Elfin Mischief at the Farm

Our Elf, Jeff, has been on a rampage lately it seems.  He was so nice for the first week of his visit, that I felt blessed not to have one of those mischievous elves messing up the house.

That seems to be a thing of the past.  Jeff has gotten out of control!

Monday morning we woke up and found he had hung the boys' underwear on the living room ceiling fan . . .

 And then Tuesday, Jeff rolled our living room with 4 or 5 rolls of toilet paper!

 What a mess he made . . . luckily for him the boys cleaned it all up!

And Jeff wasn't the least bit ashamed of his behavior.  I caught him red-handed with the toilet paper!

 The next day he hid in a basket of beanie babies . . .  I think he knew I wasn't happy with him!  It took the boys forever to find him!  They loved being able to carry him where ever we were without touching him! 

 Shane hasn't really understood about not touching Jeff.  I was cooking in the kitchen that night, and Shane came in holding Jeff and said, "Look Momma . . . what I found!"
Totally freaked Alex and Zach out!  They were scared the elf would lose his magic and not be at our house the next morning.

Shane is so cute about the elf.  He can't say elf so he is constantly talking about the "F".  So cute.  When he does that, Alex and Zach look at me with a knowing smile . . . like we all have a secret.  So fun.

 But then on Thursday morning . . . He left the boys a message . . .

And he left me another mess!  How do you get toothpaste off a mirror!

   He's been a little less descructive since then.  I think he's been a little more merciful to me since Dave has gotten sick.  But more about that later.

The boys and I have been doing crafts and Christmas activities every night together.

We still had the handprint ornaments to paint.

Shane wouldn't paint his according to the traditional design of Santa . . . He painted the whole thing red!

 My boys love to paint and glue and make things.  They are usually more manageable when they are busy doing crafts than most any other time.  Surprising I know!

Pretty ornaments.  We still have to make the black lines with the Sharpie markers.

We also made some cute wreaths made from left-over/mismatched pieces from the Sunday church craft I did with my class.  I dug the foam characters and stars out of the trash after the community children left to go home.  The boys loved it!

 I had to open some extra packages for my class because some of the pieces were missing in some of the children's kits . . . and that left some extra characters and also left 3 foam wreaths without all the parts.  Perfect for my sweet boys!  They didn't care that some of the characters were missing . . . the main one was there . . . baby Jesus!

 It was after this craft time that I went in to check on Dave again who had been in our bedroom sick.  He was moaning and shaking with chills . . . and I persuaded him to let me take him to the ER.  My sweet parents kept the boys for me.  It's a good thing too because it was 1:30 a.m. before I got home.  The doctor put Dave in the hospital for a couple of days.  Poor Dave had a very bad strep infection.  They let him come home today.  Thank goodness!  I've missed him!  He still can't go to work for a week the doctor said.  Poor Dave!  Poor me!  I've got to stay well . . . Can you imagine if he and I were both sick this close to Christmas!

So you can find us crafting . . . and recovering from strep . . .  and tolerating a mischievous elf  . . here at the Farm . . . with

                          the Ferrell boys and me!