Oh, yes… We are doing Elf on a Shelf here in the Ryder household. Although we didn’t opt for the creepy elf, for Everly’s sake. She gets freaked out by many things. Clowns, large statues and probably Elf on a Shelf. Christopher was more cheerful and child friendly we think.

We are doing this popular holiday activity mainly to have a daily threat dangling over her head “Oh, don’t do that bad thing… Chirstopher Popinkins is watching.” It makes fun memories for her too, doesn’t it?

Plus, we get our own entertainment out of his daily hiding spots. But wait!

Now there is even more you can do with your holiday elf… Enter contests!

VOTING IS LIVE: I am gonna need YOUR help voting, now please. You can click here to vote, vote once a day please. Our Christopher is number 20 & 24.

Our little mischievous elf went on a binge tonight…

First there was the panty raid.

Now being in such close proximity to all the silky soft panties brought on another urge for ole Christopher… panty sniffing.

… but they were clean, so it is all good.

When he was all finished… well you can see for yourself on Nathan’s blog.

Now, you’ll have to stay tuned to my Twitter and Facebook pages because next week when Inappropriate Elf contest voting starts.

Go on, follow my blog on Facebook or Twitter now (on the sidebar), you know you want to. Plus, just think of all the oddball stuff I’ll be able to share with you from a new iPad… when you help me win, of course.

VOTING IS LIVE: I am gonna need YOUR help voting, now please. You can click here to vote, vote once a day please. Our Christopher is number 20 & 24.

Oh, you can see all the other entries here if you are curious.

I did a small experiment this year, we ordered and sent out about 35 holiday photo cards to friends and family. Except, I was lazy and I thought everyone else was like me with holiday cards lists so I omitted return address labels from the cards we sent.

As a result we’ve seen a major decrease in the number of cards we’ve received. Or everyone just hates us, or they are slackers… Either way our holiday card wall has three, count them, three cards…

I actually have an electronic address list of close friends and family that I use to send holiday and other important cards throughout the year but I am beginning to think this is not the norm.

Do you just send cards to those people you receive from via their return address labels? Be honest. I want to know.

It is true, we are all boogers and bad hair up in here this week. Nathan is the only one that isn’t sick, lucky guy.

One cold fall morning this week I saw my bunnies sunning themselves in the doorway of the hutch call cute and cuddly. They’ve got love to keep them warm. LOL!

I went to clean the cat box and Everly said to me “Mama, let me try” as she grabbed the scooper from me and dove right in. Made me chuckle and shake my head. Then I snapped some photos.

This is the crochet hat I just finished for Miss Adalyn. Pretty cute I think. Now I am making a bigger one for Miss Everly.

Here is Everly opening a ThredUp box that just came in the mail. The sender not only sent us some great snow pants for E but also many cute baby stuff for A and also a nice colored picture and a toy. She loved it.

I have seen a whole slew of pumpkins having children on the social networks today. Kind of made me laugh and want to reshare. Here are a few of them:

Via Lustik

Via BlessedBirthDoulas

Via www.extremepumpkins.com

Via i am bored

Want to see more pumpkin photos? How about newborn Everly in a pumpkin? View the post here.

Note: These aren’t my photos, just resharing them since they made me smile.

I am following the trend of other bloggers and starting up a Friday Phone Dump here on the blog. It gives an interesting look at how the week shaped up, without so many words (cause face it who has time for those?).

Really though, it is fun for me to see how the week has been. I can’t even remember the things from 30min ago while in this new baby haze of no sleep and no me time… So lets take a look at the week in phone photos. Here is what has been shakin’ this week:

To recap: Shower time madness, frost harvest, smiley baby, crochet frustration, latch issues and fussy (possible) lip-tie issues.

It is true! I was born on the first day of spring 29 years ago. I am now another year older (and wiser?). Everly was excited, probably more than I was on my birthday. She even opened my presents from Nathan for me which was adorable and helpful. Apparently she also helped to wrap them that morning.

It was a warm, sunny birthday filled with just hanging out. We all went shoe shopping, ate lunch out and then came home for ice cream on the deck and some outside time.

We spotted some 2 year asparagus spears poking up in the garden while we were outside while lounging. Nathan has been convinced they weren’t coming back this year since our rhubarb already resurfaced and is going great guns already.

Some 2nd year asparagus cheerfully poking up.

Rhubarb putting on new growth at the start of it's 2nd year.

It is still early for much in the vegetable garden to be springing to life. This is the first month of average temperatures above freezing so things are slowly resurfacing one by one. Like the spearmint that was on death’s door step last spring when we plopped it in the ground hoping it would slowly gain strength.

This year the spearmint is taking over the lawn, the rose bed and is headed for the section of yard that houses our raised vegetable beds. We took a shovel to it and planted some starts of it in pots to share with others. One saving grace is the portion of the lawn it is taking over also happens to be Dixie’s poo and pee spot… so the mint may freshen things up a bit there. Ha, ha.

Spearmint taking over the lawn a year after going in the ground.

The blackberry bush (and two of it’s babies) are no longer dormant and also the raspberry bushes we planted last fall are showing signs of new growth. Berries are one of the great highlights of spring at our house. After all the spring bulbs have shown us their color and beauty the berry plants gift us with amazing fruits that we can’t wait for Everly to get to pick herself this year.

Raspberry bush we planted in the fall.

An old blackberry bush we rescued from abandon and transplanted to our home two years ago.

We should have enough variety and continual harvest to last us through the growing season, I hope! The only berry we’ve once again failed at this year is the blueberry. We had a container “top hat” blueberry plant that survived a few seasons but never yielded much. Last spring I plopped it in the ground hoping it would flourish, unfortunately the dense clay soil we tried to amend in the yard just killed it regardless of our attempts.

Oh and for those of you following the updates on our pregnant bunny, she had 7 babies and 4 of them are still alive. You can see the live video stream of mama and her babies here as well as watch the recorded birth of the 7 baby bunnies.

So the first day of spring was filled with lots of plant and garden enjoyment in addition to my birthday fun which is fitting for this spring born gal. What did you do to ring in spring?

This week we took advantage of the free HP photocards offered at walmart. Photocards are always a fun way to send memories to family and we always have fun photos to share. Plus who doesn’t like getting mail that isn’t bills or junk?

Here is what we came up with for our photo cards:

The free photocard deal still appears to be running so if you are quick you can print off your coupons go to your local store to make you free cards too. We had fun with ours and it seems those we sent them to were also enjoying them.

Also, you can snag a free photo book just for writing a travel review! I just did. Here are the details:

Post a review on TripAdvisor and once your review has been published (usually takes 48 hours) you will receive a code for a free 8×8 photo book on Shutterfly. (Shipping not included.)

Easy review to write! (Short, simple travel review.) Offer ends November 22, 2010.