Elf on a Shelf! Its almost time for him to come again!

Photo from http://www.elfontheshelf.com/

Wow, only one more week until December 1st! I cannot believe how fast time flies.

I started this tradition last year when my son was 4 years old. I feel like that was the first year when he was really into the whole Christmas spirit and a great age to start with traditions that he can still remember. Our elves name is Cadem and he starts coming on December 1st, I know some people will do it after Thanksgiving, but what I do is I have him bring the advent calendar as a welcome back gift for Chase.

Below are all of our Cadems mischievous doings. I got a lot of ideas from Pinterest, there are some great ones, mostly the same stuff though and also lots from my coworkers and friends.

Feel free to use these, but give credit and please comment below with some ideas that you've done. Its hard to keep coming up with new ideas. Thanks in advance.

December 1, 2012

We were introduced to our Elf on a Shelf, we found him hiding on the top of our Christmas Tree on the very first day of December. Chase decided to name him Cadem because his best friend at the time as called Caden, so he wanted to honor him, but still make it a little bit his own by replacing the "n" with an "m". Welcome Cadem to the Silverman home!

December 2, 2012

Cadem found all the cars that Chase owned and lined them all throughout our living room, must have taken him all night, he got so tired that he fell asleep in the pile of cars at the end of it all!

December 3, 2012

Don't you hate when this happens, you wake up in the morning and go to get yourself a cold cup of milk and this is what you see when you open the fridge door!!! Our mischievous little elf decided that it would be funny to turn our milk green for the day!

December 4, 2012

You've heard of TP'ing somebody's house for fun, right? Well, I guess Cadem took it a step further and decided it was an awesome idea to TP our Christmas Tree, but he was caught red handed on the top!

December 5, 2012

This one got lots of laughs! What's better than drawing funny faces on all of our beautiful pictures!

 December 6, 2012

Looks like our Elf thought that Chase has way too many cars and was going to tow them away, good thing we caught him in act!

December 7, 2012

Elves do know everything, especially that Chase loves Star Wars. He was so kind to set up a battle between the Dark Lord, Darth Vader and himself, he did get some back up from R2-D2, but how much of a help is he really? (Glow sticks really made it cool looking when we woke up in a dark winter morning).

December 8, 2012

I guess the stuffed animals really wanted to hear a story and we were all sleeping, so Cadem (our elf) decided to read them a story instead of waking us up and making us do it. Which I much appreciate!

December 9 2012

I guess Cadem was trying to drive out cookie train out of town, good thing we woke up before he made it out the door!

December 10, 2012

Just "hanging" out!

December 11, 2012

Just another family game night. Paddington Bear, Mater, Monkey and Cadem, BFFs!

December 12, 2012

Cookies and milk are not just for Santa, Cadem found some that were just his size.

December 13, 2012

Always fast to blame other people, that's the kind of an elf we got. Chase denied everything, by the way :)

December 14, 2012

Somebody made themselves comfy in my gravy boat. Who would have thought that little elves like taking bubble baths in gravy boats?!? The bubbles, by the way, are those little things that Squinkies come in (if you have children, you know what I mean, they were just perfect for this).

 

 

December 15, 2012

I think after waking up this morning to what you see in the picture, my son really believes that we have the best elf in the whole wide world. To combine some of his favorite things and to come up with an Angry Bird Lego game, was just amazing to him. We actually ended up re-setting this up and playing this game over and over again. Super fun!

December 16, 2012

This day was a shocker! It had been raining underwear all night, I swear! Our whole living room was filled with underwear and look who we found trying some on! Even our Christmas tree got redecorated with underwear, I sure hope they were clean ;)

December 17, 2012

Our little kitty cats were super happy when they woke up to this! All Chase had to say was "Oh Cadem, what have you done now?" Cutest thing I've ever heard.

December 18, 2012

I guess the other toys just got sick of him playing tricks around the house and finally did something about it!

December 19, 2012

Wow, he is a real artist, didn't even follow the rules, Spiderman is supposed to be RED!!!

December 20, 2012

I guess our elf likes videogames as much as our family, like father like elf! Unfortunately this game is rated "M".

December 21, 2012

I think Cadem was ready to go by this time, its hard to come up with new stuff every day for 24 days straight!

December 22, 2012

This is a great day, no matter what year it is. Its my birthday!!!
I guess Cadem wanted his very own Christmas Tree, so this is what he came up with!

December 23, 2012

He snuck into Chases bed for some cuddles!

December 24, 2012

Ahhhhhhh! Christmas Eve is finally here. When I was little this is when we would celebrate and give gifts. I just love this holiday so, so much and hope to bring lots of fun traditions to our little family.

Good bye Cadem, it was very nice to meet you, but now it is time for you to fly back to Santa and tell him we were very good and to bring us lots of presents tomorrow! See you again next year!

 

Thanks for reading and please leave me comments on what you have done to help me this year. I always struggle the closer to Christmas we get.

Happy Holidays, may it be filled with joy and happiness!

 

 

Keili, Mark and Chase

 

The Biggest Loser Half Marathon, Seattle Edition!

 

Sorry, for being MIA for a while, but I haven't had access to my laptop, I finally have it back and I'm ready to share my 10th half marathon with you!!!

This time I decided to do the Biggest Loser Half Marathon, it was an inaugural run for Seattle. I think they have done other races across the country, but this was the first time they held it in Seattle. At this point I'm not really picky about the races that I'm choosing, but I do like the larger ones, where you get more than a few hundred people. I'm always afraid that I'll be the last one finishing, not that there is anything wrong with that, but honestly, I just don't want to be last, that's not too much to ask, is it?

This was my first half that I didn't feel like going to the expo the day before, I just chose to pick up my race bib and goody bag at the race. The course was very similar to the See Jane Run Half, they had a few slight changes but nothing major. This was the first time that I have ran a same course and I have to say that I enjoyed knowing what was next and being able to tell myself that all I need to do is just run around the corner and straight down and I'll be done. It felt good.

The race started at Gasworks Park in Seattle, this time the weather was absolutely perfect, it was cool, but not cold. They even had a couple of contestants from the Biggest Loser show. To be honest, I don't watch the show, so I couldn't tell you who they were, but everybody was snapping pictures and calling out their names. I got there with just about a half an hour to spare, got my stuff and gave my bag to gear check and off to the starting line I went.

The course was around Lake Union, its a beautiful course, you run across two bridges, past the University of Washingtons brand new football field and lots and lots of pretty water views. The race felt great over all. Lots of racers, it really was a sea of neon orange (that was the color of the T-shirt and the drawstring backpack that we got), I chose to wear my usual Lululemon gear, of course.

I was a little disappointed with the after race party. At other bigger races they've had lots of fun booths to look around at and good food to taste, at this race they just had bagels, bananas and water and that's it. So needless to say, I didn't stick around for too long, got my awesome medal and went home. And that's how it all went down.

 I'm a little disappointed that my times have gone down with each race, but I've had a lot of knee issues lately and I really just want to finish my 13 halfs for the year and then take some time off to recover and start training for the Seattle Rock'n'Roll half again in 2014.

See you at my next race,

Keili

My first organized run!

So for Mother's Day I saw that the city of Seattle was doing a free 5K run and I immediately was interested in running it with my 3.5 year old son Chase. I signed up super late the night before, but it allowed me to do it so I figured it wouldn't be a problem. We drove down to Seward Park (where the race took place) and picked up our race packet and had some time to play at the playground before the race stared.

They took some professional pictures and off we went. Chase just bolted from the starting line, 3.5 year olds do not know how to keep pace its either all or nothing and he gave it his all, that's for sure. After about 10 minutes he was tired, so we let all the runners pass us and he decided that walking was ok as long as people didn't pass him. Towards the end of the 5K he asked me if I can carry him for a couple of little minutes because his legs were tired, so I did, but as soon as he saw the finish line he wanted back down and ran like the wind accross it. We actually beat most of the walkers and my son genuinely thought that he had won the race! I was so proud of him, he was so excited, they had marshmallows and water at the end and it made his day.

We had so much fun running that I signed him up for a 2K race at the UW Bothell next Saturday. I'll let you know how it goes.