The Adventures of Elffie

So we I totally bought into this whole Elf on a Shelf craze this year.  After much urging from several of my friends I figured we would give it a try.  I was pretty much desperate for anything that may help keep my kids in line even if for only a month.  I would love to say that it worked magically and my precious babies were complete and total angels for the entire month of December.  But this is the real world and not the one in my dreams so no such luck. 

It did however help and it was a nice tradition to start with them (I am very big into making traditions and then keeping up with them - shocker huh?).  The kids really looked forward to looking around the house to find where Elffie (the name they unamiously chose for our Elf - their creativety is impressive huh) was each morning after he returned from his nightly reporting-to-Santa-trip. 

Some evenings he was good and could be found in places such as the tree, a stocking, a shelf, etc.  But other evenings he decided to be mischeivious (a little something he picked up from our kids) and get into things such as my makeup, the fridge, the food and other antics. 


Santa delivered Elffie in a box left in the driveway which Daddy found when he came home from the grocery store.  The kids were so thrilled that he included a personalized note detailing what they had talked about when they met him at the mall.

His first night with us he was; well... on a shelf :)

Just hanging around (on the ceiling fan).

Elffie got into Mommy's makeup which is a big no-no around here.  Notice he drew cat whiskers on himself.

Oh No He Didn't! Yep he really did TP the family room - BAD Elffie!!

According to Payton his hanging with our family ornament means he cares for us.

Another naughty act - getting into the candy... 

Well this was nice - reading The Night Before Christmas. 

 Chillin' in the fridge (hahaha I made a funny).

This was really bad - he drew on our photos with a dry erase marker.  He was nice and didn't draw on Lilah Grace and put a halo on Mommy ;)

Oh and this got a good amount of laughs - he copied his little bum-bum.

"Snow" Angels

Playing Daddy's XBox

He couldn't resist a big bowl of Cheerios

He took Barbie for a spin complete with his arm around her.

He is all boxed up and ready for Santa to come get him to take him back to the North Pole.

Now I would love to tell you that each one of these was my own idea but we all know that would be false.  I did come up with some on my own but others were with the assistance of friends, Pinterest, and a couple great blogs :)  We look forward to Elffie coming back to stay with us next year but for now Santa needs his help at the North Pole.

No Tricks! Lots of Treats!

Wow - what a busy Halloween week we had.  It seemed like there was something fun to do every day.  This year we decided to get 6 pumpkins (one for each of us) but Jay was not thrilled about the thought of carving all of them so we decided to let the bigger kids paint three of them and then design what they wanted carved on the remaining three.  Jay decided to free hand as the kids dictated what they wanted and they came out great.

 

Then the carnivals began.  A friend invited us to join her and her children at their church fall carnival.  This place was HUGE and awesome!  An entire baseball field filled with inflatables, games, candy, costumes, prizes, and more candy!  The kids had a blast.

 Our church also had a fun carnival and of course the kids played all the games, jumped in the bouncy, and got lots more candy.

This was Lilah Grace's 1st Halloween so in our tradition she had to have an appropriate outfit.  Well she didn't just get ONE but rather TWO!

She also had two costumes (one was a hand-me-down that I couldn't resist using).  They had a common theme in that they were both bugs and pretty appropriate since at times I call her my little Lilah Bug :)

Payton's school had their annual Math Night and the kids got to dress up and enjoy a hayride and many different math themed activities throughout the classrooms.  We ran into many people we knew and the costumes were all so cute.

Halloween day was very busy but extremely fun.  Payton's class (and all other First Grade classes) had a field trip to Sims Family Farm (nope no relation) complete with a corn maze, corn angels, bouncy slides, games, camp fires and a cool hayride.

I rushed right over from the field trip to meet Cole in his class for their Halloween Party.  So many goodies and yep we went home with yet another goody bag of candy (get the theme here).

And of course the event the kids have been counting down for, Trick-or-Treating.  A good friend brought her three boys over and they all had a blast running around the neighborhood filling their bags.  We only made it a couple of streets before everyone was tired and our bags were too heavy to carry.  Graham was so funny because he was running full speed up to every house and then he would run back holding his bag open yelling "Look what I got".  Cole came to tell us he said "Thank You" at every house and Payton was very sweet and helpful.  Lilah Grace rode in her stroller and took it all in - she fell asleep half way through.

Our kids had a theme - the Spider Family.  We had Black Spider Boy, Red Spider Boy, Spider Girl and Spider Baby.

Graham and Payton wanted their faces painted so I did the best I could (Google helped me out).

The kids had so much fun and us parents enjoyed watching them.  Our kids were totally wiped out at the end.  They couldn't even take off their costumes before they passed out.

As you can see there is no lack of candy in our house.  What a fantastic Halloween Week :)

A Fabulous Fall Break

So our Fall Break started out not so great.  We had plans of driving to Florida and spending some time with Jay's family (all of them).  We were even going to Disney World!  But then everyone got sick :(  Jay had pneumonia; Graham had a sinus infection; Cole had bronchitis; and Payton was getting over an upper respiratory infection.  Since everyone was sick we decided it was best not to travel and let everyone rest and get better.  A total bummer but it worked.  After a few days of nothing but sleep, sleep and more sleep (and of course some meds from the doctor) everyone started feeling better :)

We decided to make the most of our fall break and do some things locally that we could all enjoy.  The kids wanted to go to a new playground so we went to the Tennessee Riverpark.  It was the last warm day and it turned out great.  The kids played on the playground and swung on the swings then we all walked around the water.  The kids watched a boat launch into the water and to quote Graham it was "totally awesome".  I really love seeing all of these things through my children's eyes and experiencing them all over again.  As always I took a ton of pics so here are just some of my favorites.

The next day was cold and rainy so we figured what better way to pass the day than at the movies ;)  Our local movie theater plays movies for $1.00 on Wednesdays.  I didn't realize that every child in the two local counties would be there but we still managed to see what we wanted.  First we saw Cars 2 and the kids did so well that when they asked if we could also see The Smurfs we said sure.  We were pleasantly shocked that  all the kids made it through two back to back movies!

Fall Break would not have been complete without hitting up an orchard and doing some fall festival things.  We drove into the mountains south of us (it felt like it took forever) and it was a beautiful drive with all of the leaves changing and great fall colors.  We went to Hillcrest Orchards and the kids had a lot of fun.  We had our very own private tracker ride around the orchard - it was Lilah's first.  Then we went to the petting zoo where everyone got to hold baby chicks (their favorite), pet goats, a baby cow (he was really soft), a pig and some bunnies.  Then it was off to the play area with slides and climbing walls and even a zip line.  We played there for a while until it was way too cold and headed back inside to pick our bag of apples.  The day ended with a visit from an overly friendly large black cow who was quite interested in Baby Lilah :)  Every time Jay moved the cow moved to get closer and even licked Lilah a couple of times.  We all totally cracked up and the kids thought it was great.

Payton is 3 apples tall.

Cole is also 3 apples tall.

Graham is 2 apples tall.

Baby Lilah on her very first tractor ride.

The kids being their usual silly selves :)

Picking out which apples they want.

A fun day for everyone!

Lilah Grace getting licked by a cow.

Since we have an upcoming photo session with our favorite photographer and this time she is coming to our neck of the woods we wanted to scope out some possible photo locations so we all hopped in the van and headed out on an adventure.  We started out at the Chickamauga Battlefield.  A very big and nice place full of history.  As we drove around and saw all the monuments, signs and cannons we tried to explain to the kids about the Civil War and how battles were fought right there where we were.  Payton wanted to know who the "teams" were and which one we were cheering for (love that kid).  And of course in Cole's new obsession with all things fighting he just couldn't ask enough questions about the blood, fighting and finally "Daddy do you think some of the men who lost the battle also lost their heads?".  I am still not used to having boys and how everything gets turned into a gun or some sort of fight.

The kids favorite part of the battlefield was the 'castle' which Daddy took them to the top (twice).  

Then it was off to the Chattanooga Nature Center.  We have a membership and had been there before but part of it was closed that day so we went back to check it out.  It ended up being the perfect spot for our upcoming session and is at the top of our list.  The kids enjoyed getting out to check out all the different areas including a bamboo forest, wishing well, pond, pavilion and of course the open fields where they ran around and chased each other.

As usual Payton posed for each shot, Cole acted goofy and Graham watched what they were doing :)  Oh and Lilah Grace looked adorable as always.

We also drove through and checked out Pointe Park on Lookout Mountain and Coolidge Park in downtown Chattanooga but didn't get out to play.

As Fall Break came to a close we decided to check out our town hayride and Halloween celebration.  We went on the hayride which took us down the Ringgold Nature Trail and dropped us off at a camp fire complete with roasting marshmallows.  Then we went to The Depot where a live band was playing and people were waiting in line for the Haunted Depot tour (way too scary for our kids).  We finally left once Graham announced "this place is freaking me out" (he is so funny!).

Even though we didn't go on our planned vacation we were able to spend a lot of quality time together as a family and make more precious memories with our children.  We also were able to get some much needed rest that will hopefully carry us through our next couple of extremely busy months!