A Broken Fortress

Jobs

2012-01-27T12:03:00.002-06:00

Changing it up a bit today!

I want to know, if you could have any one job, what would it be?

I thought of this as I was watching my favorite show (online since we don't pay for tv) Project Runway. I've always wanted to be a fashion designer. I wish I could make my own clothing patterns and then create fancy gorgeous looks.

Maybe someday I'll get close. I draft my own patterns for most of the sewing I do. I've done probably less than 5 mass produced patterns in my sewing history. So far I've made Annamarie a few outfits. I think as she gets bigger I'll have more opportunity for this.

So. What would you be?

Swagbucks

2012-01-26T15:43:00.003-06:00

I had a great response when I posted about Pinterest, so now I thought about posting about Swagbucks.

Does anyone else do Swagbucks? I've been doing it for less than a year and for the most part I find it rewarding.

For those who haven't heard of it, you earn points for doing various things like taking surveys, polls, referrals, using their search engine etc. Then you cash those points in for items or for electronic gift cards.

I'm on a forum and some people on there are really good at it and get at least $25 worth of Amazon gift cards a month! I haven't been that prosperous, but I have gotten a $15 gc to Ecomom and this month cashed in on $10 to Amazon.

If you all do Swagbucks, how much do you get on average? Any tips or tricks you want to share?

If you aren't doing Swagbucks and feel like trying it, feel free to join using my link and I will get credit! I only get an incentive if you get points through their search engine.

My Swagbucks Referral link

Weekly Recipe: Philly Cheesestake Mac N Cheese

2012-01-24T14:12:00.001-06:00

I thought this one was pretty good. More work than I normally put into Mac N Cheese, and Steve really liked it. Recipe from a Rachael Ray cookbook.

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
2 large onions, thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pound cavatappi-shaped pasta (I couldn't find this so I just used penne)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
3 cups milk
2 cups shredded provolone
1 pound thinly sliced deli roast beef, roughly chopped
1/4 cup Italian parsley, chopped

Place a large pot of salted water over high heat and bring it to a boil.

Place a large skillet over medium-high heat with 2 turns of the pan of EVOO, about 2 tablespoons. Add the onions to the pan and top them with a lid or piece of aluminum foil for 2-3 minutes, just to get them cooking. Remove the lid or aluminum foil and continue cooking the onions until tender and lightly caramelized, 8-10 minutes. Season them with salt and freshly ground black pepper and reserve, covered with the lid or foil to keep them warm.

When the onions are almost ready, cook the cavatappi to al dente according to package directions. Once you drop the pasta into the water, place a pot over medium-high heat and melt the butter. Sprinkle the flour over the melted butter and cook the mixture for about 1 minute. Whisk the milk into the butter-flour mixture slowly and bring up to a bubble to thicken. Remove the pot from the heat and whisk in the shredded cheese. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and reserve.

Once the pasta has finished cooking, drain it and return it to the pot it was cooked in. Add the cheese sauce and reserved caramelized onions to that pot and toss everything to combine.

Right before serving, stir the roast beef into the pot with the cheesy pasta and heat through for about a minute (don’t let it go too much longer as it will overcook).

Random thoughts

2012-01-20T18:14:00.002-06:00

Just some randomness since I'm not really feeling inspired.

Why do babies sleep with their arms up over their heads? Anyone have a guess? I think it's cute.

Anyone else who's ever had a c-section ever regain feeling in their stomach? I've read it can come back, so we'll see. There's two sections on my stomach I no longer have feeling in. Kind of weird, but I've gotten used to it.

Anyone else struggle with body image post-partum? I was rather self conscious in high school, then in college I was good since I had Steve and I felt good about myself. Now? Not so much. I still have extra skin. And most days I'm too tired to try looking good. I need to work on that. I'm sick of wearing glasses every day and a ponytail. But I'm just so tired. I do work out, at least twice a week, which has helped.

I know chances are, I'll always be changed. I mean, there's no way I'm getting rid of my lopsided smile of a scar, but it'd be nice to get rid of my "muffin top". I've heard some people say that a c-section results in a bit extra of a pouch since your skin was cut open, not sure how true that is. My abs separated drastically during my pregnancy, thanks to Zumba, they're back, but that darn extra skin still is hanging on for dear life. It doesn't help that one day Steve asked if I was sticking my stomach out. Men, sometimes they just can be clueless about these things, can't they?

Enough random thoughts.

Tomorrow Steve plays in a pond hockey tournament and then we have a date night going to Monster Jam! Hahahaha

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Baby Story Time!

2012-01-18T15:21:00.002-06:00

This morning we rushed out the door to baby story time at the local library. I say rushed, because it started at 9:45 and we didn't get up until 9:15. But Annamarie is a good baby and did well on not eating much that morning (although she had gotten up at 7 to eat, so she did have a little in her belly)

I loved books as a kid, and still love to read if I had more free time, so I'm hoping to instill that love in Annamarie. Books are awesome!

She loved it. She was the youngest baby there, but she still had a smile on her face the whole time and loved watching the other babies move about. I think she really wished she could crawl like the others!

I do think it's funny what we as moms do to entertain our babies. I mean, if you didn't have kids it'd be embarrassing to sing "The Wheels On The Bus" and make funny sounds. I do so much better with these things now that I have a baby of my own. I'm a lot more at ease with looking weird haha!

I'm sure we'll make this probably a weekly event, as she loves interacting with other babies, and I need to get out of the house. It'd be a plus if I were to make a friend. Okay, totally making myself sound like a dork here, but it's tough not having friends! I wish I had a friend with a baby to do things with. It kind of gets lonely. Sometimes you just want to go up to another mom and be like "Will you be my friend?". I'm sure other moms feel the same, I just need to not be such an introvert.

And some random cute pics..

Recipe: Broccoli Cheddar Soup

2012-01-17T11:44:00.002-06:00

I'm finally getting back into making a new recipe weekly, so here's hoping I keep getting them up for you.

Steve had a root canal last week so I needed something soft for him, and I love broccoli!

If I were to make this again, I think I'd leave the nutmeg out, I felt it was a bit strong. And I left the onions out since we don't like them.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon melted butter
1/2 medium chopped onion
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup flour
2 1/2 cups half-and-half
4 cups chicken stock
1 lb. (16 oz.) fresh or frozen broccoli florets
1 cup grated carrot
Kosher salt and freshly grated pepper, to taste
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
8 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese

1. Melt butter in a large pot over medium-high heat, and sauté onion until soft, about 3 minutes. Add additional butter and flour, whisking for 3-5 minutes to create a roux. Whisk while adding the half-and-half and chicken stock. Simmer for 20 minutes.

2. Stir in the broccoli florets and grated carrot. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg. Simmer over low heat for 30-35 minutes.

3. Remove soup from heat and pulse with an immersion blender until smooth. Or, puree the soup in batches in a food processor until smooth, adding mixture back to the pot.

4. Return pot to low heat and stir in cheddar cheese. Simmer for 10 minutes, and serve.

Cuteness for the weekend

2012-01-13T17:18:00.002-06:00

Just something to leave you with for the weekend.

Enjoy :)

Going cloth

2012-01-12T13:48:00.002-06:00

I'm pretty sure you all know we cloth diaper, and I love it. Quite some time ago I talked about using cloth pads on light days.

But now that I'm doing diaper laundry anyways, I decided to go fully cloth.

I started out getting cloth nursing pads. Those disposable ones seem so wasteful to me, and the brand I preferred were individually wrapped, which is even worse! So I got some bamboo velour ones. Ohhh they are so soft, and pretty too! They're backed in pul, so they're waterproof too. Now I can't imagine using anything else. Even if you don't cloth diaper you could still easily use these.

Then I decided to just go with it and go fully into cloth pads as well. Okay, some people might find this odd. But still, I hate being wasteful, and I'm frugal. And it doesn't hurt that these are prettier, and softer!

Obviously I was pregnant, and then/am nursing so these have not gotten a lot of use yet. But I'm hopeful that I will like them. So far, so good. I will keep you all posted (but not tmi, I promise!)

Just hoping to spread the word about cloth, as I know before cloth diapers I didn't even realize there were other options. Let me know if you have any questions!

I do draw the line somewhere though. Did you know there is such a thing as family cloth? It's what some families use instead of toilet paper. Yeah, I think Steve would think I went crazy if I went that far. He even refuses to use cloth baby wipes. But that's okay, I think sharing toilet paper is a bit odd. I'm not sharing my cloth with anyone else ha!

Recipe: Teriyaki Chicken and Broccoli

2012-01-10T21:57:00.002-06:00

This one turned out very good, I will for sure be making it again!

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp. oil
1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
1 Tbsp. pineapple juice
1/2 tsp. garlic powder or 1 clove of minced garlic
1 tsp. of light brown sugar
2 cups frozen broccoli florets

1. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook and stir 5 to 7 min. or until cooked.
2. Add water, teriyaki sauce, pineapple juice, brown sugar and garlic powder; stir. Bring to boil.
3. Let it simmer until the sauce lessens a bit.
4. Toss in the broccoli and mix until the florets are evenly covered with sauce. Let it stand for 3 minutes more.
5. Serve it with steamed rice.

Hemming Jeans Tutorial

2012-01-08T15:38:00.002-06:00

It's been a while since I did a tutorial post! This one is pretty simple, but works great.

I hate it when I need jeans hemmed and the original somewhat distressed hem is taken off, because then the hem of the jeans just looks funny to me. All clean and sharp, when the rest of the jeans aren't like that.

So this is one way to keep the original hem.

Have the person, or have someone else mark the hem where you need it fixed. Steve wore his pants and then I pinched the hem inside the pants until the hem laid where I want it.
Mark it with a pin and then measure how much you need to take off so that it's even all the way along the bottom

Pin all of the pants leg, making sure to line up the side seams

Put the zipper foot onto your sewing machine and then sew a straight stitch as close as you can to the original seam

After you've sewn along the whole leg, then sew a tight zig-zag stitch next to that straight stitch. This will keep the pants from unraveling. You'd probably want to do a tighter stitch than I did here, as his is coming slightly unraveled. Something like 3 wide and 1 apart. Or also put some fray check on the edge after cutting.

Then carefully cut off the excess jeans. If you wanted to use fray check put that on after cutting the excess off.

Iron the hem flat. You may need to do this periodically after washing, if the hem doesn't stay folded correctly.

From far away you can't even tell it was hemmed!

If you need your own pants hemmed you'd have to get help, but otherwise it's super simple! I didn't measure how much pant needed to come off, I simply pinched it on the wrong side and marked that with a pin, then made sure the rest of the leg was the same. I hope that made sense..

Let me know if you have any questions!

Fun

2012-01-07T18:10:00.003-06:00

I posted this on facebook but I know pretty much no one on there reads my blog, so here this is.

Steve's mom is always raving about how Annamarie looks like Steve as a baby. I have a feeling she doesn't remember what he looked like, as here is my comparison. You tell me who she looks like? Ha!

I didn't always have such a pointy nose. Although I think she still has his chin and his eyes, as mine are green and hers are blue like his. But otherwise I think she really resembles me as a baby. And we looked at a picture of my dad as a baby and she looked very similar to him too, although I look more like my mom than my dad.

It's fun to see her change and grow into more of her own person!

Big girl!

2012-01-05T19:21:00.003-06:00

Annamarie finally started eating a few solids. We're not on a regiment of feeding them, normally just every few days. The oatmeal I had bought was a bust, but turns out she loves bananas and carrots thus far. It's kind of fun doing this new thing with her.

My mom got me a mini food processor so I can make her my own food. Cheaper and less preservatives. This way I can use the processor for cooking too when not making purees.

She's just getting so big!

Bananas!

Actually eating food!

She opens her mouth, not turning her head away, yay! (here she is giraffeing her neck to get more)

So happy!

6 months!!

2012-01-03T20:59:00.003-06:00

Annamarie is getting so big! It's crazy to me how fast half a year goes. I think the minute you become a parent the time goes even faster.

She turned 6 months on the first of January. We visited my parent's over the New Years to do our Christmas with them, so it was really fun to see them and have them play with Annamarie.

We got her 6 month pictures as well, so here those are! (they're pictures of the pictures, so the quality is not so great) I made the headband for her, and plan on making more headbands for my Etsy shop.

There was another 6 month old baby there getting his pictures done, and it was adorable to see them babble at each other and smile at each other.

She's changing every day. Now she says "mama" and "mommy". Steve jokes that I just must be teaching her that, but she got it on her own, I'm sure soon she'll do dada or papa too.

She's practically crawling as well now. She moves backwards and sideways and goes up on her hands and tippetoes to catapult forward. She's almost there, so I now got tons of toys for her to play with on the floor.

I love this stage!

2011-12-29T17:26:00.002-06:00

Okay, I followed the crowd. I joined Pinterest. Originally I thought it sounded like such a random idea and something that wouldn't be useful.

But, then I realized how awesome it is to organize my craft and recipe ideas and to be able to see pictures of the things seeing as bookmarking something on your web browser doesn't show the picture. So now I have everything organized.

Not sure what Pinterest is? It's a website that is basically like your own personal bulletin board. You make boards and then when you see something online you like, you can click to "Pin it" to your board. So, say I see an awesome craft idea on someone else's blog. I click the pin it button I installed to my toolbar and then it will put it on my board complete with a picture from that person's blog.

So, I'm finding it useful. Makes me excited to find some time to finally get back to crafting and then perhaps putting more tutorials up on here. I have one that I did, just need to find time to post it. Probably next week.

So, if anyone else is on Pinterest, I'd love to follow you!

Christmas in Pictures

2011-12-28T12:12:00.003-06:00

Annamarie had a great first Christmas, and it continues this weekend as we visit my parents and have family over to exchange gifts. I'd say I like this prolonged Christmas gift exchange versus one lump day where it's present overload and then it's all over. This is a lot more fun, and I think makes you value the gifts more.

But, here's pictures from our Christmas at Steve's mom's house.

I don't know that I shared the picture on our Christmas card, so if not, here it is! I took it myself one morning, so cute!!

And I did finish her Christmas dress on time. The pattern called for buttons, but seeing as I've never done a button hole I opted for snaps, and I think snaps work better with a baby anyways.

She looks so old!

Christmas Eve we opened a few gifts as a family since I insisted we have some just us time as a first Christmas, so it was nice that we got some time alone.
Annamarie loved helping rip open the presents.

And tasting them of course

I got her the most awesome board book. It's Star Wars ABCs.
Steve read it to her, E is for Ewok!!

Christmas day Steve's brothers came over and we opened more presents. Steve and I opted for awesome Christmas attire. I said I look like such a mom! Total joke as I don't know when the last time I wore a turtleneck was..

She loves opening presents

All her cousins were there, which was fun.

Her uncle, and godfather, read her a book

And we opened presents from my sister

So, we had a great Christmas, but I can't believe this year is almost over!

Merry Christmas (Eve)!

2011-12-24T14:37:00.002-06:00

Hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

I plan on enjoying the day with Steve and Annamarie. She only gets one first Christmas, so I hope to make the most of it. Of course there will be pictures! She's at the stage where she LOVES ripping things, so opening presents will be fun!

God bless you all and see you next week!

Recipe: Cookies N Cream Fudge

2011-12-21T13:54:00.002-06:00

I made this up for presents for the neighbors and a few family members. It was easy to make, and really good!

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
1 (5 oz.) can evaporated milk
2 (12 oz.) packages white chocolate morsels
1 (7 oz.) jar marshmallow cream
3 cups coarsely chopped Oreos (about 25 cookies), divided
pinch of salt

Line a 9" square pan with aluminum foil; set aside.

Combine first 3 ingredients in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil; cook 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; add white chocolate morsels, marshmallow cream, 2 cups crushed cookies, and salt. Stir until morsels melt.

Pour fudge into prepared pan. Sprinkle remaining 1 cup cookies over fudge, gently pressing cookies into fudge. Cover and chill until firm.

Lift uncut fudge in aluminum foil from pan; remove foil and cut fudge into squares.

Swaddling Part 2

2011-12-19T18:01:00.002-06:00

Since some didn't know what a swaddler is, here's a picture. It's a sleep sack with wings that velcro around the body.

If she sleeps in her swing, or without the swaddler her hands do go by her head, but she sleeps better all wrapped up.

(this is from her first month when we co-slept)

And, she used to love her pacifier, but won't take it any more.

So, well, I guess I'll just make a bigger swaddler. Perhaps she'll wean herself someday..

Swaddling

2011-12-19T16:11:00.002-06:00

Anyone else ever have a baby that just loved swaddling so much? Annamarie will be 6 months soon. Not many babies seem to still be swaddled at that age. She's getting too long for the biggest Halo swaddler. Yet she loves it.

Last night I bit the bullet and tried to wean her. I left one arm out and swaddled the other. Up after only 2 hours.

So we decided that it didn't matter, might as well try both arms out. Up after 3 hours, then up 2 hours after that. After that I resigned and put her in the swing, which she of course slept 4 hours in.

Needless to say, everyone is very tired today.

So, any advice?

I asked some friends on facebook, and there was mixed thoughts. One lady said, keep with it for a week and she bets Annamarie will go back to sleeping. Another lady had a baby that slept swaddled until 9 months, another a year. At that age they weaned themselves.

She does sleep on her tummy, which is why I thought sleeping with her arms in would be rather uncomfortable. But man, waking every 2-3 hours sucks.

I can easily make her a bigger swaddler, that's not really an issue. I just can't decide if it's worth weaning and loosing sleep, or just let her go until she decides to stop? It'd be different if she was a thumb sucker and could soothe herself, but if she wakes up and is unhappy, she wants to nurse to sleep. Steve even tried soothing her last night, but I got sick of the crying and just wanted to sleep so I gave in and nursed her. Of course after 5 minutes she was asleep, so she was obviously not hungry.

Ah, I don't know what to do tonight..

Keeping Busy

2011-12-15T12:53:00.003-06:00

As if taking care of a 5 month old weren't enough, I also need to stay on top of things with my business, and with lack of sleep sometimes it's hard to stay motivated. But Steve is wonderful and helps out when he gets home and on weekends.

I recently added some fun new wooden toys to my shop.

I've got color matching acorns and pots

Color and counting bugs in bowls

Amongst others. I've got a mushroom memory game that I need to paint up too.

I recently also had a large order of custom name pillows. Someone ordered 5 of them for Christmas gifts. I love seeing how they turn out, but they take forever to make!

It's hard to find time to do my own crafting! I need to make Annamarie's Christmas dress this weekend as well as candy for gifts for the neighbors. And I also wanted to find time to make some more diapers.. Time just goes by too quickly.

Hockey

2011-12-13T18:33:00.004-06:00

Last night we drove two hours up to Duluth. Steve told me about this thing put on by Red Bull called Crashed Ice. I helped sign him up for the tryouts to do it. The Twin Cities tryouts were full, but Duluth was still open so we went there.

I used to live up in Duluth. I like it up there. That was before I had this blog though. But anyways, I had a new hat for Annamarie and I was excited to have her wear it. As I walked by some hockey guys, one guy goes "Sweet hat!" another says "Sweet Baby!". It's so funny how so many people comment on her. She really attracts attention from people.

To try out, the guys had to skate around barricades, jump over things and dive under bars. It was a timed event and only the fastest made it to the Crashed Ice event held in January by the Cathedral in St. Paul.

Unfortunately, Steve didn't make it. He was about 5 guys too slow. Oh well. He had fun trying out anyways.

Perhaps it is a good thing he didn't make it. Here's a video of highlights from last year's. As you can see, it's kind of rough.. I said perhaps he would have really gotten hurt or something, as everything happens for a reason.

I did take some pictures though, so here's pictures from the tryouts.

Annamarie in her sweet hat.

And Steve having fun

We didn't get out of the arena til almost 9:30, so we ended up staying the night in a hotel. Which is always fun because they have cable. And free breakfast. Ha, the little things that make me happy! It's always fun to me to stay in hotels. Good to get out of the house that I don't want to live in, and just have us time.

So. Very. Tired

2011-12-12T10:39:00.004-06:00

Ahhh. I miss sleep so badly. A solid 8 hours of sleep would be like Heaven at this point.

Someone needs to tell Annamarie she needs to sleep more. Waking 2 times a night as a newborn was great. Now she's over 5 months, it's time to start sleeping longer periods of time.

When we meet other people with babies, Steve asks if they sleep well. Of course they insist their baby does. If it were me, I wouldn't ask the question because I don't want to know. When they insist their baby does, I just smile. Inside I'm secretly hating them. Okay, maybe not really.

But seriously. Annamarie is hit or miss. Some nights she wakes once, which is nice. Most nights it's up at around 1 and 4, and then again around 8. Unless we go to bed early, then she's up at midnight. And then I want to die. Or feed formula. See, the worst thing is, it takes me a half hour or more to fall back asleep. So while I am dying inside sitting there feeding her, Steve is blissfully snoring next to me for the most part. Sometimes I cry. I do not do well with little sleep. This is why I do not plan on having another baby any time soon. I just cannot function. And the thought of never getting a full night sleep if we were to have another one sometime soon? I die.

To be honest I do think she's teething. I feel some chompers. But, it isn't that bad compared to full-out teething, and that scares me.

One main issue is that she doesn't do too well putting herself back to sleep. If she's content she can, but if anything is wrong, she won't go back to sleep by herself. And, she's still swaddled. Any time I try not swaddling it just doesn't go too well.

Basically night time is a mess right now. Just wanted to complain for a bit.

If you come and post how well your baby sleeps right now or something I probably won't post it. Because I'm a hater like that. ;)

Editing to add: Thanks ladies for all the wonderful comments so far. I'd post a comment, but I know not everyone reads all of them. Anyways, this was posted a bit tongue-in-cheek, if you will. It's really not that bad, and it could be so worse, I know that.

I know she'll grow up way too fast. I already look at her and wonder where the little squishy baby went. I will miss when she can say what she wants instead of tensing up and grunting at it. That's adorable, and I will miss her grunting loudly during the quiet periods of Mass. (I think people probably think she's constipated haha! But it's adorable to me)

Steve actually has offered to bottle feed her at night, but for the most part I haven't had him do it because I feel badly. He has to get up at 7am for work. If she sleeps in til 8, I get that extra hour. So it's not his fault. Sometimes I just pick on him.

Another issue for me, is that we still live with my MIL, and so she's in the pack-n-play next to the bed. If she starts rolling and tossing 15 or 30 minutes before she actually cries, I wake up and loose that sleep too. So part of me wishes she had her own room so that I only woke up when she actually cried. But who knows, that might not help either.

I love the days with her, the nights are just hard sometimes. But Melody is right, I should be thankful that I can comfort her. :)

Truly Amazing

2011-12-10T19:50:00.002-06:00

We had to go to IKEA today, so I talked Steve into going at night, as I had heard about this amazing Christmas light display. He had never seen it, and I didn't tell him what it was, I was so excited to surprise him with it.

For anyone in Minnesota, near Bloomington, if you've never seen this tree, it's a must see!

I read there's about 4900 LED lights on this oak tree. It seriously looks like a tree made out of lights. So amazing.

Of course I forgot my camera, but here is a picture someone else took.

Flickr source

As you can see, it's huge compared to the house in the background. I'd love to go again and take some pictures. Perhaps we'll get over there again this year, but it's a bit of a drive for us.

Just wanted to share since it's so impressive :)

Ridiculous

2011-12-06T15:06:00.004-06:00

This is the most ridiculous hat ever. But it's hilarious. And yes, I have a ridiculously large hat collection for her.

She's about to go out and shovel snow with daddy. And the funny thing is, she fell asleep while he was shoveling, so when he came in, her head was just hanging there. I don't personally like these types of carriers as I've read they're not the best for their hips, but Steve doesn't like tying my moby-style wrap on, so he uses it. And she loves it. She'll sit in it for 3 hours if we let her. So it works to get things done.

Elf on the Shelf

2011-12-02T14:04:00.002-06:00

Okay. I keep seeing all these posts on this "Elf on the Shelf" things on my facebook page. I can't remember if I heard of it previous years or not.

I'm not going to get into the Santa debate here. That would be another post for another day, and I don't think it's worth it as we all choose our own parenting styles. I don't do Santa. But this has nothing to do with that.

Have you all seen these "Elf on the Shelf" things?

Supposedly they're elves that you sit somewhere in your house and tell your child that the elf is watching them to let Santa know if they've been naughty or nice.

Creepy much? Just the idea isn't creepy to you? Do you honestly think this face is cute?!

I think that's the face nightmares are made of. If my parents had stuck that thing in my room as a child and told me it was watching me, you can bet I wouldn't sleep at night.

Perhaps I read too many Goosebumps books as a child, but it reminds me of Slappy. Slappy is a dummy that comes alive in the night.

Does no one think their child will have nightmares from looking at that elf? Or am I the only crazy one here? I see people talking about using them with their children, all excited. I wouldn't waste my money, it's creepy!

I mean, I guess if you have to do that to get your kids to behave, then do what you gotta do. Or maybe you think it's cute? Yeah, Christmas is fun, and Santa can be fun too, so I get that this could become a little tradition as well. But honestly? I'd rather get some sleep instead of staring at that little elf all night waiting for it to come alive...