I'm not exactly sure where the time went, but December 1 seemed to sneak up on us this year. The girls were so, so, sooo excited to welcome Sparkle Teddy Bear back, and, truth be told, Daddy and I kind of were too.
Here's a glimpse of her various daily activities:
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| Day 1: She's baaaaack!! And she gift-wrapped the toilet(!?!), mostly to amuse Hannah |
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| Day 2: Zip line from the stockings on the mantle to the Christmas tree |
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| Day 3: Creeper! Peeking around the corner of the pantry in the kitchen |
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| We move Sparkle back to her "home base" on the mantle each morning after we find her in whatever mischievous spot she's in. We use tongs to move her, so as not to risk touching her and ruining her magic (we are a by-the-book Elf family, you see). Megan is big and coordinated enough to assist, but the first time she was responsible for *not* touching Sparkle, she was quite nervous. |
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| Day 4: Elf Bulb Pit (a Nicole Purdy original, thankyouverymuch) |
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| Day 5: Playing Mancala with Frosty |
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| Day 6: She stole all the presents!! |
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| ...and the stockings, too!! |
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| Day 7: Hannah attended a dinosaur themed birthday party for her friend Hazel. Sparkle used some of her favors to recreate her own birthday party for Mr. Snowman in her room that night. |
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| Day 8: We found ourselves in Grand Haven, and Sparkle came along, too! |
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| She bunked in the girl's room, which was designed to be a fun surprise for them in the morning. Megan, however, woke up in the middle of the night (specifically, 3:30 a.m.) and spotted her - shouting her excitement down to Mom & Dad, and waking up Hannah in the process. It was perhaps the biggest backfire in my parenting career to date. |
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| Day 9: Hiding in the ottoman |
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| Day 10: Shaving?!? |
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| Day 11: Hiding in the manger. I still can't decide if this crosses the line or not... |
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| Day 12: Crash!!! |
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| To make matters worse, she is not licensed to drive Barbie's Mustang. |
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| Day 13: Hiding in the Christmas card display. It took the girls F.O.R.E.V.E.R to find her. |
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| Day 14: Playing with matches? No, Sparkle, no! |
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| Day 15: Giving Frosty a check-up (the girls were heavily into playing Doctor that day, and were surely Sparkle's inspiration) |
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| Day 16: Her very own Elf fort (complete with toilet - again, to entertain Hannah). The girls spent most of this day making forts, and Sparkle was struggling for inspiration at this point... |
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| Megan made her custom signage, including her signature magic wand :) |
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| Day 17: Using Daddy's Keurig |
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| Day 18: She packed Megan a delicious lunch, complete with uncooked pasta, taco sauce, tuna fish, energy drink, and a can of frosting. Though Megan did admit she was excited about the frosting, she elected to buy lunch at school that day. Weird. |
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| Day 19: Coloring a picture... in the refrigerator?!? |
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| Day 20: Flying around...while hanging from the ceiling fan!! |
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| Naughty Sparkle! Naughty!! |
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| Day 21: Sledding and snowman making fun in the kitchen |
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| Day 22: A sleighride with Santa's reindeer team |
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| Ignore the cat, she's not a part of the scene |
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| Day 23: A jellybean message to the kids, who spent the night in Fremont after our house lost power (we were one of over 600,000 in the state) after a major ice storm |
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| Day 24: She showed up in Fremont!... and defaced Daddy and Uncle Kent's pictures! |
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| Rotten Elf. |
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| Christmas Eve: Sparkle had to return to the North Pole with Santa, but left the girls a plush version of herself to remember her by. (Also, we let them touch her on Christmas Eve - this year, they got to hold her on the ride back to our house from Fremont) |
It was another fun year with Sparkle. The kids get so sad to see her go - I worry that her magic is somewhat traumatizing. Hopefully the stuffed Sparkle Teddy Bears will do the trick until next December.
