Sammy Day 1: Just Swinging

Sammy wasted no time making himself at home. The kids ran into Sammy this morning on their way into the bathroom. Thankfully he was just high enough over their heads no one knocked him off his swing with their heads.

Sammy's Back

Our trap worked! We caught ourselves our elf. The kids were SO excited this morning to see Sammy hanging from their trap.
There is something kinda creepy about an elf almost hog tied with a grin like that on his face!

Sammy Trap #2

Tonight is attempt number two at trapping our Elf On the Shelf Sammy.
The kids helped Ryan rig this beauty up tonight before dinner. Apparently, Sammy will step into the big loop while trying to take the candy canes (we know he already likes from the last trap). When he does it will trigger the safety pin breaking it free from the few carpet threads it's attached to, springing the green coil back, and closing the loop around Sammys legs trapping him helpless. Muahaha!
Sydney had all sorts of questions like "Won't Sammy just use his hands to get free?"
I guess she's an over analyser like her mother. We just had to explain that it'll be too tight for him to get free. Hopefully tomorrow morning we'll have something other then a mouse caught in our trap!

Better Luck Next Time

We have a rule in our house that in the morning the kids aren't allowed to leave their bedrooms until 7:00am. At around 6:45am this morning I could hear the beeping on the clocks as they were illuminating them to see what time it was. 7:01am and Brayden comes into our bedroom to tell us that Sammy left footprints. No Sammy. He was too smart to get caught in the trap. He ate every little piece of candy cane except for the one hooked up to the trigger and then went on his way.

Tonight Brayden was at Cubs so we didn't set up another trap but Ryan came up with a good snare idea that we'll do tomorrow and see if we have any better luck.

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

With a month until Christmas the kids are already getting excited. Madison has been asking when Santa is going to come since the first snow fall and has been questioning me relentlessly on how Santa will get through our fireplace with the glass closing it off. It seems that my continuous answer of "magic" isn't cutting it and I don't know how I'm going to survive the next month of daily interrogations. 'Tis the season I suppose and the excitement is contagious so I'll just have to brainstorm or use pinterest to come up with some genius explanation thought up by someone else. Once Christmas is over the questioning will stop and I'll have 11 months until they start up again.
Even though Santa doesn't come up in our conversations all year round, Sammy, our Elf on the Shelf, has. They've wondered out loud what Sammy was up to and when he would return. Tonight for our activity we decided to set a trap for Sammy. The kids thought that candy canes would get him here and then we made our trap! Our sneaky mischievous elf won't know what happened when he grabs hold of that candy cane, muahaha.

Monster Muffs

How cute are these? Sometimes I just can't say no to those big brown eyes. She used her own money to buy these and she LOVES them and they are worn both inside and out. I wonder how long it will last?

Snowed In

Saturday the snow started to fall. No big deal, it's November and so I expected it, except it doesn't stop. I have nothing against snow but it gets to a point where enough is enough. The ground is covered, everything looks white and the kids can get on all their snow gear and go out and have a fantastic time flopping around and trying to make snowmen. The dog loves it. He's running around like he's borderline crazy and I've never seen this much energy out of him. Maybe he's just super hot all the time and now he's finally cool enough that running around doesn't over heat him. I'm sure that's part of the problem, he's kind of a beast of a dog.
Anyway, I went out before I went to bed and shoved a big glue stick in the snow and snapped a quick pic so I could share how much snow we got in 12 hours and went to bed. When I woke up I went and checked on my glue stick and found that even though the snow was no longer falling it must have kept it up for a little bit after I went to bed. We got ready for church and Madison practiced her memorized scripture she was to share in Primary and off we went. We made it maybe 150m down the driveway until "BAM" we weren't moving anymore. Hmmm, with everything so perfectly white we couldn't see any dimensions at all and totally missed a massive drive blocking the driveway and was now mushed against the van up to our hood. Ryan starts digging and the neighbour comes out to help rescue us. Finally he pulls us out and we back out of the way so he can go to work with his plow. Have I mentioned we seriously have the best neighbours ever? Well shoot. Now he's totally stuck and crawling out the passenger door because the snow is too deep on the drivers side. The kids and I head inside to wait by the fire while Ry gets his truck and chain and goes to help the neighbour. It's not too long before Ryan's truck is stuck as well. I take off my jacket because it looks like we might be a while.
After quite a bit of digging and joint effort between Ryan, our awesome neighbour and their son Ryan gets out his big work rig and uses the weight of that truck to slowly yank everyone out and our neighbour gets back to work plowing the driveway. At this point we are more then an hour late for church and I'm seriously considering we not even go but Madison starts to get really upset. "If we don't go to church and I can't give my talk and I won't get my treat!"
Why do I bribe my children? So off to church we go, an hour and a half late so Madison can give her memorized scripture and get her treat. Have I told you I sure love her?