Favorites 2011

I got this idea from Pinterest and decided to modify it a bit. Instead of doing it on their birthdays, I'll ask them these 20 questions the day after Christmas every year from now on (my mom used to do this every New Year's Eve, but I can't wait that long. LOL).  Here are their answers for 2011:

Jill (5 1/2):

1. What is your favorite color? Purple
2. What is your favorite toy? My American Girl Doll
3. What is your favorite fruit? Strawberries
4. What is your favorite tv show? Max & Ruby
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Macaroni & Cheese
6. What is your favorite outfit? My Hello Kitty dress
7. What is your favorite game? Uno
8. What is your favorite snack? Crackers
9. What is your favorite animal? Piggy!
10. What is your favorite song? Party in the U.S.A., Miley Cyrus
11. What is your favorite book? If You Give a Pig a Pancake, Laura Numeroff
12. Who is your best friend? Brooklyn
13. What is your favorite cereal? Rice Krispies
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Swing
15. What is your favorite drink? Water
16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Blankie
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Pancakes
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Roast Pork (??)
20. What do you want to be when you grow up?  Work at McDonalds (Double ????)

Matt (Almost 7):

1. What is your favorite color? Green
2. What is your favorite toy? My 3DS
3. What is your favorite fruit? Grapes
4. What is your favorite tv show? Spiderman
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Pancakes
6. What is your favorite outfit? Mario clothes
7. What is your favorite game? Super Mario 3D Land
8. What is your favorite snack? Pretzels
9. What is your favorite animal? Elephant
10. What is your favorite song? Slam, Onyx (thanks Mark!)
11. What is your favorite book? "I like to make my own books."
12. Who is your best friend? Anthony
13. What is your favorite cereal? Chocolate Rice Krispies
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Swing
15. What is your favorite drink? Water
16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Angry Birds blanket
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Pancakes
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Pancakes (I sense a theme here...)
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? A Firefighter

Jillian's Christmas Gymnastics Show

The following is what happens when you take one little girl on an extreme sugar-high from an afternoon at a Christmas cookie decorating party and then send her to her gymnastics Christmas show:

She's such a little goof. :)

I'm an Elf on The Shelf Mommy - and Proud of It!

I don't pretend to be an amazing mom.  I'm far from what you'd call an "over-achiever." I do the best I can. I'm not very crafty, I don't like to cook and don't do extravagant projects with the kids, I probably should read to them more and they most likely watch too much TV and play too many video games.  I'd qualify myself as distinctly average, in fact.

But I love my kids.  I get so much enjoyment out of seeing them happy, seeing their faces light up and hearing them laugh. When I get moments like that with them, it's like a drug, I just want it to happen over and over again and I never want it to end.  (And speaking of "drugs" - of the legal prescribed variety - for the record, In case you haven't guessed, I'm proudly medicated, I have a lack of mood swings to prove it - and my kids will thank me for it later.)

But anyway, especially at this time of year, I want childhood to be a magical time for them.  I want to bottle up that sense of innocence.  I want their imaginations to have free reign.

I don't think that makes me any different - or better - than most parents out there.  After all, don't we all enjoy the same things as parents? Don't we all want, after all, to "do good by our kids?"

So when I read posts like this one, I have to admit, it raises my hackles.  Yes, we have an "Elf on the Shelf," and yes, I have gone a little nuts with him this year.  But it's all in good fun.  I don't do it to make other parents feel less-than.  I do it for the sole purpose of making my kids happy.  Making them laugh.  Seeing their eyes light up every morning when they find him up to one of his antics. Every night I try to come up with new ideas for our Elf.  Again, because it's fun.  It's good clean, innocent fun.  And my kids love it. It's like taking the magic of Christmas and spreading it out over the entire month of December.

They're only going to be little once and they're not going to believe forever.  I just want to soak up every bit of this time while I still have it.

The author of that blog above apparently has different ideas of what "fun" is.  It seems that "fun" for the author is bashing someone else's ideas so much that the other poor woman actually took her blog down completely.  It seems like "fun" for the author means taking the wind out of other people's well-meaning sails.  They have a name for that kind of person - Bully. Plain and simple.

Lots of people posted on Facebook this morning about that blog post - saying that they found it funny.  I disagree. I don't think it's funny in the least bit. And not just because I have been participating in the Elf craze this year. I don't think it's funny because it's humor with the intent of raising up the author and making others feel inferior. She took something positive and turned it into a negative. I never find it funny to pick on someone else.  What kind of example are these people setting for their own kids after all?

Parents - mothers in particular - feel self-conscious about their abilities as parents enough to begin with.  Why do people feel like they have to put other people down to raise themselves up? I'll never understand.

Okay, I've said what I needed to say. I got it out of my system.  Now I'm going to get off my soapbox, go do homework with my son, read the kids a bedtime story (or two - as I said, I don't read to them enough), put them to bed, and then try to figure out a way to rig up Elfie so that he looks like he's parachuting from the ceiling from a pair of underpants.

In the meantime, if you feel like a giggle, do check out Elfie's Antics on my Facebook page. :)