Zeke 2011 - Day 11 - Toilet Paper Tree

Zeke pulled another prank on us! He was sitting on our fireplace mantel with toilet paper in hand. He had TPed our Christmas tree!

The boys laughed and said he was being silly. Our five year old son thought Zeke was trying to make it look like our tree had snow on it.

Our two year old boy imitated what he thought Zeke was doing by putting his hand over his mouth, gasping and saying "Oh no!"

Zeke 2011 - Day 10 - Family Photos

Today Zeke was up high on a shelf (which my oldest said was the first time he was actually an elf "on a shelf"). He had drawn on our family pictures. Mom and Dad were now dressed as elves. Isaiah was a reindeer, Ezra looked like Santa and baby Abram had on glasses (just like Zeke's glasses the boys noticed). The boys thought it was hilarious and found it funny that Zeke looked like he was laughing with his hand over his mouth.

(The marker rubbed right off the glass with a paper towel.)

Zeke 2011 - Day 9 - Christmas Books

We found Zeke early this morning reading by the light of the Christmas tree. He must have been up all night because his note said that when he got back from the North Pole, he went through the boys' bookcase in their room, picked out all of their Christmas books and read each and every one.

He invited the boys to read the books and wrote that he would love it if they could read him some. The kids had a blast and got a kick out of his glasses (which were made out of black twisty ties).

Zeke 2011 - Day 8 - S'mores

Today we found Zeke camped out in the living room!

We caught him roasting a marshmallow over a tea-light candle. He was making elf-sized s'mores! He saved some graham crackers, chocolate bars and marshmallows for us so we could make s'mores as well.

We made our s'mores in the microwave today (by placing the chocolate bar on half of a graham cracker and a few mini marshmallows on the other half, heating them for about 10 seconds, and squishing them together). The kids loved this little treat for a snack!

Zeke 2011 - Day 7 - Movies & Popcorn

Today Zeke decided it was movie day!

He was hanging out in a popcorn bucket on our TV stand. He decorated it with popcorn garland and put out buckets and popcorn for us.

He set out a great selection of Christmas movies including the classics (like Rudolph and Frosty) and An Elf's Story which was about a scout elf like Zeke named Chippey (about 20 minutes long). The boys loved it!

Zeke 2011 - Day 6 - Candy Cane Zip-line

Our son quickly went to grab his DSi so he could take a picture of Zeke when we found him and in the process, spotted him. Zeke had made a candy cane zip-line from the light in the middle of our dining room ceiling to the top of our little Christmas tree across the room. He put candy canes all over our little tree and left us a note telling us to enjoy them. :) He hung out there all day and every time we'd see him out of the corner of our eyes, we'd laugh. Silly elf.

Zeke 2011 - Day 5 - Hot Chocolate

It didn't take us as long to find Zeke this morning as we thought it might. He had found a really good hiding spot in the fridge before so we weren't sure what nook we'd find him in today. Of course the boys wanted to check his previous hiding places before looking anywhere else. He wasn't in the fridge but when Isaiah turned around, he quickly noticed one of Zeke's notes (which he wrote on the same Santa note pad paper everyday) taped to the microwave.

Isaiah asked me to read it. Zeke wrote that it was so cold outside today that he was some place warm. We opened the microwave and found Zeke surrounded by a chocolate and marshmallow explosion!

The boys immediately noticed the cool new mugs (Isaiah claimed the penguin and Ezra claimed the snowman). Zeke wrote that he thought the boys might like a nice cup of hot chocolate to stay warm on this very cold day so he brought them some Christmas mugs with hot chocolate packets in them. He apologized for the mess (marshmallows, chocolate chips and cocoa sprinkled about), stating that he may have gotten a little carried away with the marshmallows. He asked the boys if they thought he looked like Santa with his marshmallow beard. They told him that he really did!

The boys loved drinking the hot chocolate (for which we heated up the milk on the stove that day since we couldn't touch Zeke!) from their new mugs and enjoyed putting the white and green Christmas tree marshmallows in their drink.

(The mugs are from the 2011 Be Merry collection at Target.)