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 Food "Hacks"

I hope that you all had and awesome Thanksgiving yesterday with your family and loved ones! I know we sure did at our house. I'm still cleaning up from it! :)

However, it's officially Christmas time!!! I adore this time of year! Everyone is always so cheerful and nice and the weather is wonderful (in my opinion) and then don't get me started on all the Christmas decorations that we get to put up and see!! I love it! Along with all those wonderful things comes a busy, busy few weeks as well... Especially for moms. We are constantly planning and prepping and cleaning and cooking and entertaining and wrapping and the list goes on. 

So, to make lives a smidgen easier this holiday season I've found some pretty creative hacks to share with you all! Some of these we've all seen before and some of them I've never even thought of doing! (And those that I haven't thought of before, were pretty spectacular in my opinion.)

Here you freeze chocolate into tree shapes and then add some icing to the backs and place them on a flat white cake to make it shine a little!

Fill empty condiments bottles with icing for decorating sugar cookies with the kids!

Dip cookie cutters in flour first to help the sugar cookies retain their shapes!

Look at this simple center piece! White candles and peppermints! Love it!

These are frozen dollops of coolwip/whipped cream to put in your mugs of hot cocoa! Such a great idea!

Three small candy canes glued together makes the perfect place card holders for your holiday tables!

Use the bottom of a crystal glass to make a unique design in your sugar cookies.

These were just a sampling of the hacks that I found on Buzzfeed! 

You can check out the rest of them over here: 38 Christmas Hacks

I hope that some of these come in handy throughout your busy holiday season this year and help you cut some corners!

-Stephanie

Snowflakes are falling

I ran across this tutorial for cutting out snowflakes the other day on Pinterest, which is perfect because I was just trying to show Joc how to cut out snowflakes from paper last week! I knew I wasn't doing something quite right with them and since I've found this one we've made a ton more that are really pretty!

These are another of those fun activities your kids could be doing while you're cooking this week for Thanksgiving and you could lay them out around the tables or on your buffet as cute hand made decorations for your guests to see!

The kids will love that, it'll bring them into the center of the attention for a short period of time during the day while their grandparents, aunts, uncles... comment on the snowflakes they made!

Here is the link for the print out of the tutorials:

Winter Is Coming!

 

This is a view of what the print out looks like... And who doesn't love Elsa and Olaf!

- 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!