Daizy Goodelf's Elfish Adventures

The last few Christmases I had seen these little elves getting into mischief and
pulling random shenanigans throughout the holiday season. I looked at getting my girls their own elf last Christmas (2011) but was shocked into a money coma when I saw how much "Santa" charged for one of his elves to visit. $30ish was just a little more than I cared to spend on a felt elf and a book. So we had no visiting elf then.

Then the 2012 Christmas season rolled around and those little elves started their craziness all over again. My oldest, S, started asking why Santa hadn't sent an elf to our house....all her friends had an elf, so why didn't we? And of course Elf ideas were popping up left and right on my pinterest feed... So I started looking at adopting an elf again. The price was still the same, but I had received some Amazon money from a friend for my birthday so I decided to splurge that gift money on my babies. I was slightly worried though because I didn't "send the adoption papers in" until the first week of December! I had missed a lot of mischief days...but then she arrived! On December 13, our very own Daizy Goodelf arrived. Middle girl, I, was so excited and insisted that we must take her with us to pick up S from school. My middle daughter, I, came up with her name and surprisingly was met with zero argument from S. We read the story and the girls were anxious to see where she would be found the next morning.

 Even though we had a shorter time with Daizy than other families may have had with their elves this year, we still had tons of fun finding her and witnessing the silly little pranks she pulled. I think that I may have had just as much fun plotting and planning said pranks as the girls did finding her each morning. She even showed up in our hotel room during our weekend trip to see my grandmother! The girls were super surprised to find her hanging from the shower curtain in the bathroom of our hotel room.

Here is a list of places Daizy was found and tricks she pulled.

1. Hanging from S's school carpool pick up number 
2. Reading stuffed animals and toys a Christmas book around the Christmas tree
3. She replaced our stockings with our underwear and hid the stockings around the house (She even hung a *clean* diaper in place of baby A's stocking!!)
4.  She asked for some privacy in the shower at the hotel
5. Playing guitar and using the General's amp!
6. Making snow angels in the flour we had used when we made sugar cookies....and she even nibbled a cookie!!
7. SHe drew faces on the girls pictures with a dry erase marker
8. Sipping syrup through a crazy straw!
9. She was found playing with the Lite Brite
10. Ooops! Stuck in the garland on the banister
11. Tea party with Barbie!!
12. Her last night before Santa took her back to the North Pole, Daizy got into the presents under the tree and brought an extra gift for I and A (S was at her dad's house for Christmas at this time). Girl I ripped into the gift to discover it was the book, "The Night Before Christmas" !! We read it multiple times that day in preparation of Santa's arrival.

 

 We definitely had fun with Daizy and we were all sad to say Goodbye. But at least we know she'll be back next Christmas season and we'll have longer to play next year now that she's figured out where we live. The moral of my story??? If you aren't adopting an elf because of the cost, then get over it. Daizy more than paid for herself in just the short time she was here. I have priceless memories of my precious girls waking up to the wonder and magic of a Christmas elf that I will treasure forever. The Elf on the Shelf is definitely worth it....so go buy one if you don't already have one...maybe you can catch an "adoption" sale!

 If you aren't already, be sure to follow me on Pinterest and also be sure to check out my Facebook page as well.... You can find me at The Pinspired Mom.... Until next time!!

My New Year's Resolution (well...one of them anyway)

Well I have a few resolutions this year, but I am going to start this one a few days early. I am bound and determined to get my house on a set cleaning schedule so that I can spend as much time with my precious daughters as I can. Cleaning and organizing are sadly a necessary evil in the world of a stay at home mom, but the least amount of time I can spend doing them, the better. I found what looks to be a great schedule that I can start with on, where else? Pinterest of course!

 

It seems as though this will allow me to spend optimum time with my babies while still getting the cleaning done. I especially like Monday's chore because it will go super fast since I got a new Dyson Digital Vacuum for my birthday. 

(I love it!!! Its so easy to use and its super light!)  

  The only thing I can see that this schedule has left out is....dun dun dun!!! Laundry. Yuck. And sadly that seems to be almost a daily chore anymore at my house. I actually don't mind the washing and the drying, its the folding and putting away that gets me.

 

BUT! Alas! I will press on (not literally...this Momma doesn't iron. Remember I do good to get things folded and put away straight out of the dryer lol) and get my laundry and my housework done. Hopefully in a much quicker manner than in the past. 

Do you have any tricks to make housework easier, faster, more fun? Something to make it better than it is in its natural state? I have several tricks for cleaning on my pinterest  Cleaning Tips Board

Well, I suppose that this cleaning business will only happen if I get off the computer for a little while and actually do it.  Until next time...

'Tis the Season...

for not knowing what the heck I'm going to buy for everyone!! I seriously I'm even at a loss as to what I should get for my 7 year old daughter! Honestly, who can't think of gifts to get a seven year old?! Well...this mom. I have a few ideas, but some these ideas require way more cash than I really have to spend this year. And then when I do finally come up with some really good ideas within my budget, other Christmas expenses pop up. Like Christmas cards, or new Christmas lights, food and ingredients for Christmas dinner and goodies, and so on. Seriously, why does Christmas have to be so darn expensive? But I digress...what am I going to get for my kids and husband?

So I have my husband who will literally just go out and buy whatever he decides he wants whenever he decides he wants it. And yes that means at Christmas time or his birthday. Its awful when it comes time to shop for him. Luckily I think I have found something relatively cheap enough to fit my budget but that doesn't suck. And mind you, my husband is really bad about selling the stuff I buy him (he does at least wait a few months, but still...) But I'm pretty sure he'll like what I'm getting this year.

 Luckily its slightly easier for my girls to get a gift for the General this year. I decided that rather than buying everyone "toys" all the kids are buying books for the rest of the family. And my oldest, S, was able to find books for A and I and the General at the Dollar Tree and ended up only spending $3 !! Great deal if I do say so myself!

As for gifts for all three girls I am trying to follow this rubric...

Three gifts each from Mom and Dad (represents the gifts from the 3 wise men) and four smaller gifts from Santa- 

Something to play with 

Something to wear 

Something to read 

and Something to share. 

I will be consulting my Gifts Board for many of my Santa gifts as well as for teacher gifts. Does this Christmas season have you pinspiring to get your shopping done?

Naughty or Nice?

Yesterday I posted about our activity advent calendar that we have been doing. Its great! We have done some fun things this past week including make paper snowflakes, paper chains, watched Christmas movies, cleaned out old toys, and written letters to Santa. Today we are going to head out to pick out a toy for a needy child in our area. Fun stuff right? Well my girls think so, which is why I have discovered that this advent calendar has a dual purpose! DISCIPLINE!!

Let me tell you, my girls are great. I love them to pieces. But they hold onto the stereotype that siblings have to fight with each other. Especially as of late. Its been driving me nuts! The screaming at one another was getting unbearable and I could feel the grey hair infiltrating my 26 year old scalp. So, I told them that they would get one warning when they started fighting and if it continued after that, they would lose an advent activity. I don't care who started it or what the fight was about. The fighting needs to stop. So far, I have taken 2 activities from them. I chose at random which activities would go. I didn't even realize which ones I was taking out, until I unrolled them and read them. The girls still don't know which activities they will be missing out on. (Maybe I should tell them to make the punishment really stick? I don't know....) They have the chance to earn them back, assuming they can show me that they have learned how to get along with each other. The fights have definitely slowed down in frequency so this method seems to be working. I have also mentioned to them that Santa is not pleased to see them losing activities and that he told me that if they lose 5 activities before Christmas that he may have to reconsider their place on the nice list. This really got their attention. I'm hoping it works.

What about after Christmas, you ask? Well, if they start back up with the fighting then I'll just have to look at my discipline/behavior board for some more Pinspiration :)

Christmas Pinspiration

Ok, so I have always been kind of crafty, but when I was introduced to Pinterest (and I mean really introduced....to-the-point-of-sitting-there-browsing-every-category-for-an-entire-day-introduced) it was like my understanding of crafty got blown to smithereens. I now consult Pinterest pretty much daily in search of neat crafts or fun activities for my kids or recipes or exercises or home decor or photo ideas or funny quotes or....well you get the idea. It just amazes me the types of things that people have thought of, created, tried, washed, rinsed, and repeated, and I, in hopes of being the best mom I can, have decided that I can benefit from other people's varying degrees of genius.

So now you know a little bit about my Pinterest interest (haha, I crack myself up!). I supposed you might like to know a little bit about me. I am 25...well I guess I could just go ahead and say I'm 26 since my birthday is in 3 days. I have a most of the time wonderful husband, but in all fairness I am also only a most of the time wonderful wife. His name is Matt, but I think for the most part of this blog I will let him be known as General (a nickname he would like to have stick, but hasn't yet lol) No- he's not a general in the military...he earned his General Field Professional ranking with Halliburton and if people call him General then he would have the name of a famous car... you figure it out. All kidding aside he really is pretty wonderful. I also have the 3 most beautiful daughters IN THE WORLD. I'm not kidding when I say this either. I'm sorry to say, that while you other moms may have pretty or beautiful or gorgeous daughters, they just aren't as stunningly beautiful as my girls. I don't mean to burst your bubble or sound mean, I'm just stating a fact. While some of you may know me and know my gorgeous daughter's names, those of you who don't know me will only know my children by their initials :) Sorry...I'm one of those protective mommas. My oldest, S is 7, I is 3, and baby A is just that a baby...like a brand new baby. As of this post baby A is 2 1/2 weeks old. See? I wasn't lying. She's tiny. And I love her! I love all my girls :)

Now, what have I pinned and tried lately? Well, my girls are enjoying the Advent Calendar I created for them to count down the days to Christmas. I took a few ideas from Pinterest and made them my own. I always loved advent calendars when I was little, and I still do. My favorite is of course the kind with candy under each date. But, I don't know how to make those, and it never fails that when I go in search of something specific like that at the store, I can't ever find what I'm looking for. So, I made one for my girls. I had a felt snowman countdown wall hanger that I had gotten a few years ago in the $1 spot at Target. Its pretty basic and you're supposed to move the attached candy cane each day to count down until Christmas. To me, this was boring. Soooooo.....I looked at Pinterest in hopes of finding a way to make it more exciting. I found this:

I thought this was a great idea! Instead of chocolate or a cartoon picture each day, my girls could DO something to get in the Christmas spirit. I used some of these, some I thought of on my own, and some from other Pinterest posts. I wrote one activity on a Christmas tag, rolled them up and put one in each of the date pockets of my $1 Christmas countdown. So now each morning, I and S take turns reading what their activity of the day will be. They really seem to be enjoying each activity, which helped spark a whole new Christmas discipline plan. (I'll explain that in my next blog post). Here is the list of activities that I included in our Christmas countdown.

1. Watch a family Christmas movie (ABC Family's 25 days of Christmas provided us with "Elf" this year)

2. Go through old toys and make a donation to Goodwill

3. Make paper snowflakes (the only snow we'll see living in Texas!)

4. Make a paper chain to decorate their rooms

5. Wrap Christmas gifts

6. Write letters to Santa

7. Buy a gift for a child in need

8. Make an ornament

9. Scavenger hunt for a Christmas toy (Dollar Tree- here I come!)

10. Make and send Christmas cards to a recovering soldier

11. Have hot cocoa and watch a Christmas movie in our PJs

12. Decorate a gingerbread man (so much easier than a gingerbread house)

13. Go see Santa

14. Drive around and look at Christmas lights

15. Write a Christmas story

16. Sing/Listen to Christmas songs

17. Read a Christmas book

18. Make reindeer horns/elf ears then take silly pictures

19. Make Christmas cookies

20. Have candy canes and read the story of the Candy Cane

21. Make a Christmas card garland, using past family cards

22. Have a Santa Suds bath

23. Have hot cocoa and watch a Christmas movie in our PJs (repeats are totally ok!)

24. Read the story of Baby Jesus

Now, I may know what each date is, but my kids don't, so they're still surprised. But I need to know in an effort to make sure I have all of the necessary materials they might need for that day's activity. The best part about this list is that its really pretty inexpensive and most things can be down with items you do already have at home!

This is how the final project turned out. I have it hung so that both of my big girls can reach it and they take turns pulling out the day's activity each morning. 

If you have any other ideas for activities that I might be able to use next year or that other readers might enjoy feel free to leave a comment on this post! And just because its December 6, doesn't mean that you can't start doing some of these now! Many of these are fun for everyone so do something and be Pinspired!