Advent Season!

I don't know about y'all, but when I was growing up I had an advent calendar for the Christmas season every year. It was one of those that had the chocolates hidden in an image of Santa and every day we got to open a little "window" and eat our one piece for the day... It was great! I had NO idea that, that was a calendar. I had NO idea what it meant. I just knew that during Christmas I got to eat a piece of chocolate with breakfast every day until Christmas morning, it was great!

I have found and implemented a new advent calendar into our lives this year. One that it not chocolate, but one that will help your child grow! I think I originally found this on Pinterest, but I can't be too sure.

Above is a picture of the first 6 days in my advent calendar for Joc. What's inside them you ask? BOOKS! Yes, books! Small, inexpensive, books. I fell in love with this idea when I first saw it, wherever that was, and had to make this happen! I'm not sure I'll do it every single year, but I may do other things with a similar concept to them. This did get a little costly and had a good bit of work into it.

Most of the books I bought were right at $1.00. I would look everywhere I went for books that would interest her! I found a ton of them at Target, in their dollar section and a few of them at Michael's, Walmart, and other random places.

So far she has loved opening these every day! That's something else great about this calendar. You know that once you start putting gifts under the tree the kids start to get super antsy and excited and are dieing to open a present because they are there! Well, this way they get to open a present every day until Christmas!

So, what you need to make this happen for next year is:

25 small books

wrapping paper

tape

marker

tags, paper, stencils... ect. (optional)

1. I started out by organizing my books by what day I wanted her to open them on. I have a special book for the 25th of the month and I had a few others that are Christmas themed, so I wanted her to be able to enjoy those during the season, so I placed those stragically throughout the 25 days. And I had a group of three books that I wanted to give to her continuously.

2. I would then just wrap my books how they were, I did use a few gift bags to mix it up a little.

3. Then I used stencils and a large permanent marker to number the books 1-25 right on the packaging! I did not on my gift bags, however! I stenciled those onto some stock paper and then cut out the number and taped it on the appropriate bag.

 Here is Joc on day one of our calendar!

And here she is day three!

We have been taking pictures everyday of these as well, just to document it as we go! It has been such a fun experience for all of us here so far! We open a new book in the afternoon and then that's what we read before bedtime every night! So far she's opened two My Little Pony books found a Target a while back, a Winnie The Pooh book and Treasure Island! (We are slowly starting to incorporate "big books" into her collection for us to read together here soon!)

I strongly encourage you to try this with your family next Christmas! It was been such a fun blessing so far! The kids love it and it gives them something to do every afternoon, and it's not chocolate! Haha!

- Stephanie

Christmas is Coming....

So.... I promise y'all that I'm not one of those people that completely skips over Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving! It's one of my favorite holidays. I don't have my tree up already, I don't have a single decoration out yet for Christmas. I do have tons of pumpkins and pilgrims and scarecrows around, though! :)

All that being said, I'm sharing some fun looking Christmas themed activities for the kiddos to do in the coming days and weeks of no school for the holidays!

Here is the link for the activities: Christmas Time is Here You'll remembering doing some of these things from when you were a kid, too! But while you're slaving away in the kitchen preparing dishes for Thanksgiving in a few weeks the kids can entertain themselves while watching the Macy's parade that morning instead of complaining about being bored!

Here are a few of the crafts from this post:

Giant Popsicle snowflakes! 

These look really fun to make with your kids! I honestly can't wait to make these with Joc and hang them up around the house this season!

I made these when I was a kid! 

Super easy Christmas tree ornaments they can make (while you're cooking!) Just lay down some paper for them to work on and give them plenty of pretties to decorate with and then they can make tons of them! Not a bad idea for a handmade present for friends and family members from them either! :)

Cinnamon applesauce heart ornaments! 

I can NOT wait to make these! I bet they smell AMAZING while you're baking them!! These would make great gifts for some family members as well! I'm thinking of making them with Joc one day in mid December and then tying them onto gifts for people! 

Here is the direct link to make these heavenly things: Katy Elliott

There are so many more than just these to go and check out and do with your kids or have them do while you're working on other things!

Enjoy! :D

-Stephanie

Night Night... Sleep Tight

Do you ever have issues getting your little ones to go to bed or sleep? I do, some times. She's gotten a TON better over the years, now that she's realized that she doesn't miss out on anything while she's sleeping, and since she's realized she NEEDS her sleep, she no longer cares too much!

However, this particular blog, Kid's Activity Blog, would have been pretty handy to have had back in the day of fighting a monster of a child while putting her to bed. She lists some truly great ideas for helping to calm your children down during bed time to ease them off to dream land.

Among these really awesome ideas was this:

A glowing sensory bottle!

How cute is that?! I love this idea. Mainly because it's not a game or anything that they have to play with to calm them down. They can keep this by their beds and play with it as they fall asleep, and it still eases their minds as they stare into the stars and glitter!

So, here's the website on how to make this super awesome bed time object:

Glowing Sensory Bottle

What you'll need:

1. DURABLE plastic bottle
2. Hair Gel, fill the bottle to nearly full bottle.
3. Glitter Glue, use a squirt.
4. Glow in the dark paint, another squirt.
5. Super Glue, for the lid!
6. Glow-in-the-dark mini stars. (I have found some of these at Wal-mart.)

 Mix it all up and give it a good shake, after you glue the top on of course, and watch the magic! :)

My sweet girl might be a smidgen too old for this, but I still plan on making it with her! I think she'll love it and it'll still be helpful for her to fall asleep on those nights where she really fights it still.

-Stephanie

Cute and Creepy Holiday Doors

Check out these super cute Halloween door decorations! I can't wait for fall you guys! It's my FAVORITE time of the year! Hot chocolate, beautiful colors, cooler weather, pumpkin everything, sweaters and jackets! Oh, and HOLIDAYS!!! :D

I'm so ready for the holidays to be here. I know, it's still only August, but school's back in session and (here anyway) it's been a bit cooler feeling in the early mornings and such and I'm just ready!

So... to help keep me calm until it's an appropriate time to start decorating I've been planning my decorating. (I totally asked my husband if I could go on and start decorating for the fall... I got a big no, of course.)

Here is a cute idea I found that I'm adding to my list of decorations for this year's Halloween:

 

I just love these guys! And, I mean, how much easier could they be to make... All you need is some streamers of your color choice and construction paper/paper plates, and some good tape!

Here is the website to check out a few more ideas other than these creepy guys: Spooky Doors

Y'all, enjoy the end of the summer months while they're here! I'll try to make the most of them! :P

-Stephanie

A Little Summer Treat

I came across this fun treat that you can make with your little ones the other day. They're called Ice Cream Pops! We actually made ours yesterday and they turned out fantastic! They were SO yummy! And, of course, very fun to make. Joc enjoyed doing all of the sprinkling.

What you need:

1. Ice cream, we used vanilla. But I was informed next time we have to use chocolate. :)
2. Chocolate syrup or Nutella. We used the syrup for ours.
3. Caramel sauce.
4. Crunched up toffee bits or hazelnuts. I found a bag of Hershey's/Toll House toffee and chocolate for baking that I used. It worked great.
5. Chopped up chocolate bits. We used Hershey's morsels.
6. Chopped almonds.
7. Paper cups.
8. Popsicle sticks.

Once you have all the ingredients that you want for your pops, alternate each dry ingredient with a layer or your ice cream of choice into the cups. Once filled to the top, stick in your popsicle stick and then place them on a tray in your freezer. Keep them in there for about two hours and they should be ready to enjoy!
And, of course, you don't have to follow my ingredients. Be creative and use your own set of tasty ingredients for your pops! I think next time we're doing a chocolate themed one with all chocolate ingredients! Chocolate ice cream, chocolate syrup, chocolate sprinkles, chocolate chips... ect. I can't wait!

It's Coming... SUMMER!

Either summer has already started for you and your busy family or it's on the brink... We have one week left and then we're done for a few months. I'm SO not ready! I've been compiling a list of things to do this summer with our little one. In the process I've found a lot of really great websites to go off of for local events and such!
Maybe you're in the same boat... Looking for things to do. And lets face it, you can't go and do something every single day to keep your kids occupied! (If you can, go you!) Everything costs so much these days. We're planning on going to do something really great, like, once a week. On the other days we may just go to the park or the zoo, we have a membership so it's free to go at this point for us. (By the way, I HIGHLY recommend getting a membership at your local zoo or park. It is an amazing way to go kill time, do something fun, and get out doors! We LOVE our zoo membership, and the price was fantastic!)
Anyway, we also have a brand new splash-pad opening up this summer, which I fully plan on visiting often! 

If you live in the Birmingham, AL area or those around here this is a great website that I check out all the time to find fun things to do around here for me and my love and my little one.
Check it out: Birmingham365 This website is pretty up to date on anything and everything going on in our great city! I urge you, if you don't live near here, to go look for a similar website for your area... This has been a life saver for us here!

Maybe you already know what you and your family will be doing this summer, maybe your calendar is FULL of exciting things to do... Bravo! (I envy you, please give me your list :D)
If you're that mom, or dad, and you have your summer planned but still are missing something here is a list for you! I found this recently, it's a list of websites for kids to use to keep their brains going over the summer. To keep them going and learning. A lot of kids NEED this during the summer! That long gap can really hinder some children with their learning, they forget things and don't continue to learn and then they get back into school in the fall and they're playing a small game of catch up.

 

Here is a more comprehensive list, briefly explaining what your kids can do on each website: (sorry it's a little blurry. :/)

These websites are excellent resources to use during the summer to keep your kiddos interesting in learning and broadening their horizons!

I plan on using these with Joc a couple of times a week. Maybe while I'm cooking dinner or needing to do some cleaning, I'll set her up with one of these websites to keep her occupied until I'm finished with whatever it is that I'm doing! I found this wonderful list over on A Year of My Firsts blog... Lots of other neat things to peruse through over there! :)

I hope I could help you with some of your summer planning, if you needed it! The most important thing is to just spend time with your little ones while you can! They cherish that more than anything while they're young!

-Stephanie

A Pirate Party for a Princess

So, my little princess turned five last month and we had a great party for her! She LOVES Jake and the Neverland Pirates that comes on Disney Jr (check it out if you have little ones, it's incredibly cute!) and she was Izzy, from the show, for Halloween. So it only made sense to have a pirate birthday for her this year, too!!

After the photos I'll share how this was put together for y'all!

 The kids "dug" for buried treasure.

 Shark bait.

 Eye patches and pirate hooks!

 These were for all the treasure the kids found!

 They decorated them all, too!

We also had a pinata that the kids had a lot of fun with!

1. I found the eye patches at Party City for around $3 and the hooks I actually found at a thrift store here in town! It was right after Halloween and the were about to get rid of all of them so I grabbed every last one they had for the party! (I was incredibly happy! They were a steal, too!!)

Some of these ideas I found on Pinterest. Here is a link to my Pirate Party board for you all to check out for more ideas, as well: Argh mateys!

2. The Pirate ships were very easy to make! I bought a couple of boxes of the blue jello and made it into the cups (and you HAVE to use the tumblers of the cups are way too big! I bought them at Party City for around $10.) The next day I sliced up my oranges and then put toothpick pirate flags in them!

3. For the printables I used two different sites. Catch My Party Pirates is one site I downloaded from. I used one of their templates to make my labels out of. I ended up copy and pasting them into word and then again into your PAINT program. In there you can select and area and then delete it. So I deleted the inner text and then copied it back into Microsoft word. After that I added a "text box" and typed up what I needed in a pirate font! (That was probably the hardest and most complex part of this process.)

Pirate Sales is where I found the sales for the orange ships. I sliced two lines into the top and bottom of each sale using an exacto knife and then slid in my tooth picks.

4. The rum floats were simple vanilla ice cream with the option of coke or rootbeer and the skewers were tropical fruits placed on the long sword toothpicks!

5. The treasure dig I used an old wash bin that I have and bought a bag of sand and filled it up with treasures! I used dollar store beaded necklaces, gold coins, some well wrapped candy, and other little party toys I had come across.

6. The last thing we did was to send all the kids on a real treasure hunt to find all their goody bags! They had a blast. We just sent them off in a direction... It was completely wrong at first, of course and then they had some clues that we gave them to help them along! They had a blast!

I hope you enjoyed these photos and the tips I shared with you all! As well, I hope that your pirate parties turn out to be just as much fun as mine was!! (And you if you have any questions regarding point number three please don't hesitate to ask! I'll help as best I can!!)

- Stephanie

Christmas Trees for Toddlers

Here is a cute idea for your little ones to do around Christmas time! I don't know about y'all, but I'm incredibly OCD about my decorations around the house... and the tree. Jocelyn likes to put everything all in one place. I had to constantly tell her to move stuff around last year while we were decorating our tree. And I still went behind her later on to move different things to empty spots on our tree. (I know, I'm bad! lol)

Anyway, I found this and thought it was an adorable idea to try out this year!

It is a felt Christmas tree for your kids to decorate however they please!!

I don't have a link for this to give you further information, I stumbled onto it on my Facebook and couldn't find a link through that.

BUT... It looks easy, right!? 

Get a large piece of green felt and cut it out in the shape of a tree then tack it onto your wall, with thumbtacks or maybe some fun-tack (that's the blue stuff you use to put up the glow in the dark stars with.) Then cut out ornaments of various colors in felt, and maybe some packages like they have here, and let the kids go to town! You could even do this for multiple children! Have them put up in each of their rooms and let them decorate them or something.

I'm taking mine a step further....

I'm thinking I'm going to use a big poster board for the tree. And the ornaments..... Well, you know all those strips and squares of wrapping paper that you have left over, the ones that are just too small to do anything with? Yeah, those.

I'm cutting out "ornaments" using those scraps!! Now I have a use for them!!! And the "ornaments" will be so much more fun for the kids to put up on their tree... They'll be sparkly, and shiny, and colorful!

I've been able to already start cutting out my circles for Jocelyn's tree because I'm wrapping empty boxes as props for my Christmas photo shoots for kids. So, I've been taking some of those and just cutting different sized circles out of them.

I can't wait to show Joc! She's going to be so excited!

I have solved two problems here... I love it! 1. "What to do with those wrapping paper scraps?" 

and 2. "How do I let the kids decorate their own way?"

Give it a try! I'm sure it'll be a fun new holiday tradition for your kiddos! :)

- Stephanie

All Smiles

Here's something absolutely adorable that you could do with your kiddos to celebrate fall/Thanksgiving, courtesy of: The Kids Activity Blog!!

Aren't these guys just too cute!!! And all you need are some festive looking leaves, a marker, some googly eyes, and some glue! You could so easily make these as Thanksgiving decorations for the kids tables or to leave around the house for your guests to admire and for you kids to brag to them about! :)

-Stephanie

A Candyland Kind of Halloween

Such cute ideas to add to your Halloween parties this season!! I adore the skeletons they made here! Maybe some of these will inspire y'all to get super creative with your Halloween festivities!! This is from a "Halloween Candyland" party on Catch My Party!! The rest of the photos on there are to die for!!! Seriously wish I had thought of this one first... I love the party theme and their decorations for it are so cute! I am loving all the bright colors they used here, too!

Go check out the rest of these incredible decorations here: http://catchmyparty.com/parties/whimsical-halloween-candyland

-Stephanie

Sofia the First

I just ran across these on Money Saving Mom... I can't wait to show Jocelyn!! She LOVES Sofia the First!!! She so wanted to be Sofia for Halloween this year, but when we went to pick out her costume the Party City we went to was sold out of her costume! (She was really heartbroken over it.)
It was resolved when she saw how cute she was in the Izzy costume from "Jake and the Neverland Pirates"... Izzy it is! I also told her she could probably wear Izzy to her pirate birthday party in a few months, that really got her attention!!

Anyway, here's the link: http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/2013/10/sofia-the-first-printables/
It has all of your typical worksheets for number and letters, sound recognition, shapes and colors, and cutting and so on... And it's all Sofia themed!!! Super cute for your little girls out there that want to be princesses like Sofia!
I hope you enjoy these cute activities with your little ones!

-Stephanie

Toddler Sized Chore Ideas

I found this on Pinterest a while back and have slowly incorporating it into my 4-year-old's life style... And it's really working! At this age in the game they're all so eager to help with anything and everything and it's so hard to let them some times because they just don't do it all quite like it should be done. BUT we need to try and find things for them to do to help because soon enough they won't want to help any more and it'll be like pulling teeth to get them to do anything for us!

This website has a list of suggested chores that the little ones can do to help around the house! I love these ideas. Some of them I'd never even thought of to try! Such as wiping down the toilet and sink (We haven't tried that one yet, not so sure we will for a while.) and vacuuming (we haven't tried this one yet, either.)
The list has other simpler things on it as well, such as; folding small laundry items, clearing the dining table, putting away their laundry, and watering the plants! These things can be so simple, but so helpful to a you on a busy day! And they might not do them right the first time! My little girl sure didn't with putting away her cloths! I gave her a small stack of shirts told her which drawer to put them in and she went.... I went after her to watch and correct if I needed to. (I needed to.) She kinda threw them into her drawer and then just smiled. We fixed it pretty easily and now she puts them away without wrinkling them all up again!
She helps with multiple things off of the list, I love it and so does she! She really feels like she's doing something super important for me when she helps around here with her chores! I'm glad she does, too. Maybe it'll carry through to later when she's older.

So, the full list of chores can be found here: http://moneysavingmom.com/2012/03/15-chore-ideas-for-4-year-olds.html#_a5y_p=904904

I would recommend picking two of the easier ones for your little ones and have them start out with those for about two weeks. Show them how to do them, help them the first few times... you know the drill! After the first two weeks, add on another one or two for them to start doing and keep going from there with them!
We're to the point now that Jocelyn has a "chore chart" that I made for her and she puts stickers on it when she does a chore on her own. Once she reaches a certain number she gets a small allowance for being so helpful!
 Give these a try! They'll really be helpful and rewarding to your kids to try them!!

- Stephanie

S'more Cake Please

These really remind me of s'mores and who doesn't LOVE a good s'more!!! I have been a Girl Scout my whole life and one of my favorite things at camp was always the Saturday night camp fires with those delectable treats, and songs and games! So many great memories were created on those nights with some of my best friends!! I loved going to camp! I can NOT wait for Jocelyn to be able to join the scouts!! I really hope she likes it! Her dad was a Boy Scout as well, so it's in her blood... Maybe!! :)

These delicious looking cupcakes look like something super unique to do during the fall for a party or celebration of some sort!

I unfortunately wasn't able to find a recipe. Boo. :(

I do know that the cupcake is chocolate, with a marshmallow filling, obviously. I just don't know what kind of icing they used here. I would guess a chocolate butter cream icing, maybe. You could totally make this your own, though!

We attend a small group every Wednesday night where we bring a dish to go with dinner... Being us sweet tooths we have brought a lot of desserts to far... I'm so putting these on my list for in the next few weeks to make and take with us!! I was considering going with the chocolate butter cream and then crushing up graham crackers and sprinkling them on top of the cupcakes! 

Either way, these babies look awesome! I can't wait to try them!

- Stephanie

Kid-Friendly Tunes!

Moms, if you're looking for something different, maybe new, for your little ones to listen to while you're driving all over town I have two artists that are amazing!! (AND the best part for you is that you could enjoy them too!)
They aren't too repetitive, or annoying, and they're both children's Christian artists!! I seriously love these two CDs so much!

 

"We've Come Alive" By GO KIDS

This CD is energetic and will keep your kids going and dancing all day long! (This is my favorite of the two.)

 

"Look Up" by Gateway Next

This CD is so awesome! It has so much going on for it, too! Some fast songs, some slow songs. Your kids will love it!

I first discovered these two different artists over the summer. My husband and I volunteered for Church of the Highland's vacation bible school, Summer Blast!

We had so much fun!! We led a small group together for the week and it was so rewarding for the both of us to get to spend most of our days helping lead and teach these little kindergarteners about our AMAZING God!!! It is something we've decided to made a tradition and lead a group together every summer! 

I highly recommend you doing the same at your church if you don't already! It's so awesome to help little ones learn about God!

(Back to my point..) Every morning during worship at Summer Blast we sang and danced and worshiped to two songs by these two. We listened to "Look Up" by Gateway Next and "Jump" by Go Kids! I fell in love with these songs over the course of three days! And you will too!!! They are so incredible, really!

 The kids LOVED worship every morning and afternoon because they loved these songs!

 

Please give them a try! You're kids will think you're the best mom ever if you get these for the car rides from now on!

 

- Stephanie

Under The Sea

Check out these cute treats from Catch My Party!!

Eeek!! These are too adorable! I love octopuses and these are just too much! These would seriously be perfect for an under the sea party or a pirate party or maybe even mermaids!! And all they are, are marshmallows on sticks! Super easy. I really might just add these to the ever-growing list of projects for Jocelyn's birthday coming up! (I should really stop and just try to make it through Halloween and Christmas first!!)
Check more on these underwater critters and how to make them for your party here: http://catchmyparty.com/photos/671914

- Stephanie

Cookie Mummy Pops

These yummy mummies look like so much fun to make with your kids for Halloween!! I found them over at Catch My Party and they are just adorable!!

All you need to make these cute cookies is:

Sugar cookie dough

Vanilla icing

Fondant

Candy eyes

Lollipop sticks

And you put them all together and you create this super cute Halloween treats for you kids or party or classroom!!

The full tutorial for these cookies can be found on Catch My Party here: http://catchmyparty.com/blog/easy-mummy-cookie-pops-diy

All I need to make these happen are the eyes and sticks!! Seriously thinking about going out to find those two things to make these in a few weeks for Jocelyn and her classroom, maybe!!

- Stephanie

Fall Work Packets for Kids

Here's something fun for kids, of all ages, to do to celebrate the arrival of fall and help them learn more!! It has three different downloadable packets to work with and a fourth one for toddlers to practice writing, patterns, shapes, and some letters!

The first three packets had so many different activities to choose from! A good bit on writing, and sentence structure, and word families. Then a number of different hands on math worksheets, and then some patterns and matching!!

The activities looked like fun and it'd be great for those home schoolers to work on!!

Go download some of them!! They're totally FREE too!!!

http://www.3dinosaurs.com/printables/packs/leaves.php 

- Stephanie

Homeschoolers

This is for those of you out there that are homeschooling your children (Bless you ALL!!!) I just don't think I could do all of that.... I have patience, but I can't seem to teach my child to do anything. It's awful!

This website has links for all sorts of different things for the homeschooling moms. Found here: http://moneysavingmom.com/2013/09/free-homeschool-curriculum-resources-19.html
They have links to David and Goliath coloring sheets, multiplication activities, character building, and patterns.
Through the process of looking at all of this I also found another blog for the homeschooling mom!! It looked so interesting, even to me! She's biblical based, which I always love, and she has tons of resources for you to filter through as well as a blog!
Homeschoolin' Mama: http://homeschoolinmama.com/ Go check it out! You might find something you needed or are interested in!

- Stephanie

Chalk Board Banner

I saw this on Catch My Party... It looks like so much fun!!

This project looks like so much fun!! You could use this for parties and holidays and all sorts of events... Know why?? Because it's REUSABLE!!!! I love things that you can make and then keep them to use again another time. It makes life so much easier when you have things like that laying around, too!

You'll need:

• ½ - 1 yard of chalkboard fabric(depending on the length of your banner)
• ⅛ hole punch
• ⅛ inch eyelets
• Eyelet setter tool, hammer, and setting mat
• Ribbon or twine (3-4 yards)
• Chalk and chalk marker
• Banner template
• Scissors

See, the FULL DIY for this awesome party addition can be found on Catch My Party's website..... right here: http://catchmyparty.com/blog/diy-chalkboard-fabric-banner :)

I just love that website! They've seriously made my life so much easier when it comes to planning parties now!!

- Stephanie

For the Artists Out There

I found this neat template for drawing the minions from Despicable Me! I personally adore the minions, they are so funny and Jocelyn loves them too!! We took her to see Despicable Me 2 in theaters over the summer.... She was glued!!! She hardly looked away from the screen the whole time we were there... She LOVES those funny little guys to pieces!!

- Stephanie