I discovered "The Elf on the Shelf" last year while I was pregnant with Brooklyn. Another one of those things you learn from being addicted to Babycenter. I had discussed the idea with Jay but of course he had no idea what I was speaking about. However, this Christmas season opened the window of conversation for us! ABC showed a special Christmas cartoon about The Elf on the Shelf. Jay, like I, thought it was such an awesome idea to get the kids(all kids, not just mine) into the Christmas spirit. Now I admit that I ruined Christmas, Easter, the tooth fairy, and any other hope for an imagination for Matt and Bri. I always told them the aforementioned people were made up. I did this for one reason... Oprah! I don't watch Oprah but I remember when I was pregnant with Matt seeing an episode where they were discussing the things we tell our children. Her guest at the time had said she never mentioned Santa or anyone else to her children in fear they would grow up thinking she was just a liar and they couldn't believe anything she told them. I was 15, that's my excuse for believing this BS. Because of stupid Oprah, my kids have no imagination what-so-ever. God help me though, I'm trying to make up for it. 
Now obviously Brooklyn is too young to understand the concept of the Elf on the Shelf and Matt and Bri are too old for it (not to mention I think I've already scarred them too much to really enjoy the game). So we wont be buying said elf until next year. I am however on the look out for ideas to do with our elf . Yesterday on Facebook, a friend had posted a link to a blog actually making fun of the moms that do the elf. After reading over it and having a good laugh I was interested in the ideas this woman was actually making fun of. I HAD to find the blog of the woman being humiliated just for entertaining her child's imagination! I click the link to the 101 Elf on the Shelf Ideas... her blog post had been deleted. She was infuriated about her blog being used in reference to bashing over-achieving moms. I can't say I blame her though, I'm sure I would be a little butt sore if someone was making fun of something I enjoyed do with/for my kiddos. Why do people think it's okay to make fun of someone's parenting style? I guess that's a-whole-nother post though, so we won't get into that. My search sends me to facebook... doesn't everything these days! I finally find the author I'm looking for though and of course she's complaining on Facebook about the blog and all of her "followers" are trying their best to virtually comfort her and convince her to put her blog post back up. This morning I get on Facebook to find that she has finally re-posted it! Thank God too considering I'm not really a very creative person when it comes to this kind of stuff. So now we have 101 Elf on the Shelf Ideas!
These are seriously some awesome ideas. I haven't had the time to read over all of them but after seeing a photo of cotton balls it gave me an idea of my own (at least I'm hoping it's my own idea and not on the list). Since it doesn't snow in Florida, I was thinking a mock snow ball fight with cotton balls. All of these ideas make me look forward to messing up my house! How fun would that be for the kids to wake up one morning only to find cotton balls spread out and thrown about in the family room?!
On my journey to restore my children's imagination I've been trying to do some things this year that are a little more age appropriate for Matt and Bri. The last two days we've been working on homemade ornaments. Wednesday was spent mixing the dough, punching out cookie cutter shapes, and baking. We started them kinda late in the day since the kids had school and they take about 2 hours to bake enough to get hard. I'm sure we still have a few semi-soft ones... I get a little impatient at times. 
