Our Elf~Buddy!!

We are putting a little twist on our tradition of the Christmas box we do each year. We decided to add a family elf which the kids named "Buddy". He reports to Santa every night how the kids are behaving, and he can also get into a little mischief himself....silly things which we will post about soon. It comes from the book "Elf on the Shelf." We have him do his mischievous things during the night - which the kids wake up to find - and then while they are at school, I hide him and I place an envelope in his hands telling the kids what activity we will be doing for the night. We have an activity that we do every night that is Christmas related. We have done a lot already, but I haven't had the time to take pictures...I will be posting some of our activities soon! These are pictures taken after we took the kids to get their pictures done with their Christmas outfits on. Jaron changed in the van on our way home, and Mikenna put her boots on...so that's why the girls are in their dresses and Jaron isn't.  I ordered "Buddy" our elf - because the elf that comes with the book - was a little creepy looking and I know Brielle wouldn't have liked how it looked.  She has a thing with doll eyes - thanks to the scary doll in the Toy Story movie.  If the eyes look weird then she won't have it.  So I found a cute plush elf with kind, cute eyes!  She loves him thank goodness!