A Year of Family Fun

While traumatic, our family's experience with Elliott's brain tumor and subsequent craniotomy during the Winter/Spring of 2012 was a reminder that nothing is more important to us than spending time (and having fun) as a family.  With that in mind we decided to give our girls a year's worth of trips and experiences for Christmas last year.  This was a HUGE hit with our girls (and us!), so we did it again this Christmas.

I've been working in a list of things to do and places to go for months, and after the girls went to bed on Christmas Eve, I quickly made these certificates.  Some of the certificates were paired with books (a castles book with the Medieval Times certificate and an art book with the Van Gogh certificate).

These trips will last throughout the entire year with the last trip being to Great Wolf Lodge during December of 2014 (we went this December and had a fantastic time being there during the Christmas season).  Both girls were thrilled with these certificates for our upcoming year of fun trips and experiences, and we can't wait to get started with our first trip next week!!!

Melted Crayon Ornaments

Several friends told me about this melted crayon ornament idea, and it sounded simple and fun enough to try!

First, we shaved crayons (using a pencil sharpener for small shavings and a small knife for larger pieces).  We put the crayon shavings into clear glass ornaments.

Then we heated the shavings within the ornaments using a hair dryer (the ornaments are too hot to hold, so they are hanging from the snowman's hat).

This was a simple and fun activity, and the ornaments are beautiful!

 
 
 
 

Santa!

Our girls are so excited and proud that their Grandpa is one of Santa's helpers!

 

A Santa Playdate

We had a super fun playdate on Sunday with cousins that we rarely see.  E(3) and I worked hard to make goodies for the playdate, and most of them were edible.

We made a rice crispy treat gingerbread man and Christmas tree.  The kids loved the twizzlers, but didn't eat much of the rice crispy treat.




We made cinnamon and sugar pretzels.

We made a brownie gingerbread man that actually turned out to be more brick than brownie.  The kids thought it was funny that they could pick him up out of the pan by his foot.  Eventually, someone sawed off pieces for the kids to eat, and I was glad that none of their teeth came out while they ate it.


My mom made reindeer food (recipe coming in a later post), and it was deeeeelicious!


She also made her famous forgotten cookies.


The 6 and older kiddos had a wonderful time playing in the treehouse while the 5 and under crowd played on the trampoline.

I'm not a big fan of trampolines, especially ones without nets, so I was glad that I had candy cane playdough to lure the little kiddos inside to play.



After playing with playdough, they had fun making foam gingerbread boy/girl ornaments (craft kits from Dollar General).


The highlight of the afternoon was a visit from Santa Claus!  (the girls are lucky that their Grandpa is one of Santa's helpers!)
Here are Santa and my mom!


Santa and the girls


The kids ran off to play after taking pictures with Santa, so I called them back to thank him.  O(6) sang him a song, and E(3) did a little dance for him.

What a wonderful, fun afternoon!  Thanks to everyone who made it a success!!!

Cinnamon and Sugar Pretzels

E(3) and I had fun baking together last weekend (O was busy listening to an audio book and organizing her room and wasn't interested in joining us). 

First, we made cinnamon and sugar pretzels.  E(3) LOVED unwrapping the butter, placing it in the bowl, and chopping it up (one of the 2 things on her Christmas wish list was butter...the girl LOVES butter!). 


After melting the butter in the microwave, she mixed in a teaspoon of cinnamon and a half cup of brown sugar.  She stirred in about 16 ounces of pretzels to coat them.
We baked the pretzels at 350 for 30 minutes.  I stirred them every 10 minutes. 


This simple and yummy recipe came from a fellow homeschooling mama!
After we made the cinnamon and sugar pretzels, we made Christmas rice crispy treats!  The girls always love making rice crispy treats, especially since I let them lick (gnaw on) the spoon when we're done!

A "Humongo" Sugar Cookie & A Gingerbread Cottage Playdate

The girls had fun mixing up sugar cookie dough and pressing it into this Christmas tree pan to make a "humongo" cookie for a gingerbread house decorating playdate last week!

They decorated it with sprinkles before we baked it.


The plan was for the kids to decorate the tree with icing (using the squeeze bottles from E's bday party) before eating it, but the icing would NOT come out of the bottles!  Eventually, we gave up on the squeeze bottles, and E(3) spread the icing using a butter knife.


The kiddos had fun building and decorating their gingerbread houses (even though the houses collapsed at least 3 times each before finally staying together!).