Gingerbread Building

During holiday break, we need some entertainment before we open our new presents. SOOOO . . . When I found a gingerbread house on sale (25% off already!) I HAD to buy it.

Mommy and Jayci handled most of the icing jobs and the kids added the candy. So we decorated . . .

. . . and we ate a little bit too.

And we had a lot of fun!!!

(Mommy tip: The frame has to dry for 30 min! It is very hard to wait 30

WHOLE minutes to start decorating . . . .)

Happy Fall Y'all!

A couple of weekends ago it was rainy and yucky and we needed an indoor project because the natives were restless . . .

I saw this cute idea on pinterest but didn't realize it was a wedding guest book idea where each guest would add their thumbprint to the tree as a sign in. Cute, but not what I had in mind

So, as all parents do, I adjusted. We made finger print trees. I just drew a tree onto cardstock with a brown crayon and gave each kid a stamp pad and a wipie.

They printed leaves in green, brown, orange, and yellow all over the tree. Then they wiped their color off and traded ink. Some got real creative and made piles of leaves under the tree or falling leaves.

They had a great time and made a keepsake for Mommy. (I'm a sucker for anything with and hand/foot print.)

Cute and happy little Natives now. YAY!

Pumpkin Carving Time

Karis has an easy job! Mr. Potato Head pumpkin pieces. Great present from Granna. Thank you!

Jayci picked a "scary" pattern off bhg.com. She was so excited to carve it herself. No, I did it actually, but she pressed a push pin through the lines of the pattern and thought it was awesome.

Of course, Cade was delighted to get all the gunk out of the middle of the pumpkin but even more excited to roast the seeds.

Finished product. They are totally rotten now but it was a really fun afternoon! (Try this tip to keep your pumpkins fresh. I didn't try it in time.)

The Lesson of Lemonade

Thanks to Pampered Chef . . .

my 2 yr old is learning up & down . . .

and up & down . . .

and up & down. . . .

Whew! I need something refreshing. That was hard work!

My Little Planner

Jayci got a wooden and magnet calendar for Christmas. I thought she would love it but really it was one of those "Cool, Mom" kind of gifts . . . until today. We sat down today and scheduled April. Mind you her birthday is in April so that was a huge bonus. We had so much fun. It was especially good to talk about Good Friday and Easter and the meaning of both.

Grocery Store Scavenger Hunt

I've been thinking of how I'm going to make it this summer, taking all 3 kids to the grocery store. One option is to go at night or naptime when Matt can watch them and I'm sure I'll do that many times. But sometimes that just isn't the best choice. So I tried to think of something to occupy their time.

It took me about 20 minutes to make a grocery store scavenger hunt list. I just made 3 columns in a table in a Word document. The first column is the word. The second column is the picture and the third column is blank for a check mark. (You can get great pictures on Google images - even name brand specific if you want.) I'm going to give each one a clipboard with their list and a crayon or pencil. Because it is a word doc I can change it each week if I want to. At some point I might give Jayci my actual list without pictures and let her try to find things that way. I was also thinking I could use expired/actual coupons sometime.

Anyone have other ideas??