DIY Felt Snowman

This project was more for my little one ... but my eight year old had fun playing with it for a bit too! Those of you who have toddlers know what I am talking about when I say ... "will I ever get anything done with this little crazy person running behind me!" So cute .. Most of the time! Not so cute when toddler insists on doing all mommy things, always, all the time!

In order to try and help maximize my Christmas "time" I decided to create this fun snowman that I found on Pinterest crosscutsewingco.com . It was super easy to make and my, almost, 3 year old played with it for hours and still plays with it .. making different faces and rearranging how he looks.

I just drew the shapes and all the pieces free hand but you can get patterns all over the Internet or at billybear4kids.com . You can do however many or few pieces you wish .. you can do three separate balls for the snowman or make one shape for the body of the snowman. That's the fun .. its like paper dolls!

All you need is ...

Felt
Hot glue
Pen or black marker
Scissors

Use the pen or marker to draw your shapes on to the felt
Cut shapes
Hot glue any shapes that need it (we hot glued the berries on the holly and the stick arm parts)

We hung ours on the wall at first with pins ... this method wasn't the best as some of the extras made the snowman too heavy to stay up.
We found that the back of a peg board or white board (sometimes) will have that rough straw like texture ... we used that!
We found an old cork board and flipped it and Viola! Fun for days!

DIY Indoor Snowball Fight!!

Myself and my children (and my husband for the most part) have lived our whole lives with beautiful, soft, white, clear, crisp, cold ... SNOW!

A  little over a year ago we moved to the desert ... I mean the desert .. where its 120 in the summer and a wonderful 70 + in the winter!

Not a lick of snow here ... and we miss it ... badly!

What I decided to do was surprise my family with a snowball fight that we were able to have indoors, in the desert! Its not cold, its not wet and its suuuuuupppper fun!!

We set up a pile and a note for our pops when he got home from work and had a family snowball fight for well over 30 mins. After the adults were finished the kids continued to snowball fight each other until dinner!! Super fun!

The snowballs were super easy ...

Need:
* Yarn (we used white for snowballs but if you were just making these for fun pom poms you could use any fun color!)
* Your hand (if you look up the "how to" online they will say to use a fork, which you can do. We found that the fork was way to small and in order to get a big fluffy ball it was better to just loosely roll the yarn around our hand and not a fork.)
* Dollar store Christmas tin.

To Do:
* Loosely wrap the yarn around your hand - We wrapped 70-80 times (the more wraps you make the more fluffy your ball will be.) and cut from the bigger ball.
* Cut another string long enough (10 in or so) to wrap around the yarn on your hand.
* Hold the wrap together as you slide it off your hand, pinch it in the middle, flip it clockwise and tie the extra string around the middle in a tight knot. You should now have two big loops on either side of the tied center.
* Go through and cut the loops apart. Once all the loops are cut apart you should have a fluffy white ball with funny hair.
* Go through and give your ball a hair cut, even out the hair and cut any loops that are left and fluff it out.
* Fill the tin with snowballs and RUN!!!

DIY Christmas Ornament Wreath

Have you been looking all over for the perfect holiday wreath? Well I have ... and I may have found my fix! Or temporary fix .. LOL .. until I find another FUN idea!

The fix .... a super colorful and way easy DIY Christmas Ornament Wreath. This wreath was so so easy to make and turned out super whimsical and fun .. just how I envisioned.

Ok, so I wanted something to go with the "pseudo" theme of our tree, although you can't see the tree from outside of the house. Our tree is very playful .. packed full of colorful lights and ornaments that the kids have picked out or made. The Christmas tree in our eyes is a reflection of our family and memories that we share together. I wanted the wreath that hung on our door to be a modern reflection of that same idea.

Like many of us .. I looked at all sorts of craft stores for pre made wreaths or ideas for wreaths. I looked on Etsy and Pinterest for fun ideas I could buy or make myself .. In the end I compiled all of the fun things that I saw and liked and came up with this easy idea that I was able to make myself.

You can totally make this wreath with basic supplies and then run with it and make it your own .... Have so much fun making your one of a kind wreath!

* 20 in. green fir wreath (any size wreath will do)

* 23 - 3 in and 10 - 1.5 in. size round Christmas ornaments in your color, theme etc (if you have a different size wreath or you are using a different size ornament you can estimate the number of balls you will need). You can also use as many or as few Christmas ornaments you like.

* Extra frill to put in between the ornaments (we chose sparkle curly cues, candies, peppermint candies and red berry sprigs)

* Glue gun

* Glue sticks

First lay your ornaments in the pattern you would like them on the wreath. As you lay them on the wreath think about how the wreath will hang on the door, what your fillers are going to look like and where they will sit. After you figure layout and place your ornaments you can glue ... glue carefully, as we all know, the glue can be stringy and you will end up cleaning a lot of glue strings if not careful! After you get the ornaments glued on the wreath you can lay in the filler. Lay your filler as just that, filler .. place in areas that need a little more pizazz, color, glitter etc. After you lay your filler and you love the way it looks ... glue it! Let everything dry and clean up the extra glue strings (you will have some), hang and let everyone enjoy your beautiful Christmas creation!!

Thanksgiving Classroom Party

One of the ideas that has spoken to our family for years is the idea of taking back our lives, our health, our children and our education.

One of our goals in homeschooling our children is just that - living and teaching the way we see fit for our family. We, with our whole heart, believe that homeschool is not the right fit for everyone. School is a beautiful place with so many wonderful resources. There are fabulous teachers out there that love our children like their own.

In our family we love learning no matter how you are doing it ... because of our love for feeding our brains we have decided to share our homeschooling successes with other mothers, teachers and homeschoolers.

We have successes and failures everyday ...  here was a successful day ... A Thanksgiving party with some fun Thanksgiving games that you can save for your party next year.

Gobble .... Gobble

First we made some fabulous Thanksgiving hats http://nontoygifts.com/thanksgiving-hats-for-kids/

to get us into the party mood!

After we made our party hats and ate popcorn we decided to talk about the things we were thankful for and play the ABC's of thankfulness http://writtenreality.com/thankful-abcs-printable/.
In this activity we wrote down everything we were thankful for A-Z! Super fun exercise to get us talking about all the wonderful blessings in our lives!

We also reviewed the things we knew about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower.

The next activity was a STEM activity http://plansforabettertomorrow.blogspot.com/2015/11/thanksgiving-stem-olympics.html where we built boats (the Mayflower) and saw who's boat could hold the most passengers. We each got tin foil and straws to build our boats as well as 100 passengers (the number of passengers on the actual Mayflower) to fill our boats. As we filled our boats with passengers we talked about who's would float .. who's would hold the most passengers (of course we both thought our own would be the winner!) .. we talked about why one design would work over the other. The conclusion is that a boat with more flat surface area is going to be the boat that can hold the most passengers without sinking.

As we reviewed fun turkey facts we raced to see who could blow the turkey feather across the finish line first.  We tried the feather with a turkey baster (we thought that would be more fun) but the turkey baster didn't get enough air to blow the feather. The turkey baster did blow a small puff ball though so we raced that with the turkey baster. We ended up blowing the turkey feather with a straw. This activity was a popular one as we played it over and over and was a hit with the little one as well!!

After the turkey race we decided to calm it down a little before lunch and play Thanksgiving Pictionary and Thanksgiving Scategories.

After lunch we wrapped up our party with some hot chocolate, cookies, a little Stuff the Turkey game

http://kidfriendlythingstodo.com/2015/11/stuff-the-turkey-thanksgiving-game-for-kids/?utm_content=buffer73bf6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest.com&utm_campaign=buffer#_a5y_p=4658673 and Pin the Gobbler on the Turkey . I think we played these two games for over an hour and a half.

We feel so blessed always but this time of year really brings to light all the wonderful blessings and freedoms we have in our lives. We are so grateful to have the opportunity to homeschool and to write and blog and do all of these wonderful things. We hope that this time of year you can reflect with your little people all the great and wonderful things you have in your life as well!

Thanksgiving Turkey Cheese Ball

We thought it might be fun to post a Thanksgiving treat ... so we decided to post our friend Albuquerque Turkey!

I am one of those people who are profusely giving thanks on a daily basis..
being part of the best family, great friends, being healthy, my wonderful husband who supports me and loves our family, laughter, my two boys who teach me how to be a better person everyday, to live on such a beautiful planet ...

The season of giving thanks is always a nice reminder of how beautiful life and everything that surrounds us really is!!

To bring a smile to your Thanksgiving table we have made this fun turkey cheese ball (whom my children aptly named Albuquerque Turkey).  You can make any flavor cheese ball ... add some feathers, a face and some legs and you have your own Albuquerque Turkey!

This season of harvest we are wishing you and yours a life over flowing with a bounty of love.

Turkey Cheese Ball
2 - 8oz cream cheese softened
2 1/2 cups of shredded sharp cheddar cheese (we used a little more than 2 1/2 cups)
Packet of Ranch mix (we only used 3/4 of the mix)
Chopped green onions
Chopped nuts (you can use any kind you like .. we had walnuts just on hand so that is what we used)

Turkey
Stick pretzels
Sausage stick
Carrot slice


Put two blocks of softened cream cheese in medium bowl.
Mix together cream cheese, cheddar cheese, mix and onions.
Roll cheese mixture into one huge ball or two small/ med size balls.
Roll cheese balls on chopped nuts and coat sides of cheese ball.
Use pretzels for feathers (you can use as little or many as you like .. we thought more was better)
Break pretzels into smaller pieces and use for the legs
Cut the sausage stick in half and use for the turkey head.
Use a sliver of carrot and a small toothpick for the beak.

Super Delicious Veggie Muffins

I like to think of myself as a fairly healthy person .. I think of myself as having a healthy family ... Eating a pretty balanced diet of fresh (ish) fruits, veggies and other foods ...

Don't get me wrong we love our fair share of donuts, soda/ juice, candy, and yummy sweet goodies (some of which we indulge others we don't but "on occasion"!)

But I got to thinking that in the chaos of life and trying to do everything for everyone all the time  .. kids .. home school and networking and every thing that happens in between .. that my kids were probably not getting the needed servings of fruits and veggies during the day.

We always have a good serving of a tastey veg with our dinner but during the day I catch myself allowing things I know aren't always the best for the sake of ease, clean up, time ... I don't always afford all the thought towards what is healthiest.

I challenged myself to a few more healthy, fun choices at lunch .. which also challenged my menu/ meal planning .. which, is good because I am not a great meal planner..

To start off my "Super Delicious Lunch" challenge we decided to try a veggie muffin ...
We LOVED this muffin ... it was moist (we did add extra liquid from a left over AM fruit/veg shake) .. didn't rise like a normal soft muffin .. but it was sooo tastey and the kids had no idea it was full of sweet fresh veggies!

The great thing about this recipie is that you can use about any fruit or veggie thats sitting in your fridge or on your counter waiting to be used ... we all know you have them!

Heat oven to 350 degrees F
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
4 tblsp unsalted butter
2 lrg eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup steamed broccoli
1 zuccini
2 carrots
2 med apples
1 banana
1/8 cup juice (we used fresh squeezed oj)
1/4 cup applesauce (we used left over breakfast shake)
1/4 cup greek yogurt

Heat over to 375 degrees F
In med bowl mix together flours, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon. Set aside.
Soften butter.
In second bowl mix sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla. Mix well.
In mixer or food processor combine steamed broccoli, zucchini, apple, banana, juice and applesauce mixture. Pulse until thoroughly mixed.
Combine veggie puree and yogurt into the wet mixture. Mix until blended.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet and combine until wet.
Place wrappers into muffin tins or spray with cooking spray
Scoop mixture into prepared pans .. 3/4 of the way full
Bake at 375 degrees F for 20-25 mins.
Bake until tooth pick comes out clean.
* Original poster of this recipe www.superhealthykids.com says that large muffins may be moist inside and if so bake mini muffins at 350 degrees F for 15-20 mins * Our muffins were moist but "just the right moist" as my 8 year old would say!

Homeschool Halloween

I have had a lot of questions the last couple months about our schooling methods, what we do during our school day and how it all works ...

This week has been a really fun week for us so we decided to show you some of the ways we do school!

I want to start by saying this is not a PSA on Homeschool, we fully believe that every family has the right to choose how they want to educate their children .. we have chosen to educate our children this way and it works well for us.  What works for us may not work well for others ...

We do a hybrid of classical homeschool and unschooling ... we do a lot of reading, watching videos and movies, exploring topics, STEM challenges, experiments and learning through living (and yes, math and language arts workbooks).

Last summer my son and I made a list of all the topics we thought would be fun to learn about .. he chose some, like robotics and coding .. and I chose some, like learning the states in the US and the planets ... others fell into place because of holidays or certain events within the year.

We went through a calendar (yes, he and I did the planning together) and marked on what weeks we wanted to learn what topics (some topics are one week, some two and some three) .

Each day of the week is filled with activities, experiments, exploring, spelling words, math and language arts having to deal with that particular topic.

This last week was a fun week ... having to do with Halloween.

We studied the history of Halloween and all its monsters (difference between fiction and non fiction) and how Halloween is celebrated around the world.

We raced to see who could wrap the mummy the fastest (and then they toilet papered my living room!!) We made monsters and wrote stories about our monsters.
Made witch wands http://www.beadandcord.com/clipper/dana/diy-witch-costumes-13774/96868.htm and ate mummy dogs!

We learned about bats and spiders.
We used spiders rings to learn multiplication and division. Did a spider web STEM challenge. We learned about our skeletal system by singing and learning the major bones in our bodies and making a skin layer cake http://www.mymundaneandmiraculouslife.com/edible-skin-layer-cake/

We used Halloween candy to make graphs and do more multiplication, division and fractions.  We carved pumpkins while learning about the life cycle of a pumpkin and built STEM structures using pumpkin candies and tooth picks.

As a homeschooling mom I often wonder if the choices we have made for our family are the right choices, but then I see the progress my 3rd grader is making, reading at a level two grades higher than his own and doing math a grade higher .. I love that he loves to learn through the fun games and activities that we do. I love to see the wonder and amazement in his eyes as we learn and investigate things together!