Elf on the Shelf 2017 – Days 19, 20, 21, 22

We’ve officially hit the frenzy. Final few days of work, kids’ Christmas concerts, holiday parties, last-minute shopping.

But through it all, the elves have been mischief-making.

December 19 – Calleigh and Marie (from Splatoon), Sabine and Ezra (from Star Wars Rebels), and Iron Man decided the elves had been making too many messes around the house and decided to put them in time out.

 

December 20 – But that plan backfired when the elves escaped.

Later in the evening after we returned from Cadence’s Christmas concert, we noticed the elves were gone, but we found a note that they left early. We were puzzled, but figured there was a good explanation.

December 21 – The elves returned with a special treat for Miss C! She was so excited that they got to see her sing (and even more excited that they brought her gum)!

December 22 – While Cadence and I were at the Christmas concert (and Stevie was home putting Henry to bed), Stevie managed to get us completely caught up on laundry. Woohoo! Then, as he was going into Cadence’s room to put all the laundry away, he found a giant pile of dirty clothes that had been accumulating in her closet (and that she neglected to throw down the laundry chute when he asked her to earlier in the afternoon).

You know, when we first moved into this house, the laundry chute was one of Cadence’s favorite things. Apparently, the novelty has worn off. Now we beg and plead a threaten to get her to throw her clothes down. She claims that she “forgot” or that she didn’t notice the 3-foot pile of clothes that she has to climb over to get dressed in the mornings.

Ah, the teenage years are going to be fun.

Maybe a little elf-motivation is in order. This morning, Cadence woke to find all of the dirty clothes strewn around the house, and a note from the elves to remind her that Santa is watching and expecting her to listen to her parents. And I’ll be damned if she didn’t have all the clothes picked up and correctly deposited in the laundry hamper in the basement before I even had a chance to come downstairs and see the mess.

Thanks for the back-up elves!

 

SaveSave

Elf on the Shelf 2017 – Days 12, 13, 14

Yep, still behind blogging. Still sick. Well, getting better, but I’m still coughing enough that my voice is all hoarse. But guess what? We’re still rockin’ with these elves, and Cadence is excited to the point that she swears the elves keep moving slightly every time she walks in and out of a room.

She asked tonight if we can start taking time lapse photos of them throughout the day. Of course I had to shoot that one down. Moving the elves once a day is enough. Moving them multiple times a day just sounds like way too much work.

I mean, we have a dog that has to eat 5 times a day. We’ve gotta start drawing some lines somewhere.

December 12 – Leo and Cosette decided to put on a little impromptu concert.

 

December 13 – In honor of the new Star Wars release, Leo and Cosette thought it would be fun to dig out Stevie’s Naboo Starfighter and take it for a spin. Henry thought it was pretty cool to see the elves flying around, and Cadence was just in awe.

 

December 14 – This morning, we found the elves locked in the dog kennel. And we’re not sure if that’s what started Henry’s sudden meltdown, but five minutes after getting out of bed this morning, he was suddenly screaming and crying and shaking and seemed absolutely petrified, but couldn’t seem to tell us what he was so afraid of. He kept pointing at the door and telling us he wanted to get in the car, so we hurried up and got him ready for school and headed out the door. As Stevie was buckling him into my car, Henry finally told him he was scared of the robot.

Here’s the thing, folks. Stevie got himself a new Roomba sometime last year. In a nutshell, we hate vacuuming. We both have jobs. We’ve got the kids and their activities. We’ve got this crazy dog. And a million other things that seem to be going on constantly. We like to have a tidy house, but in the grand scheme of things, we can probably think of about 157 other things we’d rather be doing than cleaning. So the fact that there is a robot we can buy that will vacuum our house every single day if we want? Sign us up!

At first, Henry was intrigued. In fact, as soon as he could walk, he was pretty much obsessed with finding the robot and touching it and trying to press the buttons. And yeah, we may have told him not to touch the robot because it would get him.

Dammit, when you’re a parent and you’re tired and you just want your toddler to listen, you’ll say all sorts of crazy things.

Fast forward a year and all of a sudden Henry is deathly afraid of the thing. If he hears a beep that sounds like the Roomba, he screams and runs and tries to climb you. If he walks in a room and sees the Roomba sitting there charging, he backs out slowly and then runs for his life as soon as he’s out the door. And some mornings, like this morning, he wakes up and just thinks about the Roomba and manages to freak himself out.

So we spent the entire ride to school talking about how the Roomba is a nice robot and that it won’t get him and that we love the Roomba because it cleans up messes and keeps our house clean. And we talked about all the other nice robots we know–R2-D2 and C-3PO and BB-8 and Baymax.

By the time we got to school, all was right with the world again. And by the time he got home tonight, he’d forgotten all about it.

Life with toddlers. Every day is an adventure.

SaveSave

Draculaura and Darth Maul

It was a whirlwind of a Saturday–swimming lessons, running errands, a trip to the bookstore, a little work around the house, and watching both the Mets and the Islanders (lose unfortunately). One of the highlights of the busy day was definitely taking Cadence to a carnival at her cousin Odin’s school. There were bouncy houses, games, candy, and prizes, but Miss C and Odin were definitely the most excited about the face painting, and they both spent the rest of the afternoon as Draculaura and Darth Maul.

And you know Miss C lobbied to try and keep her face paint on long enough to show her friends at school on Monday, but with church, Sunday School, soccer, and our standing Sunday Dinner guests in between, we finally convinced her that it was probably best to wash it off when she took a bath tonight.

It was fun while it lasted.

2016-04-09_0001

2016-04-09_0002

2016-04-09_0003

2016-04-09_0004

2016-04-09_0005

2016-04-09_0006

2016-04-09_0007

Elf on the Shelf 2015 – Day 17

Guess who’s excited for Star Wars…

Cosette and Leo of course!
IMGP1666

IMGP1659

IMGP1662

Oh, and maybe this guy is a little excited too…

>As We Jump Into the Final Frontier

IMGP1297

Elf on the Shelf 2015 – Day 14

All in all, I’d have to say that 2015 has turned out to be one of the best years. We’re happy and healthy. We bought a new home in a neighborhood that we love. Henry came along and made our family complete. And we found out that three of our all-time favorites are making a comeback–Star Wars in 3 days, X-Files next month, and Twin Peaks in 2016.

Yeah, folks. Life is good in the Romano house.

And even if Cadence didn’t quite know what to make of the elves this morning, Stevie and I were loving the fact that they decided to pay a little homage to one of the best shows ever.

We want to believe. Cue the theme song.

IMGP1633

IMGP1640

IMGP1638

IMGP1639

IMGP1636

Autumn Yard Work, Romano-style

Reason #7659 that I love my husband–He can even make yard work fun.

I stuck my head out the back door because I wanted to get a photo of the steam coming off the roof of the garage…

IMGP8764

But it wasn’t long before something far more interesting unfolded…

IMGP8769 IMGP8778 IMGP8784

This guy never fails to entertain in front of the camera.

And just in case anyone was wondering where Cadence gets all those goofy faces from…

IMGP8785 IMGP8786

And of course there has to be some Star Wars inspired lightsaber action…

IMGP8787 IMGP8790

Now get to work.

IMGP8790crop

%d bloggers like this: