Category: Children

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Christmas Dolly

Long, long ago in a far away land, there lived a little girl that got stuck with the part of a Christmas doll in Santa’s workshop. Now this part wasn’t so bad really–I mean, seriously, how hard could it possibly be for a 6 year old to stand very still in a box for about 10 minutes? Turns out it was pretty dang hard. In fact, from the very second that the curtain opened, it was as if teeny microscopic ants started crawling all over me. My nose itched. My legs itched. My arms itched. I tried so hard not to scratch, or move or blink even.

Then, as luck would have it, one of Santa’s elves came along and started painting my rosy dolly cheeks–with a soft, fluffy paintbrush. That was it. I couldn’t hold it another second and I busted out laughing. Well the previously sweet and gentle “elf” made a very scary, stern face at me and said, “Shhhhh!!”

The audience roared with laughter, but scared the livin’ daylights and all the giggles right out of this little six year old…

for about a week.

I have since recovered.

ho ho ho…

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Now We’re Talking…

Woke up to all this–at last, at last!

Finally, Mother Nature actually listened to my chanting and begging for snow—and turned Mr. Frost loose in our neck of the woods. Yee haw!

Of course, you know, my dream is to be totally and completely snowed in–when my whole family is home, of course. That way, we’d just sit around and play games, and cook ridiculously yummy things and goof around and be together.

You know, like the early readers always talked about in grade school.

“One very snowy day, Dick and Jane looked out the window. The ground was white. The sky was white. Everything, everywhere was white. There was snow, snow, SNOW! They could not go out. They had to stay in. There was too, too, too much snow!”

The perfect day for reading the new books in the basket,

doing a bit of old-fashioned Christmas card writing,

and especially dreaming of the jolly fellow with that big bag of toys.

“It’s the most wonderful timmmme of the year…”
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Thankful Pie

Looking for a fun way to help the kiddos focus on their blessings while the turkey is cooking?

How about making a simple little Thankful Pie?

Paint the edges of a paper plate a light brown–to look like pie crust.

Next, use a bowl to trace a circle out of pumpkin colored scrapbook paper.  Cut it out and glue it to the middle of the paper plate.

Attach a plain paper plate to the back of your “pie” with a brad fastened in the middle.

Cut out a wedge from the top “pie” plate–being careful not to cut too near the middle.

You can write whatever you’d like on your pie. We passed out stickers for everyone to write their “blessings” on.

Then, we stuck them on the wedge space, turned it a few inches and attached another.  You’d be surprised at how many blessings your pie will hold.

As you can see…everyone had different ideas…of what to be thankful for.

For me…it’s all pretty obvious. Don’t you think?

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Chocolate Pilgrim Hats

I know…I know. You’re thinking, “What?! Two cookie projects in one week?!! Launi, Launi–what are you doing?”

Hang on now–admit it. Aren’t these the dang cutest things you’ve seen in a long time? You know they are, so you see? I couldn’t help myself. Here they are…

Start with Fudge Stripe cookies, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups–the little ones,

Fruit roll-ups and Pez–any color. I was a bit disheartened to find that I only had pink Pez. Not sure how the pilgrims would feel about pink…but we forged bravely ahead.

At first, I thought we’d need frosting to glue everything together, but there is an interesting thing that happens when you put chocolate by more chocolate. They tend to stick. So, while I was mocking up the hats with sincere plans to make the frosting later, I came back and found that it really wasn’t needed.

I cut the fruit roll ups into strips with a pizza cutter, in a sort of rounded shape.

The better to lay flat around the hat…with.

Set the Pez up to the seam part of the fruit roll up. Again, I was thinking that we’d need frosting–and of course, you are welcome to use it, but these little beggars held together without it as well. And quite frankly, I’m not a huge icing fan–so why muck up a good thing if you don’t need to?

And there you have it my dears.

I think this yummy project would make lovely little diversions for the “kid’s table” on Thanksgiving.

What do you think?
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Glass Slipper

This moment.

A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from our lives.

A simple, special, memorable moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and keep close to my heart.

If you are inspired to do the same–leave us a link in the comments.

Happy weekend my friends.