Don’t stand back and watch, get creative and dive in.

This year for Spring Break, we took the kids to Southern Utah for a few days.  Then we have spent the rest of the time at home having an awesome STAYCATION!!!

I love Staycations.  I NEED more time with my kids just being at home.  I LOVE having all our activities and sports canceled for the week, and having time to just chill; and cross some things off our list.

Plus, I don’t love our kids thinking that we always have to big or go home!! It’s ok to just be together @ home. …or go small and travel via car to places closer to where we live.  I grew up that way, and I had a great childhood.

This was the perfect week for us to dye Easter Eggs.  Since the kids are older now, it was finally time to break out the magazines and try some of the fun stuff we have seen other people try.  I thought it would be fun to show you what we did. I thought it would spark some ideas for you for this upcoming Easter Holiday.

I was ready to dive in and get creative too.

I thought I would give each project we tackled a level of difficulty.

Then you could assess if you want to attempt it with your age of children and decide if it would work with your family.

You don’t have to do all of these that we did.  You could just choose one to try if your looking for something fun and new.

Level 1 being Easy- 5 being Advanced. 

1) means it’s something that a 5 year old could manage

2) something that my 7 year old can do on her own

3) something that my 7 year old can do but might need help with in some areas

4) something that my 9 year old can manage on his own

5) something that my 12 year old can do, but she is super capable

(these all really need ADULT supervision)

OK.  Lets dye eggs

We had such a great time together.  Usually I stand back and photograph, but mostly I participated this time. Oh! and I just realized that the girls and I decided that it was a bun day today.  It is going to storm today so why do your hair? Buns for the hair it is!

  Jex didn’t join us, because it is the last day of ski season.  Skiing is everything to that boy, so we let him pass this time.

I found that these mini muffin trays, hold the eggs so well.

I picked this one up at our local thrift store this last week.  I even spray painted it to make it look adorable, not even knowing I would use it for this purpose.  So go search out your thrift stores.  I’m going to use it for jewelry or little craft supplies when I’m done with this.

We just used the normal dyes that you buy at the grocery store for egg dying.  I made a few fun colors out of vinegar and food coloring too. I always buy two egg dying kits because none of the kids are patient enough to wait on colors.  I also never like the process to take hours.  That was a trick I learned a long time ago.  It’s worth the extra $1.50.  

We made sure to leave a few eggs white, because we had some plans for those.

The kids and I liked trying to make some of them hombre, and dipping in two colors and seeing what happens.  We tried all sorts of fun things when it comes to the dying part.

THE GOLDEN LETTERED EGG

Ok!  One of our favorite decorating tricks was actually with spray paint.  We took a white egg, and added a sticker.  Make sure to press it down hard.

Then we took the egg outside and spray painted them gold.

Once they were dry we took the sticker off

Seriously so much fun!!  These would make great place cards at the dinner table on Easter.

Level: 5 because of Spray paint

GOLD SPONGING

We did another fun one with some Gold Paint.

We did some sponge painting on the eggs.  We used gold paint and some sponge brushes.  If you don’t have sponge brushes, you could use sponges cut in strips.

They give the eggs such a fun feel. 

Level: 3 for sure.  Tess did this mostly on her own.  For sure needs a good hand washing after.

PUFF PAINT POLKA DOT EGGS

We have had a good stash of puff paint on hand for a while, so I thought why not?

The important thing to remember with this is that it takes a while to dry. 

So you can only do about half of the egg at a time.

We did polka dots mostly, and even wrote a few words like Stella’s IDK for I don’t know.(cause she ran out of things to say)

Notice how only half of the egg is polka dotted.  This is the kids tray.  They need to come back and finish the egg.

Level:I would say this is between a 3 and 4 for difficulty.  Tess needed some help with this, and Isaac just needed help getting started.

WASHI SHAPES AND STRIPES

Can you say WASHI?

We use it for everything at our house.  We put washi tape on everything.  We decided to put it on the eggs to.  It made them look awesome.

Some we just put around the middle of the egg as a stripe around the middle.  I cut teeny tiny triangles, and put them all over an egg.

Depending on what you are doing with the washi depends on the level.

Level:1 for just a simple wrap around stripe.  Difficult shapes would be a 5.

GLITTER EGGS

Glitter is just too fun not to be added to the mix.

This was simple.  We just used a simple glue pen and added it to our egg where we wanted the glitter to be.  You can draw shapes, symbols, letters or words.

Then with the help of a big person, the glitter was added.

Tessa wrote the number 8, because she is turning 8 this year.

8 is a big year in our church.  It is the year you are baptized, and she is excited about that.

Level: 1 for using a glue pen and drawing the design, 5 for adding the glitter

NOTE: I like the Heidi Swapp glitter it can be found at Hobby Lobby or Michaels.

MARBLE EGGS

The last one the kids loved was the marble eggs.  It seemed to work best with white eggs; not dyed. I tried it on a colored egg, and it worked but not as well.

It involves fingernail polish and a bowl that you don’t care to keep.

Fill the bowl with warm water, and add a few drops of finger nail polish.  Then stir with a small straw.

Drag egg through the polish until it is completely covered.  Then just allow the polish to dry. 

The pink one in the center is mine with mint nail polish on it.  It didn’t work as well.  You can see though, how we have done a few of these different techniques together on one egg.  This pink egg is dyed, it’s got mint polish, and gold glitter on it.  So try doing a few together and see what happens.

These polish ones look really cool and have a great marble effect.  If you want to use another color when using the polish, just rinse out the bowl, and then pick a new polish color. Start the process over.  When you are finish, throw the bowl away.  You may want to use rubber gloves for this technique.

Level: 5 for sure!! Stella did these all by herself.  She even did mine. I just supervised.

So… here is a little taste of how mine came together:

I do have a couple words written on mine with puff paint, but I am saving those for a later date. You will have to stay tuned to see what those say. It was fun writing on them in cursive with cursive handwriting and puff paint.  That is something to try also.

The kids did awesome too!!

…and I had so much fun hanging out with them.

I love spending time with my kids being creative.

I hope this sparks a few ideas, and makes you want to dive into the egg dying process with your kids this year.  It really was so much fun. 

I am so glad I joined in this year!!

 

That's what January 2nd is for!!

{So.. I had planned for this post to go up on Wednesday, but it's going up today, because my whole computer is on the fritz.  I want to get this up before I loose all this work.  I am taking my computer in to be fixed tomorrow.  I am typing this in blogger which I never do.  I always use a program called Live Writer which is not working, and I use a host for my photos; so lets just hope they look sharp and crisp.  If they don't you know why?  Oh, Computer, computer; you makin me mad.  Anyways... here is Wednesday's post today.  I also posted about these adorable Christmas sacks today.  Check that out here; if you missed it.}


The ten pound effect/That's what January is for:

I always say that I won’t gain weight over the holidays, but…

we have this silly tradition of making treats together.

Our kids look forward to it every year.

We spend a few evenings making several delicious treats.

Then we spend an evening packaging them all up.

…And then we spend an evening delivering them to family and friends.

Sometimes we even package them up and mail them to family and friends that are far away.

Yes!! this may seem like a lot of work.  It is!!

…But, it is the kind of work I want to do.

It’s teaching my kids so many valuable lessons.  They are learning to cook.  They are learning to clean up.

They are learning to organize.  They are learning to give. 

They have an opportunity to give to others.  The best part is that they are learning that homemade gifts can mean so much.  We don’t always have to give what we buy at a store.

…and we are spending time together, having fun while we do it.

This year, we put together 97 boxes of candy.  This is our most yet!

I thought it would be fun to share some of the different candies that we make and a link to the recipe; just in case your family would like to try to make one of these.

…and because I wish I could bring treats to all of you; this is my way of sharing them.

These are all kid friendly recipes, and I assure that my kids had a hand in making all of them.

Our family favorite is a recipe that I make every year.  They are called
Christmas Caramels 

I have been making them every year.  This year Stella made them.  She is 11, and she handled the whole process.  She was even able to determine when it got to the soft ball stage.

This is our recipe:

1 C. butter

2 1/4 Cups Brown Sugar

1 C. light corn syrup

1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

dash of salt

Combine ingredients into a heavy sauce pan.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with wooden spoon.  Keep at a rolling boil and cook till soft ball forms in a cold bowl of water(this takes between 10-15 minutes of rolling boil.) It will begin to get thick.  When it does, spoon a small amount into your bowl of really cold water.  Touch with your hand and see if you can roll it into a soft ball.  If it becomes really hard, you have let it boil to long, so check it consistently.  Once it hits soft ball, pour it into buttered 9x13 pan.  Cool, and then cut.  Makes about 75 pieces.

We also tried a new recipe that we added our caramel recipe too:

Christmas Turtles

We followed this recipe and idea, but used our own family caramel recipe; taking it to soft ball stage again.

The little kids had the job of laying out the pecans, while Stella made the caramel.

Another family fav, is molded mints:

Molded Christmas Mints

I got this recipe from my friend Krysta.

It’s super simple.  Melt a whole bar of almond bark.  You can do this in a double broiler, or slowly in the microwave.  Once it’s melted, add food coloring of choice, and a peppermint flavoring.  I buy mine at our local cooking store.  It’s not the regular peppermint that you buy at the grocery store.  It has more of a butter mint taste.  Then you will need some Christmas molds. I also bought these at the local cooking store.

Lay out your molds and spoon the chocolate into the mold.  Then place the molds in the freezer.  Once they have hardened, pop them out. The kids are big helpers when I am making these.  They love to pop them out, and help me rotate them through the freezer. When we make these, we like to make 2 colors.

We must really love mints, because we also like to make:

Cream Cheese Mints

You can find a link for those here.

This year we tried a new treat:

Christmas Cookie Bark

The kids enjoyed breaking up all the goodies that went in the bark.

Then they enjoyed breaking it into pieces when it had hardened.

When we were done with the Cookie Bark, we used the left over Oreos and made:

Chocolate Dipped Oreos

This is so simple.  You use what’s left of your white chocolate from your almond bark, and dip your leftover Oreos in it.  Then sprinkle on some pretty sprinkles.  This is certainly a kids job.

My kids favorite treat to make are:

Rolo-ed Pretzels, and Pretzel Hugs

This is something that the kids can do completely on their own.  It does require the use of an oven so it would be hard for smaller children when it gets to that step.  Stella is 11, and made these with the kids when I wasn’t home.

We also tried out these yummy:

Gingerbread Bars

this year!! Yummy in my tummy!

Isaac even made the cream cheese frosting all on his own.

We normally just make Ginger Snaps, but we tried them with frosting this year.  I thought they were yummo!! The kids are used to the traditional gingersnap and they want me to go back to that next year.  Some traditions just stick, making change hard.

Then we made some:

Christmas Bar Cookies

We just like to use our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, but then we spice it up.

The kids love dumping in m&ms, and toffee bits, and chocolate chips, and our secret ingredient?

Carmel bits.  Yep!! they are little bits of Carmel for melting.  We use them when we make Carmel apples.

We love how they taste in the cookies.

A few sugar crystals on the top of the cookies, and they look very festive.

Here is a recipe similar to the one we use.

The last and easiest cookie we made were:

Red Velvet Peppermint Cookies

Isaac mixed these cookies all on his own.

It’s so simple, he dumped these 3 ingredients into the mixer:

A red velvet cake mix

2 eggs

1/2 cup of oil

Then he mixed that up.

We then scooped out cookie size portions with our cookie scoop.

We baked them at 350 for about 8-10 minutes; just until they crack.

We let them cool some, and then we stuck that peppermint kiss right in the middle.  They are delicious!  These would also be so good with white chocolate chips.

Happy Baking friends.

WARNING: Christmas baking has the ten pound effect.

If you make these recipes, you may put on ten pounds during the holidays!!

Want to know what I say about that?

That’s what January 2nd is for.

A Thankful FHE{Family Home Evening}

In our church, we dedicate Monday nights to what we call FHE; or Family Home Evening.

We use that time to be home together as a family, doing activities, learning about the gospel, and having treats.  It’s one of my favorite nights.

Here is a fun little November activity for a Family Home Evening of your own.

The Thankful Jar

The best part about this activity is that it kicks off an activity that continues through the month of November to remind us all about Gratitude.

What you will need:

Mason Jar

Twine

Scissors

Copy of each print I have included here

You can kick off the activity with a prayer, and then read this story about a woman named Borghild Dahl; found in this article.

Following the story, pass out this printable for each person and have your family fill it in with everything they are thankful for A to Z.(click on the pictures to take you to the download)

Once you brainstorm about those important A to Z thankful’s in your life, then you can create this cute little Thankful jar together as a family.

You will need to make a copy of each page that I have included here:

Start by cutting out the tag and just 2 feathers.  You will only need to make one jar per family, but you could always make more for your friends to do also.

Start by wrapping some cute twine or string around your jar and tying it off.

Once you have cut the feathers, you bend them down the line of the feather to make them stand a little 3D.  Use a dab of hot glue at the bottom of the feather to attach them to your jar.

Wrap another piece of twine around the top part of your jar, and then attach the tag and tie it off.

 

Your thankful jar is complete.

Now is the time for the important part.  You use this next print which you will need several copies of.

You will need to cut these apart.

Each time a member of your family thinks of something they are thankful for, then they fill it out on the slip of paper and slip it in the jar.

By the end of the month, you should have a very full jar.

On Thanksgiving day, dump them out, and read all about your family’s gratitude.

I wish I had a jar full of thankful’s to show you, but I am starting this with the fam tomorrow for FHE myself.

Enjoy!! Happy Thankfuls.

I would love to see photos of your thankful jars all complete.