Easy Baking

Had to try out a Christmas present today:

For anyone interested in not buying the EB mixes: 1/4 cup of cake mix to 1.5 teaspoons of water will do it for you!

Rock Star

Just Katie rocking out on her barbie guitar--the only thing she asked Santa for....

Messy Maggie loves prunes

Just a picture of how cute she is after eating...though I think prunes are replaced by blueberries now...why do they love dark, messy foods that stain?

"Mary" and "Jesus"

Katie 'convinced' Maggie that she was baby Jesus and needed to be in the cradle....just waiting for the day when Maggie tells her "you are not the boss of me!"

Back in the classroom

On Tuesday I got to go along to Katie’s school to be a parent helper and made reindeer with the kids in her class. It was so much fun to see her in action! I thought that I would post how we made it in case anyone was stuck inside with all the snow and ice!


Preschool Craft—Reindeer centerpiece

Wash out an orange juice container and dry. Cover with brown construction paper.

For cutting practice, draw a triangle on brown construction paper for the head. It should be the height of the can. Glue the head to the can, making sure that the point is at the bottom for the nose.

Glue on the eyes—either plain circles or crafty googly eyes. Glue on a red pompom nose.

For the ears, start with a 2.5 inch brown circle. Have your child draw a line down the center on their own and cut that line. Place a dab of glue on the tip and glue to the back of the corners of the head.

For the finishing touch, cut off some pine branches for antlers and just place in the can!

Reindeer games

Last Friday Katie, Maggie and I braved the chill to go see real, live reindeer in Rohrerstown. I thought the event would be more of go up and take a look at the reindeer, which led to my confusion when we pulled into the parking lot and saw a line wrapped around the front of the building. I packaged Maggie in coats and blankets in the stroller and Katie had on her puffy coat, hat and mittens and we made it maybe 5 or 10 minutes in line before Maggie's eyes were tearing from the cold. The couple in line in front of us were frustrated by the line and had what looked to be a 2 year old, so the husband went inside to see what was going on that the line was so long. When the report was that it weaved inside also, but we were welcome to go in and "see" the reindeer, but had to stay in line to pet them, we jumped out of line with them to go see the reindeer. Katie was crushed that she didn't get her picture with the reindeer but we went ahead to the free crafts table for her to make an ornament. As we were leaving the line went down considerably, so in line we went.

When we were only 2 kids away from the reindeer, Katie decided she didn't want to see them anymore. Like any good mother, I told her we waited in line and she was going to get her picture with the reindeer so Maggie could see why we made her wait in the long, cold line.

The greatest novelty to Katie was seeing Mrs. Claus! She talked with Katie then introduced her to Santa. Our talkative Katie got shy and forgot what she wanted for Christmas...

Visiting cousins

Alana, Tommy, and Katie got into the holiday spirit by building a gingerbread house. We are showing the good side since 4 of the 6 pieces of gingerbread was cracked when we opened the box. Wondered how that was possible when we tried to eat the gingerbread since it was so hard. The kids had fun though, even though Uncle Tom had to come to the rescue with the icing. We had a great visit--thanks! We should have stayed until the end of the Steeler game since the touchdown near the end wasn't quite the same over the radio.