O's Recent Bento Box Lunch

I was very happy with O's simple bento box lunch last week, so I thought I'd share.  She must have been happy with it, too, because she ate everything!  I was shocked since she usually only eats about a third of what I send (she eats the rest later for an afternoon snack).

She loved her gingerbread man shaped cheese. 



On the bottom layer, she had wheat thin sticks with dark chocolate almond butter for dipping, mandarin oranges, and a Hershey's kiss.  She was SO excited about the Hershey's kiss, and she told me that she ate it first.




On the top layer, she had snow peas and carrots with ranch dip and another Hershey's kiss.  She loves snow peas and thinks it is amazing that she eats peas raw :)

A Book Writing Center for O

While on the way home from school a few weeks ago, O was THRILLED to tell me that she is now working in the writing center.  She loves to write, so she has been anxiously awaiting her chance to work in this area of the classroom.  After hearing how excited she was to be writing, I decided to make a book writing center for her for one of her handmade Christmas gifts.   Here's what I came up with...

I bought this wooden suitcase from Hobby Lobby (I originally planned to put paper dolls in it, but hopefully I'll find another one for that purpose).  It was 50% off, so I only paid 5 dollars for it.  I cut an O from scrapbook paper and decoupaged it onto the suitcase.



I bought a bunch of these plastic pencil cases from WM when they were 25 cents each.  I put velcro on the back of it and on the inside of the suitcase to hold it up.  I filled the pencil case with stickers, mechanical pencils (O has never seen mechanical pencils, so they will be exciting for her), blank labels to use for the titles of her books, erasers, etc



Here's a picture showing the velcro on the pencil case and the suitcase.



I put a packet of lined paper in the suitcase.  O's a little young for this paper, but I know she'll be excited about it and will have fun trying it out.



She's also going to love these glittery numbers and letter stickers.



I made a bunch of scrapbook and computer paper books to add to the suitcase.  I think this will be her favorite part of the gift.  To make the books, I just cut the paper to the size I wanted, folded it in half, and then cut the computer paper to fit in it.  I planned to staple the books, but that wouldn't work.  My mom came to the rescue and sewed the pages together on the sewing machine (while I worked on a gift for E).  I tied the strings at the each end of the book, so that the binding wouldn't unravel.  Once I started making books, I couldn't stop, so I'll be able to replenish her supply often :)



These super cute erasers are a last minute addition to this kit (Thanks to Grandaddy Harry who discreetly purchased them at the Cracker Barrel and slipped them to me when O wasn't looking!).

Christmas Surprise Balls

I made Christmas surprise balls for the girls a few weeks ago, and they are nestled near the top of our tree.  O is SO excited about opening hers!   I'm going to let them open them on December 23, so they won't get overlooked in all of the Christmas excitement. 










E's center gift is a holztiger cat Holztiger Katze, klein, grau.  I started a collection of holztiger animals for her for her 1st birthday.  We gave her a giraffe since we fed giraffes on her birthday.  She'll get this cat and a zebra for Christmas, since she is obsessed with cats and she dressed as both a zebra and later a cat for Halloween.




O's center gift is a pack of silly bands, but I'm sure the chocolate will be her favorite!




I made a Valentine's Day Surprise Ball for O this year for Valentine's Day.  I explained how I made the ball and included a pic of the process in that post if you are interested in more details.

Meet The Ingalls Family...

Since O and I (and E...although she usually falls asleep) have been reading the Little House on the Prairie books for the past 5 or 6 months (we only have one more to go!), I thought she would love to have a set of Little House on the Prairie dolls and a covered wagon for Christmas. 


I thought about adding more detail to the dolls, but I think I'm going to wait and get O's input before adding anything more to them.  After I finish the dolls completely, I'll paint them with a layer of Mod Podge to seal and finish them.


I searched and searched for a covered wagon and finally found one on Etsy at Tweet Toys by Willow Baus.  The wagon wasn't exactly what I wanted, so I emailed and asked for a custom order.  They made it just like I wanted it, and it only cost a few dollars more.  (I love that about Etsy shops!)

The covered wagon even came with 2 little people.
 


But they had to move over to make room for the Ingalls.






I really enjoyed painting these dolls, and I hope that O loves them.

Baking Cookies

We let O skip school on Tuesday, so that she could sleep late and have a good nap before she had to be at the auditorium for her Nutcracker performance.  We needed a quiet, calm activity, so baking cookies seemed like the perfect thing to do.

We took the easy way out and had frozen sugar cookie dough that we  thawed, rolled out (with a Kleen Kanteen since I can't find our rolling pin), and cut with cookie cutters.  E was excited to help us!




O loved pouring sprinkles on the cookies!



Our book of the day was Cookie Count by Robert Sabuda. 

Hot Chocolate and Chocolate Spoons

We did lots of Christmas activities on Saturday, and we all stayed in our pjs all day long.  I love pj days!  Our daily book was the Grinch.  After we read the book, we made chocolate spoons and hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows.  Then we watched the Grinch movie. 


To make the chocolate spoons, I melted semi-sweet chocolate pieces in the microwave.  We rolled the spoons in the melted chocolate until they were completely covered and then decorated them with sprinkles and marshmallows. We put the spoons in the freezer to harden before using them to stir our hot chocolate.  





Our hot chocolate was extra delicious since we stirred it with chocolate spoons!

After we finished our hot chocolate, we decorated our gingerbread house.  I always buy gingerbread house kits after Christmas when they are 50 to 75% off.  I pack them with our Christmas decorations, and when we decorate them, we have the perfect excuse to not eat that yucky candy and icing...it's too old!  We have lots of fun and no kiddos beg to eat candy :)




After we decorated our gingerbread house, we all took a nighttime pj ride to see the lights in our area.  Unfortunately, there was only one house with a lot of lights...we drove by it 4 times!  After the fourth time, O asked "why does daddy keep driving by the same house?"