poor baby! I ended up having a little talk with him about how we didn’t have to get an elf who watches them…and how it’s a fun thing that mommies and daddies do. I told him about Loady who had been to our house in years past (not last year though so Logan didn’t remember him). Per his request, I went and found our elf, showed him that it was a stuffed toy and explained how I would “help” him do fun things for the boys. Logan said that would be ok…that it would be fun…and that he would allow it <—ok…not verbatim, but basically, he felt better and now I have an elf with no rules like “don’t touch” and “he just sits on a shelf”. Off I went, straight to www.pinterest.com for some ideas!!

 

Day 1: Location, downstairs bathroom sink. Loady’s note to the boys

Logan, Aiden and Brady: Hi! My name is Loady! I’m here to have fun with you until Christmas. Santa already knows what wonderful, kind, sweet and honest (ah-hem) boys you are so I wasn’t sent to watch you. Special boys like you get an elf who will just help make your lives fun for a while (note: see how I’m trying to talk up good behavior without actually saying that this guy is a Santa spy?) I hope you guys don’t mind, but I thought I would make myself at home. At the north pole, I don’t get much time off from toy making. I found these delicious “bubbles” in your cabinet and decided to have a bath.

 

I actually turned off the water to this sink on the off chance that someone turned it on without realizing that there was an elf in there.

 

Day 1 update: all the “bubbles” were eaten. And…since we don’t have the “no touch” rule…I literally lost the elf by the end of the day. I couldn’t find him anywhere!! Brian and I scoured the house. I knew Logan wasn’t asleep yet so I went upstairs last night to ask him if he knew where our elf was. Turns out they were playing hide and seek with him! Seriously?! He told me to look behind the big pillow on the chair in the front living room. That’s where he was! Sheesh.

Day 2 location – behind a bunch of flowers Brian brought me for my birthday last week. Loady’s note to the boys:

Logan, Aiden and Brady: Good morning! Last night I was missing home where everything is elf-sized. My favorite morning treat is donuts. the ones in your world are too big for me. I made some small ones I thought you might enjoy :) Happy Birthday Brady…hope you love the donuts – Loady

Another idea from pinterest. The original idea is to cover cheerios to look like donuts and put them in a match box. We happen to have some fruit loops (snuck into the shopping cart by Aiden last week). I covered one small batch in powdered sugar. For a second batch, I used a mini grater to made some chocolate dust out of a block of chocolate we have laying around. Finally, I melted some of that same chocolate and used sprinkles on a third batch. I made the box with my cricut. Logan doesn’t know it, but he got 2 more of each variety in his lunch as a treat today as well.

And now I have to come up with tomorrow’s idea. I think Loady is about to become mischievous! I’ve seen funny things like replacing the stockings on the mantle with a pair of underwear from each person’s drawer. One elf tee-peed the Xmas tree…another elf replaced all the pictures in the house with pictures of himself…thank goodness there are mega-creative people out there posting ideas I can use!!!! :)