Christmas in July!!

Are you sitting down as you read this?  Two blog posts in one day?  What is the blogging world coming to??  I guess it's because this last post is due to the hubby still out golfing, both kiddos are sound asleep and I'm drinking glass number 2 of my favorite wine!  Aaaaghhh what a night!

So I got to thinking while looking through different pins while the kids played at Chick-fil-A tonight.  I've done a few creative things with Addi and Reid before and I've even got pictures to prove it.  So I thought about doing some posts of my own things and pinning them on my board that I've so smartly titled "My Pins".  So I'll do some posts and then pin it on my boards for fellow obsessors, er I mean fellow people who casually spend their time surfing the pinning world :)

So right now I'm gonna do a Christmas in July post!  My mother in law, also known as Nai Nai to 4 special little ones got Addilyn An Elf on the Shelf several years ago.  I felt that last year was the first year she would really get involved in it and boy did she ever!  Josh and I read the book to her and she immediately named our newest family member.  He became Hurley.  No clue where the name came from but every morning she would get up looking to see where she would find him hiding.  If you've never heard of this awesome Christmas "tradition" then read Here and shame on you--it's such a huge hit to anyone I know who does this!
We introduced him on the first day of December.  That meant we only had 24 days to be creative with Hurley.  (he flies back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve)  Boy oh boy did I not have any idea how hard it became to come up with different idea after different idea on where to hide him.  I remember googling a few things and other than that Josh and I came up with our own.  I'm sure some of them have been done, but since we didn't research it too much, I'm taking credit! Josh and I switched every other night on who was on "Hurley Duty".
Here are some that I have pictures to show!

 We always have this huge plate in our kitchen.  It's where I write out the week's menu, catchy phrases or just doodle.  Hurley left Addilyn (and then wee little Reid) their very own personalized message.  Little did I know I was gonna have to remember "Hurley's penmanship" for future surprises!  Notice Hurley is even holding the marker!

 Addi was sooooo excited to wake up and find Hurley had moved her Barbie hot tub into the dining room and invited her newest Barbie to join him.  Wow, didn't realize how provocative that was until I just typed it.  Oh well! 

Remember me saying how I needed to remember how Hurley wrote?  Yep! Well, Hurley flew back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve so on the 23rd he left Addilyn her own little present!  This was his note to her!  She was so stinkin' excited!

Hurley left a mess when he finished wrapping his gift to Addi (which was a Taylor Swift cd) and it was just the icing on the cake!  It was a nice way to end the Christmas tradition and now that I've looked at all the pictures and revisited everything I'm ready to start looking for new ideas for this year!

Happy Christmas in July!!