Elves and Goldfish

This past weekend, we were fortunate to have an early visit from a Christmas Elf. The Elf wasn't dressed in red, she is 11, loves to try on dresses and jewelry, is into "Say Yes to the Dress", and is learning to play Gin Rummy.

The elf is our very own Elf Ellie (our niece).

All weekend long, Cora was entertained, I had an extra set of hands, and I had a partner for cards during the football game. Ellie even "babysat" Cora at the James Island Connector Run so Landon and I could volunteer. Life was pretty darn good.

On Sunday, we had a funny Cora moment. We were all sitting at the kitchen table eating biscuits. The Looney Tunes were on the Cartoon Network in the background. While eating, Cora started squealing and craning her neck to see the TV. She was reaching her arms (as if to say Hello), and she had turned on her flirty face. The subject of her affection: The Goldfish Commercial. There is a commercial on kids' channels for Pepperidge Farm Goldfish (I think it is specifically advertising for Goldfish Grahams). The goldfish are nearly the size of the TV screen and they are bright and animated. My child loved it! We've seen it a few times since, and she always stops what she is doing and reacts. This was her first "fan" moment. Although we watch Looney Tunes in the mornings and we sometimes put in a Smurfs DVD, we really do not have any shows that we put on for Cora (you are right - that means that we are watching Looney Tunes and Smurfs for Landon and I), but she doesn't seem any more attracted to the Looney Tunes than she does to a football game. I guess that we just don't watch a lot of TV at our house, and we certainly haven't started encouraging Cora to watch TV. But the goldfish - that was something entirely different!

An Ellie-ism that left us cackling.

We were driving, and a song comes on a country music station. Ellie pipes up with "Turn it up! This is one of my favorite songs!" The song was Ole Red (about a man going to prison because his wife cheated on him and he killed the man she cheated with, and then he escaped from prison after he trained the prison guard dog to fall in love with a pretty hound dog he kept up in the woods). Now that's funny!

There was also a description of her feelings about Red Lobster and other equally funny Ellie moments, but I'll keep those between us. If you've been around Ellie, then you already know how much we enjoyed having her here!

A few pics from the weekend.