Introducing Green {the elf}

So this year we jumped on the whole elf bandwagon.  We had been reading the kids a book about the Magic Elves since early December.  Finally, this past Saturday night, we decided that we would write a letter to Santa and ask him to send us an elf.  We discussed what we would name our elf, and Piper suggested Green.  It’s not great, but for a family who names things “blue doggie,” “doggie,” “duckie,” and “dolly” – it’s creative progress.

Imagine our surprise when we woke up the next morning to this. . . .

Henry woke up early Sunday morning and was the first person to see Green.  He couldn’t believe it.  We stood there for a while with him staring open-mouthed at the elf.  The poor kid literally couldn’t talk.  I asked him if he knew what that was, and he just nodded.  Finally, I said, why don’t you go tell Daddy about it?  (Okay, I have to admit here that part of what I was doing was trying to get Gary out of bed.  Sorry, dear.) 

So, Henry RAN into the bedroom, screaming the whole time, “We’ve got an EFF in our house!!”  (They call him an “eff” instead of an “elf,” which I love.)  He got to our bedroom and still running, opened the gate and ran in and immediately fell.  Gary said that he heard Henry screaming, heard the gate open, then saw Henry’s head.  Then his head dropped out of sight as he fell, and Henry’s head immediately popped back up.  He never stopped screaming, over and over, “There’s an EFF in our house!!”

Gary had to get out of bed to check out the “eff” and boy was he surprised (and none too happy about the mess that Green made).  Then Henry insisted on waking up his sisters to tell them about the “eff” and what the elf had done.  They were shocked like the rest of us!

Green does something crazy every night, like Monday night when he popped some popcorn and stayed up watching the Charlie Brown Christmas DVD.

The kids could NOT believe it.  Henry was the most amazed.  You could literally see what he was thinking in that little brain of his when he saw it.  You could tell that he was thinking that there had to be some explanation for this.  There just had to be some reason that Green was doing all this.  And then you could see a grin come across his face as he figured it out . . .

. . . that Green the eff MUST come alive every night!!!

Penelope really loved finding Green eating some popcorn, and immediately started chowing down on what was left of his popcorn.  We hadn’t let her have popcorn before due to the whole choking hazard thing, but she’d had a few pieces by the time we realized what was going on and just let her eat what she could get before the big kids ate it all.

Then, on Tuesday night, Green really made a mess.  I excitedly took some photos on Wednesday morning because I knew the kids were going to just be amazed at this one!

But, eh, the kids weren’t so impressed.

They checked it out, then got in their chairs to eat breakfast.  Miss Sally told me later that they wanted to take the toilet paper down immediately when they finished eating breakfast.  I guess Green took it a little far on that one. . . .