I wish that I could write a post on my fabulous Christmas home decor, but have not done much to decorate this year. It's really not my forte, and I have yet to figure out where, in this house, I can set up our nativity set that little hands won't get to it. They have left the tree alone, but there is something enticing about barn animals... I haven't even gotten as far this year as
I did last year, because O is mobile, curious, and mischievous this year... Totally fine with this, there are many years ahead to decorate! For now, we'll go with the decorations that they make...
We "kicked-off" our holiday with a visit to Marion for their Christmas in the Park celebration. There were horse and buggy rides available, as well as visits with Santa in the park - and both looked so fun! But, the boys are still a bit too young to stand in the long lines, in the cold weather, so we hit up the library instead. M, with much assistance from yours truly, crafted a penguin ornament, O worked on his not-eating-the-crayons skills by coloring scraps of paper.
The finished penguin is hanging on the tree, and he's cute. The
snowman on the right is a project we did with a couple of new friends. I put small dots of Elmers glue on the circles and gave M cotton balls, and he dutifully put them all in to place. He was very excited about the "googly eyes" and picked out the colors for the hat, mitten, and scarf. (Note: I printed off an extra and cut out the hat and mittens to use as patterns for tracing on to cardstock. Alternatively, the kiddos could just color it themselves. We used small yarn pieces for the scarf.)
For M's birthday, we had a small family party. Since the majority of the guests were adults, I decided on "Snowman Soup" as the party favor. It was an idea I had seen on Pinterest. As I drilled down to the actual link, I found that it was a blog post showing which stamps the blogger had used. I essentially recreated the idea* with items I could print off of the internet. I would love to give credit where credit is due, but I simply Googled snowman & snowman soup images to find the prints. I quickly discovered that
Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark
** is phenomenal and addicting. Yummy in my tummy.
And, last but not least, this handsome little dickens. My mom-in-law and sis-in-law have a tradition of baking/making Christmas goodies on the day after Thanksgiving (it's more of a bi-annual tradition, really...). I gathered my ideas off of Pinterest (
obviously!) and this was one of my favorites.
Here is the link, you have to scroll down to "Winter Marshmallow Creatures". There are quite a few neat ideas on this site. The only thing that I altered was to use Wilton candy making products, instead of the "Make'n Mold" brand.
I have good intentions to post more about our cookie baking day, and post some recipe links. Check back!
Also, I have to add that I have a love/hate relationship with the person who first decided to
crush up Oreos, mix them with cream cheese, form them in to little round shapes, and cover them in almond bark. Just saying.
*For my Snowman Soup baggies, I used Swiss Miss dark chocolate hot cocoa packets, Christmas Jet-Puff marshmallows, the Peppermint Bark and a small candy cane. I tied the goodie bags with bakers twine. You know, 'cause bakers twine is so stinkin' cute.
**affiliate link (actual product was used)
