OK, I realize this is a little late in the week, but I thought I’d share with you what we’ve been doing to share the true meaning of Easter with Gabriel.  

First, we’ve been reading the Easter story all week.  By that, I mean  reading the stories from the week of Jesus’ death as chronologically as possible.  This is how we did it:

Sunday:  Palm Sunday
Monday:  Cleansing the Temple
Tuesday:  Greatest Commandment 
Wednesday:  Mary Annoints Jesus
Thursday:  Lord’s Supper, Washing Feet, Praying in the Garden
Friday:  Jesus Delivered to Pilate, Crucified
Saturday:  Waiting
Sunday:  Resurrection!

We have read most of these stories from his children’s Bibles’ which are much easier for him to understand and  have pictures.   We also made an Easter mountain.  I got the idea from Treasuring God in Our Traditions – a great book.  She has lots of other great ideas for this special week, but this is the main one we’re using.  Here is how ours turned out.  (I should have put a soup can inside.)

I’m also going to try out a new  recipe that I found.  I’ve been looking for the perfect special breakfast that will be our family’s tradition.  We will eat it for any holiday or birthday, or special day.  The first, and only I guess, criteria  I wanted it to meet was that it had to be totally yummy.  I’m not concerned with health here because we won’t eat this very often at all.  I hesitate to share the recipe because I don’t want you to thing I’m horrible for eating this, but here we go…..Gorilla Bread.  Hey, any recipe by Paula Deen has to be good, right?  I can’t wait to try it!!  Happy Resurrection Day!

UPDATE:  I think the Gorilla Bread was a bit much for our family.  It was really rich.  Very yummy, though.  I think I’m going to try my friend Mendy’s breakfast casserole the next time we need to have a special breakfast.  It’s very yummy and I think fits our family’s taste better.

I thought I’d do a stocking stuffer/product review post since I know several people who are trying to get all their stocking stuffers done.  Here are a few of our favorite small toys that would fit just right into a stocking.

First up – The First Years Stack n Count Cups.  These cups are cheap and my kids have loved them.  We have played with them in so many different ways – stack ‘em up, nest ‘em, spin ‘em around on our wood floors, play with ‘em in the tub, cover your eyes, cover your ears…you get the picture.  Cheap fun!!  These are about $3.99 at Babies R Us.

If you haven’t already bought some of these little Tonka Wheel Pals, they are another great item.  Our boys have a ton of them and love to play all over the house with them.  They have police cars, fire trucks, tow trucks, race cars.  And they come in a small or medium size.  The smaller ones come in packs of 5 for around $8 and the medium sized ones are about $4 each.

Looking for a couple of good little books for a stocking?  Here are a couple of our favorites.  Open the Barn Door by Christopher Santoro or Cars and Trucks from A to Z by Richard Scarry.  Open the Barn Door has a little door to open on each page, and it’s a great book for learning which sounds go with which animal.  Cars and Trucks book is just a book of silly types of cars and trucks from A to Z.  These are chunky board books and would slip into a stocking very nicely. Burt’s Bees Bubblebath is another favorite around here, and it’s phthalate and paraben free.  

And, if you’re looking for a treat, Fruitabu is a good option.  The twirls are easier to chew than the smooshed fruit.

Hope this gives you some ideas for your little one’s stocking.  I love stockings and can’t wait to put all the goodies in them this year!

This weekend one of our Advent calendar activities was “Make Christmas cookies and watch Charlie Brown’s Christmas”. Gabriel was pretty excited about this one!

This is something we enjoy doing every year. I’ve got the recipe and cookie cutters all ready. But this year I decided to use a different recipe. I had recently gotten a cookie recipe from Johnny’s Memaw that her grandmother made when she was a little girl. I thought it would be pretty special to use that recipe, and they turned out great. At this point in my life, decorating cookies is not an easy thing to do, so we use sprinkles. Maybe next year Gabriel will be ready to try some icing.

Here we are making our cookies…

After we were done with the cookies the boys watched Charlie Brown’s Christmas. Nathaniel lasted about 2 minutes and then went to go play.

Need a Christmas cookie recipe? Here’s the one I normally use that I won second prize with in a high school 4-H contest:

Traditional Sugar Cookies

3/4 c butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1 t salt

Mix thoroughly butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Blend in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover and chill at least 1 hour.

Heat oven to 400. Roll dough 1/8 inch thick on lightly floured surface. Cut into desired shapes and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 6-8 minutes or until very light brown.

Since I love our Advent Calendar, I thought I’d share a little about how we use it. It took me a while to find one that I liked. Pottery Barn has some cute ones, but they are more than I want to spend. I finally settled on this one, and it looks so much better in person than it does online.

I bought ours last year when Gabriel was 2 and he enjoyed opening a door everyday.  This year though, he is really into it.  I made the mistake of getting it out several days before December started and he asked me everyday (multiple times) if he could open one of the doors.  I finally put it away until December 1st, for both our sanity!

Behind each door I have tucked away special things.  First, there is a Hershey’s Kiss.  Then, there are either one or two slips of paper.  (I leave the slips in there from year to year so I don’t have to remake them.)  There is always a short passage of scripture to read that will lead up to the Christmas story, written on one of the slips.  On the days when there are two slips of paper, there is something special to do that day.  Today’s was “Sing a Christmas Song”.  His request was “Jingle Bells”, so Johnny and I started singing.  Here are what some of the other slips say:

• Decorate the Christmas tree
• Put together a box of donations
• Sing “Joy to the World”
• Make Christmas cookies
• Watch “Charlie Brown’s Christmas”
• Make and a treat to share with the neighbors
• Drive around looking at Christmas lights in our pajamas
• Listen to Christmas music during bath time
• Choose a needy child or family to buy gifts for
• Open one gift early
• Write a note for each family member’s stocking telling them what you love most about them

Happy Thanksgiving a day late!  We switch years between my family and Johnny’s, and this was his year.  So, we spent yesterday with his family and had a wonderful time.  I took a fruit salad and deviled eggs to share.  Are deviled eggs a Southern thing?  I’m not sure.  Anyway, they are yummy, and kind of one of my holiday specialties.  My Mom is the deviled egg lady in my family, so I have self-designated myself as the deviled egg lady in Johnny’s family.  Everyone seems to be happy about it though.

I thought I’d share my deviled egg recipe with you and then share some pictures from our day yesterday.

Deviled Eggs
Boil a dozen eggs.  In food processor mix Miracle Whip, mustard, sweet pickle relish, salt, and pepper with the yokes from all of the boiled eggs.  (I just make this to taste without measuring.  It’s probably something like 5-6 tablespoons of Miracle Whip, 2 T mustard, 2 T relish, but you can play around with it.)  Then I fill an icing bag that I’ve already put a star tip on, with this egg yolk mixture.  Arrange the eggs on a serving plate, and pipe the yolk mixture into each egg.  Sprinkle with a little paprika!

I’m not going to ignore the fact that it IS “Black Friday”.  Maybe I’ll find some good sales on line, but I am definetly not going to brave shopping in person anywhere!!  Baby Cheapskate has some info on good deals, so head over there and check them out!  Mom4Life is having a great sale, and don’t forget to check out Amazon’s toy deals!

Did you see that super cute turkey in the November issue of Parents Magazine?  I’m always looking for ways to make Thanksgiving a bigger deal, you know, like a more memorable holiday?  I want our home to have a spirit and culture of thankfulness.

So anyway, when I saw this turkey, I knew we had to make it!  I thought I’d share our step-by-step in photos to inspire and help you along.  I wanted to go ahead and make it now so that I could ask Gabriel what he was thankful for everyday and stick a feather in, instead of doing them all on Thanksgiving day.

Also important to note, this project was a little time consuming and uninteresting for my 3 year old.  He’s happy with the end result, and he had fun making the eyes, but there wasn’t much else he could do.  If you want to make one, here is how we did it!

What you’ll need:
9″ polystyrene ball
dark-brown yarn
light-brown yarn
felt; white, red, and orange
pompoms
craft sticks
construction or craft paper

1. Cut a 1″ sliver off the bottom of a 9″ polystyrene ball.
2. Wrap sphere neatly in dark-brown yarn, covering surface completely; knot on bottom.
   
3. Make a 4″ ball from light-brown yarn and attach to body with a wooden craft stick.
   
   
4. Create simple facial features using the felt: white circles (the size of a quarter), with 1/8″ pompoms for pupils make the eyes, orange triangles for beak, long red tear-drop shapes for the wattle.
   
5. Cut feather shapes from construction paper and write “I’m thankful for…” on each one.  (We made our feathers 6″ long and 2″ wide in the middle.)  Bend in half lengthwise to create seam, and glue wooden craft stick to the bottom third of the feather. (I made one feather and used it as a pattern for the rest.  I also wrote “I’m thankful for…” on each one before creasing and gluing on the craft sticks.)
   
   
6. Then we asked Gabriel what he was thankful for that day and stuck in a couple of feathers.  (Insert in a fan shape on turkey body.)  Here is a picture of our turkey a week later.

By Thanksgiving, he should have a full set of tail feathers!  I think this is going to be a great tradition for our family.  It cost me about $20 to make, but I think I’ll be able to reuse it for a few years, and just make new feathers every year.  I’d love to hear some of your favorite Thanksgiving traditions!