Magic Seeds

Cute Showed up with some magic seeds, snow, and sugar from Santa

Getting ready to plant the magic seeds

Seeds are planted. Now sprinkling on the magic snow

Look what grew from the tiny chocolate seeds. Big Hershey kisses!

Crazy Hair Day

The week leading up to Christmas break it is filled with lots of fun things at school for the kiddos. They had snuggle up and read day, Christmas parties, ornament making, movie day, and finally crazy hair day. It was also pajama day for Alana.
We didn't have any hair color for the kiddos so we improvised and I used hair spray and glitter in Alana's hair. Tyler didn't want that, he just wanted to wear his Santa hat.

a little something for the teachers

I saw the directions to this on pinterest and thought I had to make them as teachers' gifts. I think they turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. I will be giving one to each teacher and to the awesome bus driver that my kiddos have. Same one since Alana started kindergarten. :) They will also get a little something extra ;)

These "cupcake" candy dishes are made out of little jelly mason jars. I spray painted the rings and lids white, used caulking as the frosting, sprinkled beads on, and topped them with a red jingle bell. I found these little cupcake liners at target.  I hope they like them :)

Gift Away

The MOMS Club of Chambersburg West put on a gift away for the Franklin County Head Start. Talk about an amazing morning. It all started with an idea that our AVP found on line about another club putting one on as a service project. We voted on it at our meeting and off we went. We only had 2 months to pull it all together. When we  got the update from Head Start they said there should be about 123 families coming. We didn't know how many children that would mean, just knew families.

The Friday before myself, our president, and a few other members waited at the fire hall for the donations to get dropped off and to set up. It took us 7 hours to collect, clean, and organize them. At the last minute we decided to send one of our members to get a few more things since we felt we didn't have enough in a particular age group.

Once it was set up we turned off the lights. Headed home to get some rest.

All these wonderful toys waiting for new families

Board games, toys, a few bikes, books, and DVDs

 The morning of the gift away was crazy. I left my house at 8:30 hoping to get there and get a few last minute things set up. At 8:45am people started lining up. The doors don't open until 9:30am. We tried to explain how it all worked and then welcomed them to start "Shopping". It was a mad house from 9:30-10:30am. In that first hour we helped 190 kiddos get presents. They cleaned us out rather quickly. Over all we ended up helping 250 kids and that averages to being about 1500 toys, games, books, dvds, and stocking stuffers. Not to mention stuffed animals that were just free for the taking. 
Talk about an amazing day. Looking at those kids' faces while they walked out with new toys made my heart smile. So glad to have been a part of this day.

 

End of the day. The few items we had left were donated to the Salvation army,
and a couple other places.

Decorating the house

The hubby did an awesome job on the house this year.

I love my crazy kids.

Checking out the lights

 

The hubby decided to put lights on the whole house this year. Usually they are just on the front porch.

I am loving how it looks this year. All that is missing is a little snow and for these 65 degree temps in December to go away ;)

Cutie has returned



Here is Cutie. She came back the same day that we put our tree up.
We went out to dinner and came home and she was here.

Cutie decided to toilet paper part of the house



Cutie added some decorations to our tree.

christmas time

Tis the season

"kiss cookies" as my hubby calls them. Made enough to snack on
and then some for Santa.

A little center piece I made. Glued candy canes to a jar and filled
the jar with Hershey kisses

butterfly cookie masks

Alana has a very cute cookbook that Grandma B got her.  She saw these cute little butterfly masks in there and wanted to make them. Daddy got called into work so I decided to cheer the kiddos up by making these with them. I think their favorite part was testing the frosting just to make sure it was good.

cutting out the hearts

put the points together and pinch them

cutting out the "eye holes"

Having a great time helping

cooling waiting for some frosting

very carefully placing the sprinkles just right

All done. We are going to a friend's house later for dinner
and she decided to leave a couple blank in case someone didn't
like sprinkles.

Yummy tomatoes

Our tomato plant was going crazy and we had way more tomatoes than we (I) could eat. So I decided to try and make my own tomato sauces.

Here they are all peeled

It smelled sooo good. Added a little of this and a little of that.
Should have written down what I put in there. It was good.

Freshly made bread sticks to go with it...sure why not?!

Alana's quilt

I had some left over material and needed something to do with it. My Mom suggested making a quilt. It just so happened I was planning a trip to OH to stay with them for a week with the kiddos so I packed it all up and brought it with me. We went over my Grandma's house and she showed me how to cut the squares out and get it going.  What a fun day that was. I never thought in a million years I would do a quilt!

My squares didn't actually line up but it's all good. Adds character

Alana picked hot pink for the backing of her quilt

Here she is all snuggled up in her quilt. I think she likes it.

Nothing a little love can't fix

So the hubby was having a bad couple of days. So in order to cheer him up the kids and I decided to make him a cake and his favorite meal to let him know that we loved him.

The kids decided to use the Garfield cake pan my Aunt just gave me.
I forgot to take a picture before we cut into it.

Dave's Favorite meal. Chicken Kastu, steamed rice, and mac salad.

Cinnamon Rolls

Ok. So for whatever reason I was in a baking mood yesterday. So I made 2 loaves of whole wheat bread and then decided to try my hand at cinnamon rolls. Having never made anything like that before I wasn't sure what to expect. They actually turned out pretty yummy.  Though next time I will be adding more cinnamon and sugar mixture to it.

rolling out the dough

adding the cinnamon and sugar

rolled and cut ready to rise overnight in the fridge

fresh out of the oven

ready to be eaten