Most Popular Posts From 2011

We are busy here- playing with new Christmas toys, spending time with family from out of town and working on our winter bucket list! All fun things!

While we are busy, i thought id show you 4 most popular posts from my lil ol blog for the 2011 year. Id do more if i knew how, haha! When i look at my Blogger stats i could only figure out the top 4-

Preschool Corner Garden Theme-

 

Garden Sensory Bin-

 

stART All You Need For A Snowman-

 

Tot School: Winter/Snow-

Apparently spring and winter themes are popular with you all! Ha!

Have a wonderful New Years everyone!!

(To see lasts years top posts go here.)

Peppermint Stick Cocoa In A Jar

 

Every year i try to make something homemade for my friends kiddos. This year i went on Pinterest and found a post for peppermint hot cocoa and thought it looked perfect.

Here’s the recipe i coped from New Nostalgia:

Peppermint Stick Cocoa
Layer the ingredients for homemade cocoa in a jar, add a ribbon, embellishment, and a tag, and you have a simple but cute gift.  This mix will fill a 1 quart jar (12 servings), but if your containers are different sizes, just keep the ratio of ingredients constant.  On the back of the tag, write: "Mix contents in a bowl.  For each serving, place 1/3 cup cocoa mix in a mug and stir in one cup boiling water.  Store remaining mix in airtight container.
1 cup powdered milk
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips
1/2 cup crushed peppermint candy
Layer powdered milk, cocoa powder, sugar, salt, chocolate chips, and peppermint candy.
Yield: Makes 1 quart mix or 12 servings hot cocoa.

I used a 16 oz jar (1 pint) and halved the recipe, this serves 6.  I also made 8 oz jars (1/2 pint) and adjusted the measurements, this serves 3.

16 oz jar measurements (1 pint) serves 6
1/2 cup powdered milk
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup miniature chocolate chips
1/4 cup crushed peppermint candy
8 oz jar measurements (1/2 pint) serves 3
1/4 cup powdered milk
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 cup miniature chocolate chips
1/8 cup crushed peppermint candies

I had different sized jars so i LOVED that she posted the different measurements for the different jars.

I bought some fabric from Joanns to finish them off. The above picture was before i added the instruction tags.

Brianna’s Little Keeper Of The Home Class

I love the co-op group we are a part of. I truly do. In Sept. another round of classes started and i signed Brianna up for a class called Little Keepers of the Home. I just had to share the adorableness of it.

Unfortunately i only took pictures of the very last class when they had a little party for the parents-

She received a little ‘medal’ and an award-

She decorated little gingerbread ornaments she had made prior to the party-

She then decorated a cake for her and i to eat-

She even got to pour my drink!

I loved the entire party :)

Some of the other weeks they practiced folding laundry, cleaning, decorating,driving cardboard box ‘cars’, baking and more. Such a wonderful class :)

Winter Bucket List 2011

We did all but 2 things on our fall bucket list ,there’s always next year to do the rest :)

And now,onto w*i*n*t*e*r…

• Drive around looking at Christmas lights IN our pajamas, WHILE listening to Christmas music AND drinking hot cocoa (this was hubbies idea.. .love him)
• Huge bubble bath
• Give a secret gift to someone
• Eat snowflakes as they fall
• Enjoy the simple pleasure of warm homemade soup
• Watch Elf
• Read a Christmas book by the Christmas tree
• Go see a live nativity

Connor’s Schooling- November 2011

Here i what Connor worked on in November-

Language Arts:

He’s doing great with reading!

(-He read the above words and put the sentence in the right order)

Continuing cursive-

We did his Brain Quest cards a couple of times too-

Math:

He can count up to 69-

He knows how to tell the time if its exactly something o’clock. He has been learning to write the times too-

He can make members of the teen, twenty, thirty, forty and fifty families-

He started simple addition- (which he already mastered before starting Kind.)

Social Studies-

We learned about Peru!

And ate a mango because we learned they have mangoes in Peru-

(despite his face- he really liked it!)

Science:

He’s been learning alot about seeds-

That’s our sum-up of November :)

Homemade Ornaments- Pinecone Christmas Trees And Glittery Christmas Bulbs

We do an ornament exchange at our annual family Christmas party and they encourage people to make them homemade. Now that i have my new best pal Pinterest in my life, making homemade ornaments will not only be easy but fun! Here are the 2 ideas we copied from my new friend ;)

Connor and Brianna made pinecone Christmas trees-

 

I bought a package of pinecones at the dollar tree and we found a small package of mini green and red pom-poms 50% off at Joanns. They just glued the pom-poms right on the pinecones wherever they wanted. (Note- lots of glue is needed so they dont fall off!)

I showed my hubbie some of the ornament ideas on my Pinterest board and he wanted to make the Christmas bulbs, so we did- 

We bought a package of different colored bulb ornaments from Joanns Christmas ornament section. They were on sale so for a package of about 9 (?) they were only $2.50. Then we bought three .99 tubes of glitter (also in the Christmas section) in red, green and silver. At first we were dipping the ornaments right in the glue and then shaking glitter on. But when we tried to dry them, the glue and glitter slid right off. So instead Mike thought of painting the glue on in a thinner layer with a paintbrush and it worked! We then continued to sprinkle the glitter on. We had to go back to joanns because the glitter flaked right off. I bought this clear coat spray paint ($3 with a coupon i think?) to spray over the glitter. It helped and the glitter barely came off after that.

We had fun at the Christmas party and the woman who received some of the bulbs loved them and wanted to know how i made them :)

Letter Ff and Diamond

We took the week of Thanksgiving off so even though it seems like Brianna’s been on the letter Ff for 3 weeks, its really only been 2 :)

Letter Ff:

Science:

She learned about fading. We kept one piece of black paper in a sunny window for a few days and one in a dark place-

Examining fingerprints she made (i didn't have a magnifying glass at this point but a few days later i bought one at the dollar store!)

Small Motor:

Making F’s in shaving cream-

Writing F’s-

Food:

Funny Face out of a caramel rice cake, PB and raisins-

Worksheets-

Misc:

We played her Fancy Nancy game-

Diamonds:

Art:

Print diamonds-

Food:

She made a diamond out of pretzels on a rice cake with fruit cream cheese. Small pretzel sticks would've worked much better than these bigger ones we had on hand.-

Math:

She found the diamonds in a deck of cards-

Other Fun:

Christmas sensory bin-

Homemade pinecone Christmas tree- (will be posting how she did this soon!)

She took a field trip to the FD where her uncle works-

We have already begun working on Letter Gg and stars! Also, keep an eye out for some upcoming posts- our winter bucket list and some homemade ornaments!

Fall Fun I Forgot

There were a few misc. fall activities i never posted so im putting them all in this one :)

The kids painted with sticks and pinecones-

Brianna did an Autumn worksheet-

 

We went to a hockey game,

and to Color Me Mine to paint some magnets and ornaments for Christmas gifts-

And we had a great Thanksgiving!

It was a great fall :)