Meet Murphy

We started a new tradition in our house this year - The Elf on the Shelf has arrived at our house. Since Evan is too young to understand, I planted the elf and his book in Owen's bedroom. The book was just sitting on his bed, and the elf was perched on the top edge of his headboard. I was hoping to wait until Jeremy got home from work, but go figure, Owen's homework assignment that we were working on required him to measure his bed. When Owen went upstairs, he noticed the book on his bed, but not the elf. He measured his bed, and brought the book to me. I, of course, acted confused and said I didn't know where it came from. Owen suggested that maybe Santa had dropped it off for him, and I played along with a "maybe". He had to go back up and measure another part of his bed, and that is when he noticed the elf. He was really excited that Santa had brought him a toy and not just a book.



He brought the elf along down with him, and the boys and I read the book. It is a really cute story that explains how Santa sent him to our family so he could report back on the kids' behavior. There are two rules - no touching the elf or he loses his magic, and the kids can talk to him, but Santa does not allow the elf to talk to them. We just had to give him a name, and he would begin his job tonight after the family was asleep.



Of course Owen asked a lot of questions while we were reading the story. My favorite - "Mommy, why didn't he ever come before?"


I had to think fast, because I wasn't really prepared for that one. "Well, Santa doesn't have enough elves for every family to have one assigned especially to it. Maybe this elf just finished elf school, and now that he knows everything about Christmas, he can come and be our elf."



Owen's eyes got big, and he excitedly replied, "Yeah, he probably graduated from Elf College or something like that!"



I seriously had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. When Jeremy came home, we decided on a name - Murphy Samuel. I liked the name Murphy, and Owen wanted to call him Sam. We convinced him that we couldn't use the name Sam because that was our cousin's name, and he settled for having that as the middle name. I am so excited for the next few weeks to see what antics we can pull off!





Tonight before bed, Owen had to write Santa a letter for Murphy to take to the North Pole. We put Murphy on the bookshelf with the envelope. Owen was very concerned how he was going to get out of the house with that big envelope, "because his hands are sewed together". This could get tricky - Owen is a little too smart sometimes!



Murphy came back from the North Pole with a return letter from Santa. He is waiting in the Advent Calendar for Owen to find him tomorrow morning!

Handmade Holiday

This year, I am making a lot of the gifts we are giving to our family for Christmas. I love being crafty, and have really enjoyed creating all of these handmade items. An added bonus to making a lot of the gifts this year, is that we are not giving nearly as many gift cards as gifts. We still have a couple gift cards being wrapped, but it is for those individuals who actually WANT them, not because we don’t know what to get!

Family Tree & Sister Plaques

I have been wanting to do some type of family tree for quite a while. I decided to do them as a tile display rather than in a picture frame to hang. I also made a plaque for my sister with a special saying on it. These were made from regular 6x6 tiles from Lowe's, tissue paper, Mod Podge and acrylic sealer. I purchased the displays at Hobby Lobby. I can't wait for these to be unwrapped at Christmas!

Colored Pencil Monogram

I got the idea for this on Pinterest (I LOVE Pinterest!!!) and thought it would make the perfect gift for Owen's 1st grade teacher. The one that I saw on there was actually made with crayons. I decided to use colored pencils for mine. I purchased the colored pencils and shadow box (8x8) from AC Moore. Hubby hooked me up with a nice little jig to make it easier to cut the pencils. I would say this took me 90 minutes, tops to complete, and I love how it turned out!

Snowman Fingerprint Ornaments

I love anything that is made using my kids' hand prints. Again, this idea came from Pinterest. I bought 3x4 artist canvas, and just used regular acrylic paint to paint the background and to do the kids' fingerprints. I used Sharpie paint pens (which are awesome, by the way!) to paint on the snowman features. Staple a ribbon to the back, and you have a lovely ornament. Owen is going to be 7 in a few weeks, so his hands are much bigger than Evan's, and we could only fit 3 of his fingers on the canvas and still have it look right, but I still love it! This was another super easy craft - it just took a little more time due to allowing time for paint to dry. Owen actually did a lot of the snowman decorating himself.

Glitter Ornaments

I made 24 of these ornaments for our tree this year. I did red, white and green glitter, and tied them all with a sheer white organza ribbon. They look amazing on our tree. They were another super easy craft. I followed this tutorial for making them.

Sewing Projects

Last year, I started playing around with my sewing machine, and made a few items. One of those was a cover for my Cricut machine. My mom saw that, and asked me to make her one. Being the super awesome daughter that I am, I never did it. Oops! I decided that would be a Christmas gift this year. I also had a request for a toaster cover for my mom. Not too shabby for someone who didn't even know how to thread a sewing machine a few years ago!

Toaster Cover

Special thanks to my mother-in-law for doing the embroidery for me. I am so proud of how this turned out - especially since I did not follow any pattern. I just measured and sewed!

Cricut Cover

To make the Cricut cover, I followed this pattern. Super easy, and super cute.

O Christmas Tree

This weekend was super busy, as all of our weekends seem to be lately. On Saturday, we made the annual trek to the tree farm to pick out and cut down our family Christmas tree. This year, we tried a new place that is closer than the one we had gone to in previous years.

We got a wagon ride out to the fields.

We picked out our tree – there was some damage from the heavy snow we had in October, so many of the trees were missing their bottom branches.

Evan wasn’t in the mood to have his picture taken today. I wasn’t going to argue with the 2-year old king in our family over getting in the picture with his brother and Daddy.

Owen insisted that he could cut down the tree himself this year ……

… and he did! Timber!

Evan needed his turn to cut down a “tree” too. Daddy let him cut off some of the remaining stump, and he was happy!

Back to the wagon with our tree!