My Version of Elf on a Shelf

I heard about Elf On A Shelf a few years ago and I LOVE the concept - a little elf hangs out around the house 'watching' the kids to make sure they are being good and he reports back to Santa every night.  What a fantastic idea to get them to be nice to each other, eat their dinner, brush their teeth and anything else that I can think of (in theory at least!) and have a visual reminder around the house that 'Santa' is watching.

I thought it would be lost on my girls until they were a little older and actually got the whole 'Santa' thing, well this year my oldest is 4 and TOTALLY gets that Santa watches and brings gifts if she is good.  My middle girl is 2 and she 'gets' presents and understands being good so I figure we'll see if she understands the elf watching her concept.  If not it will totally go over well for Miss S!

Getting back to the actual Elf on a shelf, hes supposed to look like this:

 Source

But I must confess I find them a little creepy and I'm not sure why!  So I went down to the Hallmark store and found this little guy and fell in LOVE:

Hes ADORABLE and we named him Farley (it goes well with our last name...!).  Hes actually a christmas ornament that giggles, laughs and farts {hey, what can I say - we find farts funny in this house ;  )} so I figure he'll do double duty - for the first few years he'll be our own Family Elf on a Shelf and after that we'll hang him on the tree and remember how much fun we had with him when the kids were little.  I also picked the kids cousins up an Elf (I believe his name is going to be Fergy) so they can swap stories about their own Elves at each others houses.

Every day Farley is going to  to start the day in a different spot - tomorrow he is going to be in the upstairs bathroom waiting for the girls first thing in the morning.

All and all I think it will be a ton of fun.  Miss S has already asked me a million questions "How does he talk to Santa?" "How does he move?" "Why is he magic?" "If I can't see him, can he still see me?" "How good do I have to be to get presents?" and it went on and on and on....ah the mind of a four year old!!

As usual I have my side note on my basement progress!!!  The other day I posted this picture and said it was my sewing area (not correct, thats where the TV area/playroom area is going to be.)

THIS will be my sewing area!  It will start from where the wall juts in and be that entire back area (am I excited - oh YES I am!!!).  I think its something like 9 feet by 12 feet or something like that.

Miss S eyeing my new Sewing Nook!!  ;)

My sewing table will be set up on the far right wall and I'll have my cutting table set up on the back wall.  A couch will separate the sewing area from the tv area where the wall juts out and I'll have my ironing board right behind the couch.  Lastly I need a place for a design wall, I'm either thinking about using the door (the hole on the left wall will have a door in it tomorrow), or using the wall behind my cutting table but I'm not sure if I'll be able to reach it or not.  I'm sure it will take a few furniture moves before I figure out what works the best.

Our contractor was supposed to come today but we wound up getting 2-3 inches of snow and he had to attend to some snow clearing BUT he promised that he'd be back tomorrow.  As soon as he is out the door I am bringing ALL my sewing stuff downstairs and starting to set things up.  Once I have it remotely put together I'll post pictures and hopefully will get some sewing done.