Showing posts with label Xmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Xmas. Show all posts

12/20/11

Things to Make - Christmas Cookies

box
The key is apparently mass quantities of butter.

roll

One of these days I'll buy a rolling pin. Hopefully.


Do you Pinterest? On one hand, Pinterest may be the most addictive site ever. You can lose hours, if not days. In the world of Pinterest, all thoughts/ideas/recipes/wonder becomes reduced to a single picture, epitomizing the idea that the outside really matters (not only are we judging books by their covers, most of the time we're not even bothering to read the book). And some days the whole Pinterest ideology seems so daunting. It doesn't matter if you're the best cook in the world, if you can't style food then forget it. And when it comes to children Pinterest creates a world in which everyone's offspring spend their days smiling in mini-Boden while their mom makes sandwiches beautiful enough to hang in an art gallery as they play with aromatic homemade playdough. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mocking perfect parenting. At all. I aspire. Boy do I aspire (to what? I'm not sure, but that's a whole other post). I recently photographed homemade soap against a white background, I have no room to judge (and, yes, my photos were pinned!! yay me!!).

Anyways, I've written before about how I can't make cookies. And browsing through the perfect cookies on Pinterest only discouraged me more. So, while shopping at Trader Joes, I picked up a box of Christmas Cookie mix, packaged with sprinkles and frosting. We had so much fun that I've already purchased another - incredibly yummy - box. F might even have a future in baking. So I know this is a lame post. No family recipe. No new insights. Even the pics are just okay. Totally unpinterestable. But I'm okay with that. Because parenting isn't about perfection, it's about showing up. Even with a premade mix.

(And yes, if you're wondering, I borrowed that whole "parenting is showing up" line from Modern Family, my current source for words of wisdom, along with and Pinterest, of course.)

girls

The girls work well together, despite the fact that F's so serious and P's so not.

sprinkle

T woke up in time to sprinkle. Trust me, they taste MUCH better than they look.



11/30/11

Things to Make - An Advent Calendar Full of Everyday Items

lots

Every year around this time, the blogosphere fills up with wonderful "make your own" advent calendar ideas (click here for an example), which always make me feel like a slacker mom. Then this year, Modern Parents Messy Kids posted on making an advent calendar using library books and coloring pages. Genius! I didn't feel up to leaving the house, so instead I scavenged through our bookshelves and craft cabinets, trying to put together 24 things to read and make for our Xmas count-down. My goal is that all these projects will entertain the kids during the after school "witching hours" when nothing seems to make them happy. And that hopefully a lot of these forgotten cast-aways will appear new again once unwrapped. We will see. I tried to pick projects that are (for the most part) not weather-dependent so that I don't have to let the kids down if it rains. I left several of our books until the end because things tend to become busy in the last few days before Xmas, so I wanted to leave that time as uncomplicated as possible.

What about everyone else - any great advent ideas or traditions?

Here's what I came up with:

24 days til Xmas (Thurs) - Plant your own paperwhites kit from Trader Joes
23 days til Xmas (Friday) - Children's Bible book from the library (figured now is a great time to talk about the Jesus story)
22 days til Xmas (Saturday) - Sugar cookie mix with sprinkles from Trader Joes
21 days til Xmas (Sunday) - Family movie and popcorn night - Christmas Carol (via Netflix streaming)
20 days til Xmas (Monday) -
19 days til Xmas (Tuesday) - Santa's workshop sticker scenes from Oriental Trading Company
18 days til Xmas (Wednesday) - Family movie and popcorn night - The Nutcracker (via Netflix streaming)
17 days til Xmas (Thursday) - A stargazing book and glowsticks for checking out the night sky
16 days til Xmas (Friday) - Another set of sticker scenes from Oriental Trading company
15 days til Xmas (Saturday) -
14 days til Xmas (Sunday) - Disney Decorate a Picture Frame Kit from the $1 aisle at AC Moore
13 days til Xmas (Monday) -
12 days til Xmas (Tuesday) - Christmas stamping sets from last year
11 days til Xmas (Wednesday) - Land of Nod's I'm Not Bored Anymore Jar
10 days til Xmas (Thursday) - Disney Paint Kit from the $1 aisle at AC Moore
9 days til Xmas (Friday) - Family movie and popcorn night - Santa Clause is Coming to Town (via abc family's 25 days of Christmas)
8 days til Xmas (Saturday) - Make Your Own Christmas Book using Bare Books
7 days til Xmas (Sunday) - and Disney princess fashion activity set
6 days til Xmas - Hot cocoa and marshmallow snack
5 days til Xmas - Make Your Own Jewelry Kit (an old gift we've never opened)
4 days til Xmas -
3 days til Xmas -
2 days til Xmas - and mosaic kit from AC Moore
1 day til Xmas -

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