Rebecca, today you are 10 months old, and I am so busy that I don't have time for a post, but I thought I would at least get your pictures posted.  Love you little gal.

We got presents in Alabama.  I got princess things, and school presents like games for my leap pad.  My favorite present was my Super Why game.  We played it with Ahna the last day we were there.


We saw lots of people, but some elves came and surprised us at Ahna's house after Church.  They were sitting in the Christmas tree, and on Britt's blocks.  Britt wanted his blocks back so he asked the elves to give them back, and later on when we look they had climbed up in the Christmas tree with Britt's elf.  Then the next day we looked everywhere and they were in the candles hanging upside down.  It was so, so funny, the funniest fun.


We got up in the middle of the morning before the sun came up to go get on a plane and fly home.  I didn't see the elves anywhere.  They left us a note that they would see us at home.  After we went lots and lots of places we came home and they were sitting on our table riding around on our dinosaurs!  They are so silly.

We flew a plane from Pennsylvania to Alabama, because we wanted to see Grumps and Ahna.  We have been here super long, but have to go home today.  We also saw Grandmother and Granddaddy.  We played in both their houses.



We went to visit some people that were Ahna's aunts one day.  I liked seeing them.  I didn't know that Ahna had aunts.  First we saw Auntie and Uncle Hoyt and I played with an elephant that pops out the balls I played with my (3rd) cousin, Carter too.  Then we saw Aunt Ree and she gave me a pet.  He was a little brown dog, but I don't know his name.



Another day we went to Tennessee.  I asked if I could go to Auburn instead, and Momma said we didn't know anyone down there that day.  Later in the car Momma told me I was in Tennessee, and I asked, "Where is the football and all the chairs."  All I could see were cotton fields.  Momma didn't know I thought I was going to watch Grumps's football team.  I was mad.  She told me that football would be on the tv later that we were going to see the family, but I didn't much like that.



In Tennessee we played with Emily.  We played dominos.  Aunt Cindy had cookies at her house, but they had nuts.  I played with her dog, Murphy Brown.  We played fetch then we brushed her and blow dried her hair.  Then Aunt Brenda gave me some new coloring stuff to keep.  I had excited fun in Tennessee.


We had Christmas presents at Grandmother's house and at Ahna's house.  My favorite present was a dinosaur game for my leap pad and my angry bird clothes.  I've played with my presents all the days.  Tonight I'm going to watch the Herculus movie for my present.




I'm sad to go back to Pennsylvania.  I'm not ready yet.  But Momma says we can get our Christmas tree when we get home.

Last year my Mother signed up for some stuff in school and got some elves, she thought I would like to do the "Elf on the Shelf" stuff with the kids, and that they might all like to have one.  She brought them to me this year.  I was a little skeptical at first, after all we haven't done Santa with the kids.  Though that hasn't stopped them from some how learning a remarkable amount about him.  Mother would have had a ball with these things, and at first I thought I wouldn't be able to come up with stuff like her.  So I got onto Pinterest, and started looking around, and came up with several ideas.  I'm really looking forward to this now.  Feel free to use...






The one HUGE problem with pretty much everything you do with them other than shoving them into a corner on a shelf is that they aren't remotely posable.  Look for me I found some GREAT tutorials on adding wire to their limbs, and velcro to their hands.  Someone even added magnets to them, which set the wheels to turning.  On Saturday the final day of November we ran up to Hobby Lobby were I got all of my supplies - 16 gage wire (because I couldn't find bigger, though it worked ok), adhesive velcro circles, the strongest magnets that I could get in the smallest size I thought I could get away with, some mini Christmas bells, some Christmas colored, metallic pom poms, some poinsettia embellishments, and felt sheets in green, red, and white.

















Then working only during the commercials during the Iron Bowl (don't you know I wasn't working during that game.  I mean it was the only IMPORTANT game of the entire college football season), I installed the wire and velcro in about an hour.  I opted to use a seem ripper and take the entire white mitten part off of their hands, made a loop at the end of the wire, and push it into the entire arm, then sew the white back on all the way around.  For the legs I use one single piece with a loop to run the entire length of the leg, rather than cutting the knee and adding two separate pieces.  Then I just sewed the foot back up.



While I was at it I decided to add a little bell to the tips of their hat, hoping that it would help me to know if any mischievous little hands were piddling with them.  When I saw the little scrapbooking embellishments at the store, I thought they would be cute on the girls.  Mother had already picked up two skirts for the girl elves, and I sewed one little flower onto the collar of one and the hat of the other.  After all that, Britt's boy elf just looked naked.  So I laid him out on the green felt and cut out some overalls for him. 

















To make them I used more or less a rectangle shape with two long straps from the top, spaced to wrap over his shoulders.  I then cut a little triangle out of the bottom part to be the leg holes. My cutting isn't superb, after all felt pulls apart so bad, so I hemmed it all the way around.  I opted to do it in white to have some contrast, and make it a little bit "decorative."  Sorry, I failed to take a picture of that step.  Anyway, after that I wrapped it around him and sewed each leg up around his legs, and then the middle.  After that I wrapped the straps over his shoulders, and sewed them to the pants with pompoms to look like decorative buttons.  The straps were a little to wide so I tacked them to the collar to keep them on.  After all that work, I decided I'm totally not taking those off any time soon, so while I originally wanted to be able to easily get them off, I changed my mind. With that I was done for the night.



The elves were a huge hit after we got home from Church on Sunday afternoon.  Britt named his Mistletoe, Ruth named her's Jingle, and they picked out Twinkle for Rebecca, since she loves "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."  While they played and carried on, I started making "Ef Boots"  My master plan, to keep the magnets from being visable was to sew boots and put the magnets inside them.  So I made three sets of Elf boots, and made sure I had the positive and negative sides lined up right before I finished sewing them up.  Then I made the decision to just sew them on the the elves to have on them all the time.  I made one set of mittens with magnets in it too, but I think I'm going to have to re do those, I'm not satisfied with them.  If I get it figured out and like it, I'll be sure and share it with the rest of you in a later post.