Christmas Prep - Kids Edition

Next week is Thanksgiving. Crazy. I will be stuffing my face all day then that evening will retreat into my apartment to decorate and allow Christmas to come to life!

Last week I did a post called Prepping for Christmas, where I showed off the Pins that I found that I wanted to do for my house which even led to me making these wonderful things! You can check out that post here.

 

 

Well this past weekend and earlier this week I went on and found a few crafts that I want to do with the kids to make this house festive. Their parents make it really festive with many Christmas Trees and decorations, but I know that a touch of hand prints and glued on cotton balls will make it that much more awesome.

 

So here are my top pins for Christmas Crafts for Kids.

 

These are super cute and look really easy and the kids can just make them in all different styles to be unique. Pin Here

 

These look so simple and allows the kids to use as much or little creativity as they want, which on any day could vary quite a bit. Pin Here

 

W made something like this in Preschool last year and when he brought it home I thought the girls were going to pass out from excitement. We do a large advent calendar upstairs with goodies and prizes but I think we will all make these this year as well. Pin Here

 

We have tons and tons of popsicle sticks, usually I come to work after a weekend and there are houses constructed out of them and glue and markers. So why not use them for these cute Christmas Trees. Pin Here

 

These as well. Pin Here

Add all these to the list as well. Pin Here

 

I just about died when I found this Pin, how adorable, the kids are going to giggle so much  making these I just know it! Pin Here

 

 

This last one is of another set of crafts to do, I haven't really gone through it yet but I really like what I see in the pictures so I am sure I can find a few that will work for us. Pin Here



 

I'm sure that will keep us busy for a bit, we did a few crafts last year but I wasn't really blogging at the time, I wish I was!

 

The kids are about to come bounding off the bus so I better go get ready.

 

It's Hump Day!!! Woot woot!

 

Jenny

 



The Post

My kids are pretty funny, they often say or do things that have me rolling around laughing.

As I was getting ready to do this craft with my kids I told them I needed to go grab my phone so I could take pictures to put it on my blog post. I guess they didn't know already that I had a blog and so started asking questions and found it to be very interesting and cool that they got to help me out by doing crafts.

Later on in the evening we were outside playing and S came up to me and yelled "Jenny, take a picture of me to put on 'The Post'!!!" I started laughing as she now refers to my blog as The Post. Maybe I should reconsider a blog name change haha.

Anyways, I know that I have posted the last two times about Christmas so I need to give Thanksgiving some exposure. My kids get really offended over early Christmas, I am not sure how this got instilled in them because their mom and I both love Christmas. Every time we see things that are Christmas they go "What about Thanksgiving's feelings???" So empathetic, I know.

I decided to do a cute craft to put on the fridge and incorporated some hand prints since their mom loves them so much.

Supplies:

Paint
Google Eyes
Card Stock
Construction Paper
Glue
Marker

Start with a blank piece of card stock, I didn't have white so we used yellow.

Then take the kids hands and put 4-5 different colored handprints to make the feathers on the paper.

Then give the kids some markers and tell them to write Happy Thanksgiving or Be Thankful and their name.

Set those aside and let them begin the process of drying.

Then take some brown construction paper and have the kids cut out a circle big enough to cover the base of the hands. Have them glue some google eyes on there. I let the kids have free range to make sure it is as unique as them.

Then let them draw on a mouth and cut out a little red thing to use as the gobble gobble (don't quite know the real name for it but that's what we call it)

Then take the head and glue it on to the hand prints, if they are still wet with pain, that's totally ok.

There you go....so easy and it's super cute!

 

W said that his turkey was making a surprise face so he did too.

We hung them up on the fridge for all to see in honor of Thanksgiving.

The kids had a great time and the weather was so great afterwards we went out side and played around for a bit. It was later in the evening and so the sun was coming down and I was able to snap a fantastic picture of how it looked through the trees. I love this magical place.

Today is Thursday which means tomorrow is Friday, I can't wait!

Jenny

Twine Christmas Trees

It's Tuesday and now my second post of the week...I am on a role. I already have one planned for tomorrow as well!

It is probably the Christmas season since I have so much stuff I want to do and accomplish and being able to share it with all of you lovely readers makes it that much more fun! 

It was so cool to see that my Gorilla Bread was featured this week on Tell-Us Tuesday. I am so honored. You can see the post here.



If you missed my post yesterday, you can find it here where I shared a few of the Pins I have found that I want to make for our apartment.

Lindsey and I were at home last night like we normally are on a Monday (I mean Sleepy Hallow and the Blacklist come on back to back) and she mentioned how much more our apartment was starting to look home-y. Our last apartment across town was our first place in Atlanta and we didn't really do much in the decorations department, but as we moved into this apartment I knew that more needed to be done. I frequent all the crafting stores and Goodwill and pick up pieces here and there to put on the walls or side tables or shelves and now our apartment is looking better every day.

After my post yesterday I knew that I was going to go home and work on something. After dinner I sat down at our little table and got to work. I am linking up with Tell-Us Tuesday again this week.
  I originally found this pin from Fab You Bliss on pinterest and knew immediately that it was something I wanted to make. This is the original picture.  

I went to Michaels which is having a super sale right now with Vetran's Day. My dad was in the army for 22 years and so I still have my military ID which gave me an additional 25% off of my whole purchase.

I got all of my supplies which were

3 Styrafoam Cones
Ball of Twine
Glue for my Glue Gun
String of Beads

 

The first thing I did was start at the base a put a dot of glue and the end of the twine and let it set for a little bit before I started wrapping.

After that I would keep going around and around putting glue and wrapping the twine as I went up. making sure to keep the twine close to each other so it didn't show too much of the Styrofoam.

At the end I circled around the top and clipped the twine just so I could stuff the little bit in the middle and it was done.

After that I took the sting of beads and started at the top and just glued one bead. Then I went around and glues a couple beads to it here and there. In the original one she used a pin to place them so she could change them out, but I don't plan on it.

(See that big clock in the background? I got that at Michaels on sale. It was originally $60 and I got it for $14....I love a good bargain.)

 

I continued on with the next two cones until all three were done.

 

We have a side table that sits in the corner between our love seat and recently it has housed my old milk pitcher and a coffee pitcher I found at the Country Living Fair. I decided that these would replace those lovely things.

Here they are in all their glory! The first Christmas item to grace our apartment's presence. I brought the Christmas Bin out of the storage room and just set it in the living room. I was looking through it last night and just dreaming up where I was going to put everything. I think it is going to slowly start getting put up these next few weeks.

That's it for today. Tomorrow I am going to be posting about a Thanksgiving Craft I did with my kids this week that they loved!

Jenny

 

     

Prepping for Christmas

I know it's not Christmas yet.

I know that it's still 43 days till it gets here.

I know that I get a little over excited....but I don't care.

Christmas is my favorite holiday all year. I think the reason I love Fall so much is because it leads right up to Christmas. Christmas was always an exciting even at our house. With 4 kids there were tons of presents to be opened as well as fun to be had. We all got so excited giving gifts to one another. There are many VHS to this day that I can sit and watch for hours because Christmas has no bad memories.

My mom was a stay at home mom and she loved decorations. I grew up in a home that changed from Snow mans at winter, to bunnies at Easter, Pumpkins at Fall, and tons and tons of Christmas decorations come Thanksgiving night. It was always a thing for out family that after the Thanksgiving festivities we would pull out the Christmas tree and decorate it, then usually go to a movie. My mom had about 3-4 bins yes I said bins of decorations that she would start pulling from the attic and then in a couple of days our house would be transformed.

Moving out into my own apartment with a roommate and a dog I knew that it would be up to me to carry on that piece of my mom. I am just so blessed to have a roommate who doesn't mind my craziness and my love for house decorations. She lets me do my thing and is often coming home or waking up with new decorations spread throughout the house. I always check her reaction and she is always so receiving of them.

Right now I still have all the Fall decorations up since Thanksgiving has not arrived yet, but that Christmas bin that is sitting in our storage room is calling my name and I am doing everything in my power to resist. I am staying up in Atlanta for Thanksgiving this year and so I know that come that evening that bin will be out and everything will get put up. I slowly but surely add stuff every year. Last year was my first year and I got a good loot but I can't wait to add more this year. I have been on Pinterest the past few days looking at ideas and I think I have a few I want to implement.

 

I love this Pin I have sooo many Popsicle sticks in my craft stash and I think it could be so easy to do something like this to fill in some empty wall space.

 

 

I am always looking for a way to use my sewing machine. These look like the perfect thing to fix that.

 

 

I actually went to Michaels yesterday with my many coupons and purchased all the supplies to make these. This week I will hopefully complete them and put them up here.

Super simple, lots of fun and would look great in the house! Pin here.

I am hosting our Bible Study Christmas Party and organizing our Missional Community Christmas Party this year, so I am planning all sorts of neat things to incorporate, and one of them has to be these adorable name holders.

I think that's probably all I should be posting on November 11. I am working on getting some kids crafts together for Thanksgiving this week.

Have a great Monday!

Jenny

Lollipop Cake

September is a busy month for me in nanny world. Not only does Labor Day kick us off and the kids baseball/softball games come into full effect, my youngest two, W and S have birthdays. They were born 51 weeks apart, not even a whole year, one week to the day shy of a year apart. So that means that they will both be the same age for 1 week.

W is turning the big 6 this week and it's crazy to think of him as 6 when I started with him he was only 4 and now he is turning 6. This is the second birthday I have spent with him and it's crazy.

W is a sweet sweet little boy who loves nothing more then some good conversation and his teenage mutant ninja turtle van, oh and a good hour on the Ipad every day.

One thing that sets him apart from any other child I have ever met is that he does not like dessert. Like no cake, cookies, brownies, ice cream, etc. Nothing appeases him except for Lollipops and Starburst. Fairly simple, until you go to tons of birthday parties and he'll just have the gold fish snacks cause he wont eat the cake. Last year we got a birthday cake for him and he got to blow out the candles but everyone else ate it. This year mom and I wanted to do something that would be for him.

I have seen many a lollipop arrangement made and sold online for 30-50 dollars, but I figured all I needed was the supplies and I could recreate it. So without further ado, my Lollipop Cake.


Supplies -
*Container
*5 inch Styrofoam Ball
*Stones
* 1 Bag Starburst (Candy for Jar)
* 6 Bags of lollipops of any variety (As you can see I had an extra bag of starbursts and was short 2 bags of lollipops to begin with)

 

First you put the stones in the container to help give it some weight and to make it look pretty good. 

 

Then put whatever candy appeases you in the base of the jar but you need to leave about an inch of space at the top so that the ball can sit inside it. 

 

Place the ball on the container and make sure it is set in there and that there are no candies causing it to be lopsided, you want it pretty even.  

 



Start at the bottom and do 1 row at a time all the way around of lollipops, make sure that they are right next to each other and that you can only see a minimal amount of the Styrofoam.

 

 

Then continue to work your way up, you might need to use a little bit of arm effort to get them in there when some of the other sticks get in the way, you could always try a new angle as well.

Keep going until you cover the whole thing.

Take some ribbon and wrap it around the top of the container and then if you used curling ribbon like I did curl those ends and make it look oh so cute.

 

Mom and I are debating whether to show it to him today or wait until his birthday, either way I can't wait to see his face. This is his first ever birthday cake that he gets to actually eat.

 

 

 Just a photo of me and the birthday boy for good measure.

 

 

Jenny