The Creature Who's Stirring

     It's that time of year.  The time when everyone on your Facebook friend's list who has a kid is blowing up your newsfeed with pictures of that dang Elf on a Shelf.  At least I'm nice enough to post them all here so that you have the option of scrolling through them.  You're welcome :-)

     The day after Thanksgiving, Elman (our resident Elf on the Shelf) made his reappearance rather dramatically by wrapping all our room doors and the front door in wrapping paper.  Monkey found him like this the next morning.

Once Elman had been around for a few days, The Justice League decided to call him in for questioning.  There must have been a struggle because they saw the need to restrain him.

     Once Monkey explained to her toys that Elman was on a secret mission from Santa himself, they decided to free him so he could return to the North Pole.  Elman came back and taught the Justice League a lesson in Christmas cheer by wrapping them up like presents.

     The Justice League and Elman finally made a truce and even became buddies while bonding over a rousing game of Trouble.

My favorite part is that Batman seems to have drawn the short straw and got the pink pegs.

     After all those nights of coming to terms with the locals, Elman decided to take a break, veg out, and enjoy Christmas specials.

     After a night of recuperating, Elman went back to work.  This time he decorated the Christmas tree with Monkey's panties!

                                

      Elman noticed on his visits that Monkey was struggling to take care of her household chores, so he got permission from Santa to bring her one of her gifts a bit early.  One morning he showed up with a Responsibility Chart for her.

     Elman seemed to have a very calm, enjoyable evening coloring in one of Monkey's Christmas coloring books, but Monkey wasn't happy to find him sitting in her little desk where she likes to color.

      It took Monkey forever to find Elman the next day.  She finally noticed him standing in a light fixture above the stairs.  I guess he took it to heart when she said he was in the way the day before.

     Apperantly when Elman went looking for a midnight snack one evening he was severely disappointed, so we took it as a sign to bake some cookies.

     That day we made cookies just so Elman could get his fix when he came back from reporting to Santa.

     Next, I sent Elman on a secret mission to find out what J got me for Christmas.  He got in, but then he wouldn't talk.  Darn elf must have been paid off.

     Next Elman must have gone to some wild Christmas party or lost a bet, because this is how we found him the next day.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty...

     Over the past few months  J has made a personal goal to introduce Monkey to as many heroes as possible.  This means we've been having a ton of 90s flashbacks, because J insists Monkey must see the "classics", i.e. The X-Men from the 90s, The Avengers from the late 90s/early 2000s, The Justice League from the early 2000s, and the most recent addition, Spiderman from the 90s.  Elman must have been watching too, because this is how we found him one morning:

Spiderelf, Spiderelf, radioactive spiderelf

     I know it's not Christmas yet, but I'm going to wrap these up today simply because I will be busy over the next few days doing all the last-minute prep for Christmas, but I have to share one more before I go.  This one is my absolute favorite, probably because I required no help from Pinterest ;-)

Elman wrote on Monkey's bathroom mirror with Window Crayons.

Elman made it so that when Monkey looks in the mirror she magically grows elf ears, elf hair, elf glasses, an elf  nose, and even sticks out her elf tongue.  Then he wrote, "You've been elfed".

I think she enjoyed it.

     And for a little more Christmas fun for your little one, print out this Scavenger Hunt List I made for Monkey.  We used it to find different decorations people had on display around base.  It was a lot of fun.  I popped popcorn and poured eggnog, and we bundled up in the car and drove around hunting for all the things on the list.  *It looks like the last few words got pushed to another page, but if you download the file and then print, the words magically go back to where they're supposed to be.  I don't understand computers sometimes.*