Personal Video From Santa

The holidays are the time that most children are working on being extra good, anticipating Santa's arrival on Christmas Eve. Our family "adopted" an Elf On the Shelf which we named Bernard. Since November we have had wonderful "visits" from Bernard as he traveled back and forth from our house and the North Pole, where he reports to Santa each evening. His job is to inform Santa if Shaylee has been naughty or nice. She has awaken each morning with excitement as she looks to find where that mischievous little scout elf has hidden upon his return from the North Pole. She totally believes he is real and I am loving getting to share this bit of childhood innocence with children of my own now.

Maybe its the excitement of the holidays, or perhaps just a stage she is going through, but Sassy Britches (aka Shaylee) has been more difficult than normal these past few months. Even the presence of Bernard hasn't helped remind Shaylee that Santa is watching. We don't call her SASSY Britches for nothing, LOL! The Hubs has sworn to email Santa and tell him about her naughtiness. I have threatened that she won't be getting any presents. But nothing seemed to be working- she still talks back, throws mini fits when she doesn't get her way, and whines about everything ...something more drastic had to be done.

That's when a friend of mine on Facebook shared a link with me to get a personal video from Santa himself. Surely there had to be a cost associated with something like this. Curious but skeptical, I looked into it and I was so glad I did! This site is AWESOME!!! It asks for all the required information about the child such as their name, gender, age, etc. You get to decide if your child has been naughty or nice. It even has a drop down menu to select what your needs help in, whether its picking up their toys, being nice to a sibling, doing well in school, or in our case- temper tantrums. Best of all, its FREE! You can link it, email it to yourself, or even purchase it as a video.

I presented this personalized video to Sassy Britches after school this afternoon, explaining to her that Santa got Daddy's email and has sent her a special message. He even went so far as to show himself to her in this video so that she will understand how important it is for her to start behaving properly. Her eyes were as big as saucers as she witness Santa Claus himself deliver a message about her and telling her that she is on his naughty list. I was a little worried she'd get upset, but he kindly reminded her that she still has time to start being good.

I used to think that NORAD Santa was an awesome tool for parents to help keep the magic of Santa alive in our children's lives. Then we introduced Bernard and now we have Portable North Pole with personalized Santa videos! I highly suggest all parents try this out- its just too cool! To see for yourself, check out Shaylee's personalized video here....

Easy Photo Wall Arrangement Trick

So we have a walker. Little Big Stuff is now completely mobile and is into everything. In order to accommodate her new "baby prison" AKA 'playyard', I had to move around our living room furniture which also meant rearranging the photographs that are framed on our wall, since they had been placed to balance the furniture. I had been meaning to take them all down and make them current since the majority of them are still of Shaylee. We have two children now but glancing at our shrine of photos of Sassy Britches that adorn our walls, you would never know it. I also requested 36 little 4x6 frames to make this adorable wall arrangement I saw on Pinterest for Christmas. To make applying this arrangement to the wall easier and to avoid putting a gazillion hole in my wall trying to get the nails to line up right with the backs of these frames, I came up with a wonderful idea to make photo wall arrangements easier.

I started by tracing all the frames onto recycled newspapers (finally a use for all those Sunday papers I bought just for the coupons!). I put a mark on the paper as to where the hanger on the frame was located as well. I cut them out and arranged them on the wall as I found pleasing to the eye and as symmetrical as possible. I just used some tape to hold them up and was able to rearrange them as needed. Now all I have to do is nail where the hanger mark is on the paper then tear the paper away and replace it with the frames.

Once I get all the frames and once I can decide which 36 pictures I want to display, I will post an update with the final results. In the meantime, I think you get the picture, no pun intended! LOL!