Day 24: Elf houses?

Remember the Christmas themed bird houses I told you to go get at Michael's? Well, the time has finally come for them to appear! 

Clyde arrived with the three bird houses, a fresh supply of paint and some new paint brushes. He's sitting on our banana hanger thingy, but he kept sliding over. I was able to put him back without the kids noticing all but two times. They think it is okay for adults only to touch the elf if he needs help. That would be the lesser of two evils. I've had a problem with him slipping sometimes. Scotch tape does not work. It doesn't stick to his little felt butt. If you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments.

Silly guy thought that they might be elf houses! :)

The sun has come out again and made the snow even more beautiful!

And since the roads were clear, Hubby grabbed the kids and ran off to go Christmas shopping for me. :) And I took the opportunity to wrap as many presents as I could. I still haven't figured out how to wrap Thor's hammer. I'm sure that's an ancient riddle from some where.

One of the things I have been planning are some fun stocking stuffers from Clyde. I found these cookies at Barnes & Noble and had to get them!

One for each! They were expensive for cookies, about $3 each, but for a once a year present from an elf, it was worth it. I was at Barnes & Noble to pick up some Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Flavour Beans from Harry Potter. The kids talk about them all the time and I thought they would be a funny gift from their mischievous elf.

If you have no idea what these are, they are a mixture of regular flavored jelly beans and disgusting flavored jelly beans. Dumbledore famously popped what he thought was a toffee flavored bean into his mouth only to discover that it was earwax flavored! :p

In case you can't read it, the flavors are:
Banana, Black Pepper, Blueberry, Booger, Candyfloss, Cherry, Cinnamon, Dirt, Earthworm, Earwax, Grass, Green Apple, Marshmallow, Rotten Egg, Sausage, Lemon, Soap, Tutti-Fruitti, Vomit, and Watermelon.

I often sneak bits of the children's candy. I will not be pinching any of these. ;)

Day 21: ELF!!!

Clyde is quite the acrobat! He appeared in our pantry hanging upside down. It was the best angle for him to get at the good stuff: SYRUP!!!

I got this great idea from Lil Blue Boo, (LOVE HER!). Luckily, he's so light that a box of Rice-a Roni could hold him in place. I was worried about the straw sinking too low, but the height of our shelves worked out just right that it could sink all the way in and be at the right level. Regardless, the syrup is thick enough that I could move it to a different position and it would stay.

And we don't have a syrup addiction, we just shop at Sam's Club. That's why there are two huge jugs of Mrs. Butterworth's in our pantry.

Christmas isn't complete without watching this amazing, hilarious movie! ELF!!! Clyde happens to know that Dad is working tonight, so he specifically wrote "with your mom" so that we could watch Elf tonight. I'm sure we'll watch it again with Dad. Just like I'm sure I'll watch Love Actually again this month. Probably while wrapping presents on Christmas Eve. It's kinda become my personal tradition. :)

Yesterday, we finally got around to hanging our homemade bird feeders outside on the giant blue spruce in our front yard. There are actually two giant blue spruces in our front yard. If I could afford to, I'd love to get them covered in Christmas lights. Anyways, we tied lovely Candy Cane striped baker's twine onto the stems of the pine cones and hung them where we could see them from our large picture window near the dining room table.

Matthew:

Katie:

Jillian:

Again, this was yesterday. This is today.

 This is Jillian's pine cone. It is now resting on the ground! It is still hanging from the same branch that was about 6 feet in the air yesterday. I guess this is Welcome to Flagstaff! School was cancelled and we decided last night to deliver the neighbor's cookies today. Well, it'll be much cuter in the snow! :)

Beautiful giant blue spruce. I hope you have a very, merry White Christmas!