Elves 2010

I'll cut right to the chase -- the elves are here. They arrived exactly a week ago, but somehow it seems much longer than that. While we tried to explain to the kids that Bix, Libby and Colline (f/k/a "Colleen;" Jacob changed the spelling this year) have indispensable jobs at the North Pole and simply cannot be wasting valuable time in these crucial pre-Christmas weeks rolling some random suburban living room with toilet paper, Santa must have heard their pitiful pleas, because he sent the elves almost two full weeks before Christmas. And they did not waste any time wreaking their usual havoc.

They made snow angels in my best King Arthur Flour one night:



You'd think if they were going to nosedive into my flour assortment they'd at least have the courtesy to do it in the Gold Medal.



They made up for it another night though, when they somehow figured out how to play the wii. I love it when the video games keep the little people out of trouble. I think they took turns working the wii remote:


And made miis of themselves. I think the kids will enjoy watching the elves bounce into a wii baseball game or two throughout the year, even if they can't be here with us in the non-virtual world.






They also toasted mini marshmallows and made s'mores one night. I'm going to be honest here. I'm not entirely comfortable with the whole elf/fire mix. Obviously nothing ignited and everything turned out fine, but I'm seeing a kind of increased chutzpah with these elves that worries me a bit.



Bix scorched the bejeezus out of his marshmallow:



If they want to get into food, I much prefer when they stick with a flame-free approach, like the night they went fishing for goldfish:



Another night they went ziplining in our living room - oh yes, they totally did. I couldn't get a shot of the full scene with my 35mm lens (and while I'm all kinds of crazy, obviously, I'm not crazy enough to ask for a wide angle so I could capture full-room shots of elf antics), but you can get the general idea:





One of the best parts of the holiday season every year is receiving Christmas cards from our family and friends and enjoying the beautiful photos of their children on these cards. Bix, Libby and Colleen apparently wanted to get in on the photo card action -- we were SHOCKED to wake up and see Bix attaching an elf Christmas card to our display:



I have no idea when they managed to sneak outside and take these natural light portraits:

The back of the card included the sweetest individual shots -- a little limb chop on the girls, but I think that can be forgiven given that these were taken by 8" tall stuffed elves, don't you? I feel like their personalities totally shine through in these:



I have no idea what these elves are going to do next (no really, I have NO IDEA what these elves are going to do next!) -- there is clearly no limit on the kinds of trouble they can manage to find. The kids love them, though, and somehow they've become part of Christmas around here, so David and I will continue to clean up the flour, take down the zipline, and extricate them from the twist ties until Christmas mercifully gets here.