Excited for Christmas

The girls are officially done with school for a week and we've been trying to make the most of it.  Ada has had a cold (she had to miss school Friday because of it) but that hasn't slowed us down too much.

We've enjoyed the snow.

We made some festive necklaces out of apple jacks.  And ate the leftovers with milk!

We attempted to make some gingerbread houses using no template or instructions.  They should be yummy regardless though.

Books took a nap.

The girls played candyland all by themselves.

Tomorrow we will attempt to make Buche de Noel.  It will be my first time making genoise- wish me luck!

Some Seasonal Work

Our holiday book collection with some seasonal stuffed animals.  

And here's Emma telling her babies a story.  She loves Llama Llama Holiday Drama by Anna Dewdney.  We love the Llama Llama series and this was my gift to the girls last year.  

I had intended to go bigger for the holiday season this year but I think Emma's birthday preparations zapped some of my creative juju.  We did get a shelf switchover and the girls have been enjoying the work.

Red and Green color sorting.

Moving bells with a scoop.  We practice counting when we do this.  And we use the bells to shake when we sing Jingle Bells!

Size sorting.  These are pictures of kids doing winter activities and the cards are different sizes for sorting.  I printed these last year but can't remember where I found it.  There are tons of free printables for this type of thing in the blog world.

There is also a sequencing tray with some santa and snowman and christmas tree erasers that Ada likes quite a bit, just no photos.

For art projects we've been mostly just making cards to send out.  I think next year I'll go back to picking a photo and having it printed on a postcard like I usually do because this whole making cards thing is cute and the girls like it but I would rather have them all done and ready to go at the beginning of the month rather than sending them out as they get made.  We'll see.

Thanking our teachers

In the wake of last week's tragedy I'm still feeling very shaken.   Every now and again something happens that makes me start questioning all sorts of things about this life we live.  It is interesting to be having some (dare I say) existential thoughts while at the same time having business as usual around the house.  The girls are too young for me to talk in anything other than very general terms and since we don't have television it's very easy for them not to find out about such tragedies.  I'm all for facing reality as a child, but they can have their innocence a bit longer.

I do hope something changes in this country so we don't have to feel so uneasy about so many things but I can't help thinking about adults and children all over the world who are surrounded by real threat every single day.  I think about what kind of difference that has on forming their worldview.  I am the last one who has answers, but I have been very in my head these last few days.

I decided I would channel my feelings into some baking with the girls.  Namely CHOCOLATE.  If you know me you know that I don't really consider it dessert unless chocolate is involved.  If you know me well, you know the darker the better.  One of my favorite birthday presents was when my BFF got like 10 different kinds of chocolate and over an evening we blind tasted, evaluated, reviewed, and scored them all.  I think there was even wine involved.  Awesome!  So this year I decided to make all chocolate stuff for the girl's teachers.

Chocolate Crunch Granola- found recipe through Pinterest from Delicious Days  I did rough conversions from metric then was jus approximate since it's granola and you don't need to be precise.  We made 4 batches (each girl made 2) and packaged them in glass jars we had saved whose lids I spray painted silver.

Fudgy Mint Cookies- we used to make these at FHS and I loved them.  I found a recipe through Pinterest on Taste of Home that works well.  I used 1 teaspoon of dough an put little balls into a tray of powdered sugar that the girls rolled around.  This size is the perfect size for junior mints on top!  We made a double batch and ended up with somewhere around 100 cookies.

Chocolate Pretzel Rings- these are just ring pretzels on a baking sheet with a Kiss put in the middle of each one.  We used the dark chocolate kisses.  The girls had fun unwrapping and putting them on the tray.  You put them in the oven at 175 for a few minutes then jiggle an M&M in the middle of each one while they're still hot and melty (I did that part).  They're simple and super yummy.  We used red and green M&Ms to make them festive.

Sorry but I was too caught up in the action to take photos while we cooked but here they are all packaged up and ready to go.

I got to go in for a parent gathering at Ada's school and it was awesome.  The children all sang us songs and then did their favorite works to show us.  Ada decided to do some plant watering and leaf polishing then she traced some metal plates and colored them in.

As afraid as I may feel inside I want the girls to always think of school as a fun exciting place that they want to go to.  I think seeing Ada living life today in her classroom went a long way in making me feel better about the world.

Our little ballerinas

As of last night, I am officially done with my first graduate course.  It was wonderful in many ways but I'm happy to be able to focus all my attention back on home and the girls.  Plus I have a little more time to put up blog posts :)

One of the current obsessions around here is ballet.  If Ada is awake and in the house you can count on her being in some sort of leotard/ tutu situation.  I recently dug up a bag of ballet stuff (including shoes) given to us by a dear cousin and Ada regularly offers "ballet" class to any number of stuffed animals.  Actually she has never taken ballet, but will start in January and we are all excited about it.

Last weekend the girls needed something to do and I decided to throw some masking tape on the floor as a balance beam.  We made one straight and one crooked and the girls walked, hopped, crab walked, walked backwards, spun, and any other thing I could think of back and forth on these "beams" for at least half an hour before moving on to just plain dancing.  It was a huge hit!

Sister hugs <3

Emma following her sister's lead.

Walking the line.  Plus you can see the Eric Carle collage on the right.  We ended up covering it with another sheet of clear contact paper and will likely use it to wrap some birthday presents for friends- it looks really cool!

Love my girls!

Hope for the future

Just a little something Ada said that I didn't want to forget.

We were out and about doing errands and Ada noticed the wreathes and other decorations hanging at the shoe store.  She (of course) commented on how beautiful they were then asked if they were Christmas decorations.  I told her they were and that this is a time of year when we see lots of beautiful Christmas decorations but noted that some people don't celebrate Christmas and might celebrate other holidays.  She pressed for more information and I gave a short rundown of a few other holidays and said something like, "it just depends on what you believe"

This is when she blew my mind.  In her high and sweetest voice she said, "Mama, just like we believe in the Earth!"

Today is a day when I feel like I'm doing something right as a mother and as a person.  Yes Ada we do believe in the Earth and we will do what we can to preserve her.

I love you my Ada boo, I'm so proud of you!

Double Thanksgiving is awesome!

We were able to be together on Thanksgiving and it was glorious.  I had ordered a turkey from a farm that we buy eggs and chicken from at the farmer's market before realizing that we would be gong to a friends house for the holiday.  We decided that since we were going to their house after nap, we could still do Thanksgiving in the morning just with us.  Yes please!  We had all the things we love and were able to get the turkey carved and stock going by 1pm- awesome indeed.

I love Emma's face in this picture <3

Just before my mom left the girls painted some little ceramic turkeys that we found in the Target dollar section.  They had fun painting them and we used them as our centerpiece for our family Thanksgiving meal.  They will be going into storage with our autumn decorations.  I really never thought I would be a "decoration" person but the kids love it so much that I think I'm converting.  Just need to do some purging so we can store things in less of a "random boxes overflowing and stacked in a way that they topple over and create a total disaster" kind of way that we are currently keeping things.  It will happen.  I'm confident.

On a side note, I will likely taking a bit of a hiatus in the next couple of weeks while I complete my course.  Big project due + spending my time blogging = grade I won't be happy with.  Will be back soon.

The ladies are laying

These photos show my favorite reasons for having chickens.  The girls being connected to their food and animal husbandry... and EGGS!

Our beautiful hens have started laying eggs as of last Monday!  All three lay brown eggs so I'm not positive who is laying but I think it's just one- my guess is Red.  It has been so magical to go out and find the little eggs in the corner of the coop.

We hadn't gotten around to building a nest box yet so the girls just fluffed up an area of the bedding in a corner and have been laying them in there.  I am still planning to build one, but for now they seem okay.

It was actually perfect timing because it just got cold enough for their water to be freezing solid at least at night sometimes during the day which requires me to check on them more frequently and the eggs are like my little reward for the added work :)

I have made a friend here in Minnesota who is fabulous.  I spoke of her in one of my first posts.  This friend and I are different in many ways but we respect and like each other and frankly it's nice to have someone who doesn't always agree with you!  This friend gave me an incredible, thoughtful and encouraging birthday present this year of some beautiful ceramic egg crates.  I love them!  What I love is that not only will we use them to house our eggs and keep track of the freshest ones (there are 2 colors), but it is a representation of her supporting me doing something that is for me.  I love it when women support each other and frankly I think we could all (myself included) do a bit less judging and a bit more understanding and helping.  It was just a simple little thing, but it makes me so happy to have a friend here who gets me and likes me all the same:)  Thanks Jessica!

Emma's Eric Carle Party

The party was great.  Lucky us my mom flew in for the weekend and was able to help- could not have done it without her.  I have tried to post as many of the links of inspiration as I could, but I looked at a bunch of stuff online so I might have just blended ideas and forgotten to credit someone.

I loved the way everything looked, but I think I should have omitted some of the crafts- good for the older kids, but the younger kids were just interested in running around and being 2.

The front door.  Birthday girl waiting for her guests to arrive.

The food table.   Ada and I made the banner.  We did all the painting together.

 My favorite thing is the repurposed book collection box that we use to house napkins.  The goldfish in the fishbowl was so cute on HWTM that I wanted to do something similar.

Emma trying to get her hands on some candy :)

Pre party snacking.

Drink station.

Ada and I made the paper for water and juice boxes to make them more "Eric Carle".

Pin the tail on the elephant- saw this here and wanted one bigger so we made it.  Sunshine (I love how this came out).  Brown bear, Brown bear what do you see? mirror.   I saw a mirror on HWTM and wanted to do something similar for Brown Bear.

Contact paper collage station. We just used all the scraps from the painted poster board decorations.

A few little trays of Eric Carle related work.  There was also a big bin of his books that were a big hit with a bunch of kids- thanks for being the storyteller mom!  In the little purple tray is the "Heads and Tails" printable from 1+1+1=1.  

Grouchy ladybug bean bag toss.   I saw a version of this at a Hungry Caterpillar party and thought we could do something similar.   I made little ladybugs with Eric Carle fabric and silk cord antena.  The box is cut at a slight angle and covered with tissue to be green.  I painted the leaf on posterboard and covered in a light layer of mod podge once it was on the box.  We gave out little ladybug temporary tatoos as a prize.

Caterpillar bookmark station inspired by Domesticali.  This was fun, but only a couple kids did it.  If I had facilitated more it would have been better.

Decorating a hermit crab collage inspired by Mom to 2 Posh Little Divas.  This was another station that the kids didn't really use, but Ada and I had so much fun making all the little bits to go inside that I don't even care.  I'll put it away and bring it out when we do an ocean theme.

Blowing out her candles.

Post cake calorie burning.  Please note the awesome shirt my mom made.  She used steam a seam to put the "2" on using Eric Carle fabric.  I got the idea from delicateCONSTRUCTION.  The tutu has super soft tulle and some Eric Carle fabric mixed in too.  Yes, she looked crazy cute.

Happy Birthday Emma!