Guess who's back!!!!!

Fudgy!
Yes, Fudgy made his 1st appearance at our house this morning.
The kids have been asking if we thought our elf, Fudgy would be back and were very excited to see him this morning!

If you have no idea who Fudgy is or what the heck I'm talking about, here is the post that I put up last year explaining the Family Tradition we started last year!

A New Family Traditon: posted on December 1, 2008:

I've always wanted to do an advent calendar with the kids and every year it just seems like life got busy and I would forget about it until it was too late. I have to admit, when we lived in Michigan Christmas time was always a bit crazy. Between planning a daycare party (I used to run a home daycare) and attending all the holiday and Christmas parties for family, friends, church and what not, we never really had time to just enjoy our kids and the true meaning of Christmas. It seemed like the month of December was always a blurr of one party after another.

Last year I was going to do a Advent Calendar but with our trip to Michigan over the holiday I wasn't sure how to pull it off so I just gave up.

This year I decided I was going to take the plunge and do an advent calendar one way or another. I didn't want to spend a ton of money on something and I wanted the focus of our calendar to be Christ's birth, along with spending time together as a family. I just feel like the kids are growing up so fast and I really want to take the time to really enjoy the Christmas season, my family and I really want to start some of our own Christmas traditions as a family.

With all this in mind, I started looking for an advent calendar I could make myself, but one I could resuse every year. After digging around on the internet, I came across this post. It was perfect, I was thrilled and got to work making my very own advent calendar. She has some great ideas for things to put in each envelope and so I used some of her ideas and then searched some more and found this post. Between those two posts and some ideas of my own that I wanted to start with the kids, I came up with 25 things to put in my advent calendar.

I worked on it all weekend and on Saturday, Chris & I put up our advent calendar!

Each Envelope has a # on it leading up to Christmas Day!

Below our advent calendar is a basket. Every night I will get the items we need for our advent activity the next day and either wrap it up or just place it in the basket. So when the kids get up, everything is ready to go. The kids were excited and all day long Raelyn kept asking me when we could open up our envelope and the gift inside the basket (I had wrapped up the book)!

Tonight was our 1st night and our envelope had a card inside it that said:

"Read the book The Elf on the Shelf" If you haven't heard about this book, here is the information from the website:

"This charming tradition began for our family when my children were very small. Plagued by their desire to know how Santa really knew who had been naughty or nice, I searched through the Christmas decorations for a plausible explanation. Nestled among them was the answer; a small elf doll from my own childhood. With that discovery, the idea for the elf tradition was born.At our home the elf would arrive around the holidays, usually at Thanksgiving. His sole responsibility was to watch my children's behavior and report it to "Santa" each night. The next morning after the children awoke, they discovered the elf had returned from the "North Pole" and was hiding in a different place. My children would race each other out of bed to try and be the first to spy him in his new position.Over the years the tradition was perfected and rules were even introduced. For example, to better preserve his mystique the children were not allowed to touch him; however, they were allowed to talk to him. For obvious reasons, he was not allowed to reply. Eventually, my children even gave him a name - officially adopting him into the family.Unwittingly, the tradition provided an added benefit: it helped the children to better control themselves. All it took was a gentle reminder that the "elf was watching" for errant behavior to be modified.I never dreamed this simple tradition would lead to so many Christmas memories for our entire family. It is my earnest desire that The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition will bring as much joy to your family as it has to mine. "

I had heard about this from another blogger and was really excited to read the story and start this new tradition in our family.

Reading "The elf on the shelf" to the kids!

At the back of the book, there is a spot that you fill out. Our says " This tradition began for the Bedford family on December 1st, 2008. We welcomed our elf by naming him Fudgy."

The kids with our filled out book page! They named our elf, Fudgy.

And here is our elf, Fudgy watching over us so he can report back to Santa at the North Pole tonight! When the kids wake up in the morning, Fudgy will be in a new spot and they will have to look for him! Raelyn asked me a million questions tonight about this little elf and I can already tell this is going to be a really fun tradition in our family:-)