Dashy

 Meet Dashy.

Our Elf on the Shelf.

 We started December with one gift for each day of Advent. I spent zero money on this (aside from our Elf on the Shelf), the rest are all things I already had on hand.

 Each day the boys get to open one surprise.
Little things like brownies we get to bake together or beads to make necklaces with.

Elf on the Shelf was their first present, and they are enamored.

 Logan loves him.

 Jack loves him.

 Wyatt loves him.

 But most importantly, I love him.

For those of you who don't know what Elf on the Shelf is all about, here's the rundown.  

Once the elf is sent to live with children, his magic begins.  All day he watches the boys' behavior, and then each night, once we are asleep, he flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa.  For this mama, that means little boys working hard on kindness & listening. And that's a beautiful thing!

 We wrote letters to Santa and asked Dashy to deliver them.

The next morning Dashy appeared with two letters back from Santa, telling the twins how proud Santa was of their kindness and how if they kept working so hard, they would get the presents they requested.

They were tickled pink to have real life letters from Santa.

***

But their favorite part about Dashy is waking up in the morning 

and finding what he's been up to all night.

 Each night we leave him on my desk, and each morning, we wake up and find that he has arrived back from the North Pole and had a little fun.  The first night, he was playing with Wyatt's cash register.

The second night he had snuck into our bag of Whoppers and enjoyed a few.

The third night he spent playing the Wii.

And the fourth night he arrived on Bucky the pirate ship with Jake & The Neverland Pirates

to deliver Santa's letters.

The boys are always reminding each other that Dashy is watching, and Tuesday Logan admitted that he had lied to me and he didn't want Dashy to tell Santa, so he thought he should tell me the truth and apologize. I was flabbergasted.

They love to hold him and carry him around and even bring him upstairs each night for story time.  I am so happy I decided to get one this year. It has truly put magic in our Christmas!