Jack- Week One

Night One

His first night out and he didn't even make it back inside before morning! When Marley woke up and saw this she screamed and ran back into her room crying. She wouldn't leave her room until I came up there and carried her downstairs. She is terrified of him! Maybe if he's doing more fun stuff she'll like him a little better. 

Night Two

Going fishing. Marley come down and went to the bathroom and didn't say anything, so when Mike went in there he noticed that Jack was swimming with the fishes. So he set him back up there while Marley was searching the house for Jack and she eventually saw him. All day she was talking to him and laughing because he was on the tub in the dark. Much better reaction to him today than yesterday. 

Night Three

Roasting marshmallows. Marley immediately saw him up on the stove and thought it was so funny that he was roasting a marshmallow. She wanted me to light his candle/fire for him though! 

Night Four

Just going for a ride with a sock monkey on a dinosaur.

Night Five

It took Marley a while to find him here but when she did she cracked up laughing. She seemed a little happy that since he was in there he couldn't actually see her. 

Night Six  

Going for a ride on a remote control truck. Thanks for the help baby doll. 

Night Seven 

Just hanging out on the towel bar in the bathroom. 

I'm already running out of ideas of what to do with him. I think our biggest problem is that you can't touch him, so I can't put him anywhere that will require us to have to move him. I've seen ideas online of things to do, but we don't have a lot of extra tables or places to set him that would allow him to stay there all day. Maybe once we get our Christmas decorations up that will help a little too. 

Is anyone else doing the Elf on the Shelf this year? I would love to hear some other ideas of what to do with him.

See all our elf adventures here.

It's for the birds

Marley and I did a quick little craft project today after she brought home some bird food from school. (She had a field trip last week to Chesterton Feed & Garden and they gave each kid a bag of bird food).

First, you need some used toilet paper rolls, peanut butter, bird food, something to spread peanut butter with, and something to lay the bird food out on.

I spread the peanut butter on the t.p. rolls first. I did it pretty thick for a few reasons, one- because I wanted the bird food to stick good, and two- I knew I wouldn't be using this jar of p.b. again so I figured I wouldn't waste it.

Next, I passed the roll off to Marley and she rolled it all over in the bird food. Making sure to smoosh it down good so the food sticks. 

That's it! Then we just bundled up and went outside and slid them over tree branches. We put them where we could see them from inside so Marley could watch them if a bird does come.

It took us about 10 minutes from start to finish and was free since I already had p.b. and t.p. rolls. 

28-31 weeks old

Wax on, Wax off part 2

So now that I had my jar all clean it was time to make a "new" candle. (See how to clean your jar here)

First, I boiled some water. Once it was boiling, I just carefully set my old jars in the water and waited for them to melt.

I took my clean jar and my new wick and rigged up this little system to hold my wick in the middle and straight up while pouring the hot melted wax in.

After I poured the hot wax in, I placed it in the refrigerator so it would harden and started over with melting another candle.

I did this process for each old candle I had. My new candle has a nice stripey pattern to it and the house smelled really good from all the melted candles.

But now, I have a bunch of empty glass jars and I don't really know what to do with them. Does anyone have any ideas? Or should I just scour pinterest like I do for hours every night?