Gingerbread Houses

  

We had a great time making our gingerbread houses.  I put the houses together and then gave each kiddo a tin of candy.  "N" was able to use a bag to pipe on her frosting, "A" used a glob on a plate to dip his candies into.  They were both incredibly focused and careful in their placement of candy.  Definitely a winning activity!

*Check out "N"s blog for an adorable "Gingerbread Girl"!  

She was in her first ever dance recital and loved it!  She was so cute and fun to watch!

Rudolph Art

Here are the Rudolph prints that we made.  The kiddos had a great time with them.  They didn't turn out exactly like I remembered them, but oh well.  They're cute and they'll still go up on our wall and maybe next year I can find the source and see what we could do differently.  N and A wanted mouths on theirs.  J was just happy to be done with Mom moving her hands and feet.

Organization Question

I need help.  I have a four year old who is ready for puzzles and games with small pieces.  My one year old doesn't eat small things anymore (for the most part), but she loves carrying things around and then they get lost.  So my question is, how have you organized so that things are accessible to your older children, out of reach of the little ones, and still have an attractive, organized, uncluttered home?

25 Days of Christmas

Dear People Who Read My Blog,

I've put together a fun activity for the kiddos to do leading up to Christmas.  I've made and laminated paper "presents", then written on the back different things for us to do, one a day, until Christmas.  The kiddos will take turns (happily, of course) choosing one of the presents to do that day.  Below you'll see the list.  If they're things that I found online, I linked them, so that if you want to, you can look to see what the different things are.  I'm going to try to post some of finished projects, either here or on my school blog or the kiddos blogs (they're private, so links. Sorry.  If you'd like an invite, let me know).  Merry Christmas!

Love,

Me:)

1. Christmas Mini-Alphabet book
2. Make Gingerbread Houses
3. Visit a local exhibit
4. Make and deliver cookies
5. Santa advent countdown  - THIS IS OUR DAY 1 ACTIVITY, SO THAT WE CAN USE IT ALL MONTH, INSTEAD OF FINDING IT ON THE 23RD, WHEN THE COUNTDOWN WOULD BE ALMOST OVER.
6. Pom pom christmas tree
7. snowman ornaments
8. Collecting snowballs game
9. glue snowman
10. homemade snow-globes
11. popcorn wreath (along with the book If you Take a Mouse to the Movies)
12. candy cane ornaments
13. Christmas action cards (along with the book Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree)
14. Pin the nose on Rudolph felt board
15. Go sledding at a park
16. Make Karmel Krispy Treats
17. Make Christmas Cards 
18. Make placemats
19. Christmas sensory bin - this is our day 2, so that they can use it all month.
20. Visit City Hall (ours has a Christmas display)
21. Christmas Matching Game
22. Window Clings
23. Rudolph hand/foot print art - I can't find this one again to link it, but I'll be sure to post it after we've done it.
24. Watch a Christmas Movie

My Memories Suite Review and GIVEAWAY

My Memories Suite (a digital scrapbooking software company) recently contacted me asking me to review their software.  I was more than happy to oblige (since my previous digital scrapbooking software had crashed on me, with no help from support).  I was a little nervous, since not all programs are designed for Macs, but I was HAPPY to find that My Memories has both a windows and a Mac version.  

After playing with My Memories Suite for a while, I was in love!  It is so easy to work with!  It comes with a wide selection of papers, embellishments, word art, templates, etc.  And there are a lot more that you can download, some are even free!

You can print from home, turn your pages into an album, make calendars, add music, video, narration, and turn your project into a JPEG (which is what I did with my poster, below).  There's probably even more amazing things that you can do, I just haven't found them all yet.  

Now for the giveaway.  Would you like to have your VERY OWN My Memories Suite?  Would you like to give one away for Christmas?  Because I get to give one away!  Here's what to do:

Visit www.mymemories.com and find your favorite paper set, then come back here and leave me a comment, telling me which one it is.  That's it!  

If you don't want to wait and see if you win, you can use my special code and get $10 off your own My Memories Suite (which is only $39.97 to begin with!).  You'll also get $10 in downloads. The code is STMMMS32928.

Leave your comment before midnight on Saturday, November 27, or you won't have a chance to win!

Fall

A few weeks ago we drove up the canyon to "See Fall".

It was beautiful.  And I took pictures.

On the way down, our brakes caught on fire.  While we were on the side of the road "A" had a blow-out diaper.  We ran into a couple from our long-ago singles ward.  And when I downloaded the pictures, I found that I hadn't changed my cameras settings from when I had been playing and trying to "learn my camera". 

It was a drive to remember.

TODAY is Halloween?

With this much candy already gathered, I thought we'd already had it! 

Soup, Anyone?

I made a new soup recipe the other night (I wouldn't recommend the recipe), and started out with my regular soup pot.  I soon found that I needed to use my larger pot!

Misc.

This is one of my best ideas ever (I think).  I have some bookshelves in my living room that aren't usable as such because the kiddos ("J") enjoy taking things - especially books - off the shelves.  So the shelves have been sitting empty and/or cluttered for the greater part of this year.  After thinking and pondering for many months, I came up with the idea of a flannel board of sorts.  Using felt and sticky back velcro dots, I created this scene to go along with the book/poem "5 Little Pumpkins".  I figure I can change it with the seasons, it's a decoration and child-safe.  

"A" got his hair cut earlier this evening.  He does not like getting his hair cut, so I always put it off as long as I possibly can.  I took the chair outside, because we usually get less crying out there, the cape, the clippers, the extension cord - it was all set up before I took him out (he did not go willingly.  I had told him what I was going to do).  Even though there was a bit of whining at the end, there were NO tears!  I explained what I was doing and what the next thing was every step of the way.  He asked me to turn the clippers off a couple of times and I did.  He looked for airplanes and birds and helicopters when I needed him to look up.  He showed me his feet when I needed him to look down.  I'm not saying he was laughing through it, but he wasn't crying.  And that's a huge step for my boy-o!

Have y'all heard of Halo Heaven?  It's my absolute favorite go-to place for hair-bows.  Like the ones pictured above.  And butterfly wings - because "N" loves being a butterfly.  And is going to be one for Halloween this year (again) and why pay $5 at W@l-m@rt when I can pay $1.50 at Halo Heaven?  I have a serious weakness for this store.  This is not meant to be an advertisement.  I just love them.  

Freezer Meals

We recently purchased a large freezer.  And this month my goal is to fill it up with freezer meals.  For those days when I know I won't have time to fix a dinner or for when I forget that I'm supposed to fix dinner or for when a friend needs a meal, etc.

I have a tendency, however, to forget what I've put into the freezer - especially since it's downstairs and my kitchen is upstairs.  So I made a handy chart to put on my fridge, so that I can remember what I've put in the freezer, and know when I need to replenish it (cheese, etc).  My method may not work for everybody, but you can take the idea and run with it.  But if you make a better method, will you tell me so that I can use it, too?

Caterpillars

We found this guy in our carport, while unloading children, after an unsuccessful caterpillar hunt.  Funny?  I think so.

 This is him next to a regular-sized bubble wand.  He was a little skeptical of it and didn't want to get to close.  When he's fully extended, he's about the same length.

 This is him next to an extra-long bubble wand.  He's seriously big!  I've been searching and searching online to figure out what he is, so that we can feed him the correct kind of leaves.  No luck yet.

This is our other resident caterpillar, Gracyn or Mickey, depending on the day.  She's a Wooly Bear Caterpillar, that eats grass and hibernates all winter, spinning her cocoon in the spring and turning into an Isabella Tiger Moth.  

The kiddos have had a great time playing with her.  This is what we were hunting for today, when we came back empty handed.

Sadly, I think the kiddos might have had too much fun with her.  She's not moving a lot (at all).  "N" thinks she's already hibernating.  I'm not convinced...

From the Garden

It's our first ever, home-grown cantaloupe!  We had some left-over seeds when we planted our garden, and I let the kiddos plant them in the front dirt that will one day be over-flowing with beautiful flowers, not even thinking that they would survive.  I was surprised to see a cantaloupe vine growing and even more surprised a month or so later when there was a cantaloupe on the vine!  It's taken a very long time for it to ripen, but it finally did!  And it's delicious!  The funniest part is that the cantaloupe that we planted in our actual garden never took off, and still has no cantaloupes on the vine, which finally started growing about a month ago.   Now we'll see if the other cantaloupes have time to ripen, before the cold weather comes and never leaves.

Yard Sales and Rollerskates

I love yard sales!  I picked up these skates (and a few other things) for $5 today at a random yard sale, we weren't even looking for yard sales!  The kiddos had a blast outside, every chance they had.  After dinner,  DH and I put on our rollerblades and we all had a go.  So much fun!

Canning Entry 2011

This is going to be a rather boring post.  It's more for my records than anything, because I won't lose it.  The question is, will I remember where I recorded it?  We'll see...  


It's been a busy year for canning.  Here's the list:

• 1 bushel (2 boxes) of peaches turned into 18 quarts - 2 didn't seal.
• 1 1/2 bushels (3 boxes) of pears turned into 35 quarts of pears - 1 didn't seal.
• 3 batches of salsa (2 with roma tomatoes, 1 with regular) turned into 14 pints of salsa.
• 1 case of pickling cucumbers turned into a whole lot of pickles.  We made dill, sweet relish, sweets and bread and butter. I was not impressed with the sweet pickle recipe we used.  Anyone want sweet pickles?
• 24 pounds of strawberries turned into roughly 34 pints of jam.  Some went into plain ol' frozen strawberries, also.  I was done making jam.

Still to be done:

• Strawberries
• Apple Jelly
• Black-Apple Jelly - It's the best!

Hooray!

Even though it's completely out of focus, this picture thrills me!  "N" is riding her bike again!  She has been suffering from a paralyzing fear of so many things that live outside that when we go outside, she wouldn't move an inch away from me - unless I was near the garden, and then she would wait in screaming suspense for me to return to her side.  I had always heard of paralyzing fear, but "N" was my first first-hand experience with it.  Today she even ventured outside without me.  It lasted less than a minute, but she did it!

Labor Day

We went hiking on Labor Day.  It was a overcast and drizzled a bit, but we had a great time.

It took a while for "N" to warm up to being outside.  She's developed a phobia (read: PARALYZING FEAR.  Literally.) of bees, wasps, dogs, moose ... it goes on and on.  So being outside wasn't her idea of fun.  But once she got used to it, she didn't want to go home.

We missed the gorgeous wildflower season, but still were able to some pretty flowers.

 "A" had a blast.  He needed no prodding to have fun.  He climbed, jumped, dug and got PLENTY dirty.

Flowers or Weeds?

These two are weeds.  Aren't they beautiful, though?  The white one's leaves are pretty ugly, but the flower is gorgeous and huge!  The orange one is really pretty.  Even the leaves.  I'm seriously considering digging it up and moving it to where the rest of the flowers are.  I have no idea what it is, but every day there is a new bloom, and the old one dies, something like a day lilly.   

These two are flowers.  The sunflowers grew without us planting the seeds.  The birdfeeder did it for us!  I love sunflowers, so I was very happy to see them grow!  The day lilly was a new one for us.  "N" didn't believe that the flowers really died and a new one bloomed each day.  She was constantly telling me, "Look, mom!  That one came back again!".  I finally gave up trying to correct her.  She is only 4, after all.

I don't have pictures, but a month or so ago my brother brought me some rose bushes that they didn't want at their house.  Things were a little scary for a long while, but all three of them are pulling through! Two look happy, and one is slowly greening up!

I also brought some flowers from my parents house when I visited there a while back.  Most of them are settling right in.  We lost the Johnny Jump Ups - sadly.  And my tall shasta daisy is needing special love and attention.  I planted a purple flowering bushy thing right in front of our sprinklers, so it'll need to be moved.  The peony looks like it's been there forever and the shorter daisies are still green, though not flowering.  I have high hopes!

Where We Went

We drove past these.

We saw this.

We drove under this.

We saw this (we would have walked on it, but it was pouring rain).

And at the end of the day, we saw this.

Can you tell where we went?

Confused

These geese were flying NORTH this morning.  Does that mean they're incredibly confused or that summer is far from over?

My Latest Project

My SIL and I recently ordered a gazillion bow and flower clips from Halo Heaven.  We're going to divvy them up while we're camping next weekend.  Meanwhile, all of the adorableness is sitting on my piano, tempting me EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.  So I needed a project.  And somewhere to store a gazillion bows and flowers.  Enter yard saling.

"N" loves yard saling - I'm teaching her well.  A couple of weeks ago, I had purchased, for $0.50, a used bulletin board.  My original plan was to use it for school for the kiddos.  But as I was thinking about what to do with a gazillion bows and flowers, my project was born.  I took the bulletin board, painted it, hot glued some ribbon strips, and viola!  I had a place for clips.  But just one thing on our bathroom wall looked lonely.  So I then painted some extra picture frames I had around the house, added pictures of the kiddos in the bath (modest, of course) and hung them up.  I am so happy with the results!

This picture was taken with my iPod.  It's the only way I could

get the entire group into a photo.  Sorry for the bad picture!

I'm ready now for next week, when I can hang my gazillion clips onto their board.  {huge smiley face here}

*The lime green from the bottom photo is the right color green.  All of the green is that color, even though it shows up an ugly green in the others.*

A Story of Feeding the Ducks

A mama and her 3 kiddos learned of a nearby pond that had ducks.  The directions were a little sketchy, but they found the pond, tucked back in a neighborhood.  They started walking along the swamp-side pond-side path, and saw ducks!  The kiddos were so excited.  As they started throwing bread, the ducks came closer.  Then, a neighborhood dog heard the ducks' happy quacking and come over.  Good-bye, ducks!

The mama and her kiddos continued walking along the path, which led them to the opposite side of the swamp pond.  Whither the ducks had fled.  They found more ducks!  So, they proceded to throw them bread.  

As more ducks learned (no idea how) of the bread throwing, they came to join the fray.

When most of their bread was gone (as in the last two slices were in the kiddos hands), this duck, who was twice the size of the others (not even joking) arrived.  He wanted bread.  "N" was holding a piece at his mouth level and he marched right up to her.  She not-so-quickly threw a piece to divert him, then froze in place, not knowing how to get past the giant duck to the safety of her mama.  Mama went to her, then quickly got back to "A", who the giant duck had then targeted as the holder of the last piece of bread.  The giant and "A" were close to the same size.  Mama took the slice of bread, threw large pieces over her shoulder, and got away as quickly as was possible with 2 fearful children and 1 who had no clue what was happening because she was safe in mama's arms.  "N" took off running, with no direction, just knowing that she wanted to get away from the giant duck.  "A" stood and cried, wanting Mama to pick him up.  When he realized that wasn't an option, he settled for her hand and ran.

The ducks followed a little ways down the path, but once the realized the bread was no longer being thrown, they lost interest.

When they were safely on the opposite side of the pond, Mama pointed out to "N" that the duck was still on the other side and that it wasn't following them.  This is when she finally began calming down.  Just in time to see the plethora of "itty-bitty-balls" strewn across the path.