Resurrection Eggs

 

 

We have been loving this as a daily reminder about the true meaning of Easter. I know that there are ways you can make these filled eggs yourself, but I went ahead and bought a set online from a Christian bookstore. I wanted the set to be sturdy and last for a while and I was concerned that if I made my own, it would end up falling apart at some point. It saved me time too! Each day we read a scripture that relates to the Easter story and then open up an egg to see what the symbol is for the day that goes with the scripture. My preschooler is the perfect age for this activity as she is excited every morning to open up an egg and read the scripture. I would encourage those with small children to try this family activity. I love having a spiritual focus with my girls first thing in the morning and they are such little sponges. My feeling is that the more scripture I can fill their hearts and minds with the better!

Easter Craft

I am planning my daughter's Easter party for her preschool and ran across this simple and cute craft that I plan to do with her class. It uses a coffee filter, markers, or my favorite- the Do-A-Dot Art Sponge Tip Applicators ( they make dots!), and a pipe cleaner. My daughter colored this butterfly herself using the Do-A-Dots on the coffee filter. I then gathered up the filter together in the middle and secured it with the pipe cleaner. I made the pipe cleaner curly by wrapping it around a pencil.  It turned out super cute, but what I love the most is the significance of the butterfly. The butterly is a symbol of the new life we have in Jesus because He died on the cross for our sins and rose again. I enjoyed having this discussion with my daughter while she made the butterfly. The butterfly serves as a reminder that if we put our faith in Him we will have new life not only on this earth but in heaven when we live with Him for eternity.

Holiday Baking With Kids Part 3

This past Sunday Riley and I made rocky road candy for her teachers' Christmas gifts. It has become a tradition to make it around the holidays for gifts. Everyone always loves it and it is so easy- another great food item to make with kids! We had an older neighbor friend of ours come over and she made gifts for her teachers with us too- so fun! I always get lots of requests for the recipe and thought I would share it with you. I found the cute buckets and baggies at Walmart. They always have a good selection of tins and containers for food giving at a reasonable price.  We had a great time delivering holiday cheer to her school teachers and Sunday school teacher on Monday morning! Have fun making your own memories and remembering those that work so hard for our kids during the year! 

Rocky Road Candy

2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 c mini marshmallows

1/2 c slivered almonds, toasted  on cookie sheet and broil (I have to admit I forgot toasting them this year and they still turned out great!)

 

Melt chocolate chips in microwave safe bowl in thirty second increments stirring often and checking to make sure that they don't burn. After chips are melted, stir in marshmallows and almonds. Drop by teaspoonful on wax paper. Put in freezer for about fifteen minutes. Transfer to containers. Yield: 3 dozen.

Elf Ownership

I have to admit that I went into  elf ownership not too excited about it. I really felt like it was going to be just another thing to add to my already too long holiday task list. I went to a Christmas party recently where everyone was talking about it, and it seemed like too much work to me. I mean this girl was showing me pictures of her elf trying to walk out their door- freaky!  

I guess the power of marketing eventually got to me though. I saw the stupid thing everywhere! I heard about it everywhere! I couldn't escape it and I couldn't bear the thought of someone asking Riley what her elf's name was and what it had been up to and her wide expression as she told the person that she didn't have one. It seemed kind of cruel. Pathetic of me I'm sure. I mean we don't even have a pet so this is kind of the next best thing- right?

The first night after reading the elf story Riley was very excited about the concept. She excitedly ran through the house looking for a suitable location for our elf to begin being a part of our family during the holidays. Before bed though I had to reassure her that "Heart Sweet" as she named our girl elf, would not go into her room at night and bother her. It brought back memories of me being scared of E.T. after seeing the movie. Yeah he was cute in the movie, but put that thing in my room and I am going to freak out for sure! Even after reassuring her, Riley made an appearance in our room around 2am and needed to be put back to bed.   

The next day we watched the video which was cute. In the video it talked about how if you touched the elf it would lose its magic power and it would have a hard time making its nightly trip to the North Pole to check in with Santa. At that time our elf was sitting on a plate in the kitchen with a cookie on her lap. She has already "eaten" several cookies that day much to Riley's delight. Wanting to see how much of the cookie Heart Sweet had eaten, Riley pulled the plate closer to her and accidentally knocked off our elf. She immediately started crying and worried that Santa would be upset with her. I told her to write a letter to Santa saying that she was sorry hoping that the activity would help her to feel better. Instead, she obsessed about whether or not our elf would be able to fly to the North Pole and whether or not the note would actually get to Santa and who would help Heart Sweet in her journey home and how long she would have to stay in the hospital. Mercy, child! I think pet ownership would have been easier!

So now that it has been several days I think we are starting to get the hang of this elf thing. It has landed in our tree and turned on our tree lights ( I swear I turned them off when we left!), hung out on the top of a display cabinet, and most recently enjoyed drinking syrup because everyone knows elves love sugar, sugar, and more sugar! Her presence has actually brought a sense of company. Who knows,  maybe we will get that cat someday that Riley keeps asking for!

 

 

 

 

Holiday Baking With Kids Part 2

Rolo Pretzel Cookies are another easy item to make with the kids. I use the term cookie loosely as it is more like a candy, but it is called a cookie nevertheless. My four year old Riley and I had a fun time making these together. So easy and everyone loves them! I found this recipe online so long ago that I don't know where it came from, but here it is for you to enjoy!


Rolo Pretzel Cookies
15 oz. bag of waffle pretzels
two bags of the mini Rolo candies
one bag of mini holiday M&M's (or you can use the full-sized ones as well)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Lay out rows of waffle pretzels on a cookie sheet. Use one pretzel per Rolo you have on hand. Unwrap the Rolo candies and center one on each pretzel. Bake for about three minutes until the chocolate softens. It looks like it is glistening. Working quickly before the chocolate cools, press several holiday M&M's on each Rolo and squish it down. You might not want little hands doing this part as the chocolate can be too hot for them!  Let cookies cool. You can also set the cookies in the frig. I made one cookie sheet and it was plenty for the cookie exchange I was going to and I also had some left for a Christmas gift for our neighbor! They keep well too, so you could make them ahead of time for gifts or a party.

Dreams

Okay so today was a big day in the life of a childhood dream of mine. If you had asked me what I wanted to do when I was a kid I would have answered you with "writer". Ever since I was in the fourth grade it has been a dream of mine to get published. That dream actually came true several years ago when I was published in a magazine called Seeing the Everyday. I wrote a piece about the women in my family showing their love by making biscuits called "Biscuits and Gravy". It is actually included on this blog if you want to check it out. Since then I have wanted to continue my writing journey, but other than writing tons in notebooks and starting this blog I haven't really been sure what else I could do that would be manageable for me.

That changed when I started writing devotions for my Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) group this past September. MOPS has a quarterly magazine as well and the thought occured to me that I should submit my writing to them. So today I did just that. I sent off a piece for consideration in their May/June/July issue. It felt good to actively pursue my dream regardless of what will happen. Our MOPS theme this year is Plunge and that is exactly what I am doing- taking a plunge and putting my writing out there.

So today I encourage you to take your own plunge. What have you been too scared to do? What have you been putting off doing? Go for it today! I would love to hear about it!

Holiday Baking with Kids Part 1

Today Riley and I did some baking. Since she was with me when I bought all the special cookie ingredients,  she was anxious to get started. We made Red-Nosed Reindeer cookies that I had pulled out of the December issue of Parents magazine several years ago.  I have several cookie exchanges to go to this month and I thought they would be really cute to take and as a bonus they would be really easy to make. I planned to make them last year but when I couldn't find the mini chocolate covered pretzels for the antlers, I gave up and made something else instead. I was so happy this year to easily find all the ingredients.

Initially, I wanted our cookies to come out looking just like the picture in the magazine. I was bummed to realize that the mini M&M's that I bought only had red and green when we needed brown for the eyes. The white icing that I got didn't create a small enough dollup of frosting, so I had to pull out my Wilton Dessert Decorator to create a smaller amount of frosting to place the candies on.

As we continued to work though I realized that we could make a small amount of cookies and use them as our practice ones so really what did it matter except making time for my daughter and having fun. Who cares if ours don't look like the picture? They are still cute and better yet they tasted great!

I included the recipe below for you to try with your little bakers! Have fun!

Theirs

 

Ours

 

Red-Nosed Reindeer Cookies:

1.      Slice pieces from peanut butter cookie dough in half (we used Pillsbury's and you could use the sugar cookie kind as well.)

2.      Shape into 1 1/2" triangles and place 3" apart on cookie sheet.

3.      Bake 8-10 minutes.

4.      While cookies are still warm, push a mini chocolate pretzel (Flipz- found them in the candy aisle) on each side to resemble antlers.

5.      Let cool completely.

6.      Have kids decorate the face: attach brown M&M Minis for eyes and a red regular sized M&M nose with frosting. (Make sure you get the bag that has more than just holiday colors!) Makes 24 but the great thing with this recipe is you can make some and put the rest of the dough in the frig until later. Enjoy!