A Fridgid Morning...for the elves!

Good morning! It is already hard enough to believe we are only a week away from Christmas, and the weather today is making it even harder. There was a warm edge to the air this morning, as the kids and I were waiting for the bus to arrive. Our elves seemed to have sensed the warmth and decided to chill out (literally!) in our fridge.

Lolly dyed our milk green!

Holly was hungry for Gogurt.

Jolly was hungry for leftovers from Chili's. He snagged a fry.

 How is the weather where you are? Are you under a blanket of snow? Are you facing a unseasonably warm day, like we are?

Elf on the Shelf Rewind!

Like many other families, we have an Elf on the Shelf. Well, actually, we have three elves. We started with one elf last year, and two more joined us this year. Our first elf is a boy and his name is Jolly. His sisters, Holly and Lolly, joined us this year. My hope is the elves will move on and continue the tradition when my kids are older, and begin their own families.The elves have been found in some pretty funny places!

Our elves arrived on the Monday after Thanksgiving. They brought us breakfast, and new plates and hot cocoa cups for the kids. The Hubs made scrambled eggs for everyone to help balance the sweet breakfast the elves brought.

Big brother just spotted one of the new elves!

The new elf Big Brother spotted. This is Holly.

Baby sister enjoying her eggs.

The elves made reindeer faces out of donuts. I think they forgot to add eyes!

A few days after the elves arrived, we caught them in the middle of a game of Yahtzee.

One morning, they brought us a new movie. Home Alone! The kids already had Home Alone 2. I guess the elves wanted to make sure we had the first one as well.

 Those naughty elves! I think they were trying to get my baking chocolate. That is what is in the bin at the top!

On this day, they had their own things going on.

Another day doing their own things.

Crazy! They were hiding in the stockings

I guess the kitchen wasn't festive enough!

Maybe, they missed the North Pole on this day?

 

While Jolly was in the kitchen, Holly was reading Lolly a story. How sweet!

 Oh, no! Our tree was rolled!

Today, they had a candy battle. Girls against the boy!

Memory Maker Moments-Fall Raggie Wreath

What a busy weekend this has been! The Hubs bought a new steam cleaner today. Our old one died a few months ago. It was around 7 years old. It has served us well. RIP. You'll never guess why we even had to buy the old one. It's a funny story, actually, although it wasn't so funny at the time. The Hubs was painting our living room at our old house, and instead of taking the full paint can OFF the ladder before he moved it, he moved it all at once. BIG mistake. Did I mention the paint was a beautiful Crimson Red? Yes, a full gallon of Crimson Red paint landed and splattered all over our light-colored carpet. The Hubs was furious. He figured he was now going to have to replace the carpet downstairs. Luckily, I acted quickly, and used this awesome spot carpet spray Resolve used to have. I can't remember what it was called, but Big Sister was only about 18 months old, and this spot cleaner could get ANYTHING out of the carpet. I miss it, and haven't been able to find anything that works quite that well since. Anyway, I got to work, and when The Hubs saw the paint coming out, he ran out to Wally World and picked up a steam cleaner. We had coincidentally been looking at steam cleaners that weekend as well, but chose to wait to see what else we could find. When The Hubs got home, he got to work as fast as he could, and was able to get every single drop of the paint up from the carpet. Disaster averted. So, here we are now +2 more kids, 2 dogs and a cat. We can't live without a steam cleaner! The Hubs spent the early afternoon cleaning the carpet in our room and the hallway.

While The Hubs was working on his project, the kids and I began on our 2nd Memory Maker Moment project. Big Brother had drawn "Make a Raggie Wreath" from our activity/outing cup. Now, this project is pretty straight forward. You cut (or rip) your fabric into 1" wide strips, approximately 7" long. You tie them into a knot on a wire wreath (I found mine at Hobby Lobby for about 3 bucks.) I cut our strips, and Big Brother and Big Sister separated them to make sure there were equal amounts in our 3 bowls. The kids had to count a couple times, to make sure things were equal, but it kept them all busy while I finished cutting the strips. I ended up with approximately 2-2.5 yards of fabric, and that was enough to fill 3 of the 4 circles on the wire wreath. I am not sure how much extra we would have needed to fill the last circle, perhaps another 1/2 yard? Ours looked full enough without the last ring filled.

While Big Brother and Big Sister sorted the strips, Baby Sister was taking notes on the play keyboard....with her feet, but she's cute, so she can get away with it. lol

 

Here is our set up before we began to tie our strips. 

 

When we got started, I didn't realize it would be a little difficult for Big Brother to tie knots. He at least tried, before he moved on to another activity. He doesn't much like having his picture taken when he's frustrated. ;) Big Sister was awesome at tying knots, and actually did quite a bit of the wreath herself. When we started our wreath, I wasn't sure we'd have enough fabric, so I ended up doing the outside first, then skipped a circle, and did the 3rd circle. When I realized we'd have enough to do another circle, I took over, and did the circle between our completed circles. It took an hour or so to get everything tied.

 

Here is our beautiful, completed wreath! 

Happy {almost} Fall! 

Our First Memory Maker Moments

Happy Fall!!! Well, almost. Our weather, while still a bit warm in the afternoons, has begun to cool off overnight and in the mornings. It is absolutely beautiful, and it has me thirsting for when full days begin to get cooler, and the colors of the leaves begin to change to the vibrant oranges, reds and yellows.

Today, we started a new family project, and I am hoping this will become a tradition. It is called, "Memory Maker Moments." The hustle and bustle of our school weeks end up leaving us very little time to sit down and really enjoy our time together. We do homework immediately after Big Sister and Big Brother walk in the door. Sometimes, it takes almost the full hour before I start dinner to complete homework. Once dinner is done...well, you get the picture. We  hardly have a moment to breathe during the week. Family time is incredibly important to me, and I want to make sure we make the time to spend with each other. The kids will not be kids forever, and eventually, they will want to have their own lives, and they won't be interested as much in family time.

So, I'm sure you are beginning to wonder what this "Memory Maker Moments" is all about. Well, I have selected two project categories. We have a cooking/baking category, and an activity/outing category. I have picked a total of 5 projects for each of the two categories, with a total of 10 projects. We got a late start for the month, otherwise, I probably would have had 12 projects to choose from. To get started, I had Big Sister and Big Brother choose a number 1-20, and whoever was closer to my number, got to draw their choice of project to do on Saturday. Our winner was Big Sister, and she chose to do a food project for Saturday, and of course, that left Big Brother with an activity. Since I associate September with apples, our food themes center around apples for this month. Next month will most likely be pumpkin recipes, and I am not sure about November yet. I have our projects printed out, and folded, and each category has a little bucket we use to choose from.

Big Sister drew "Make Caramel Apples" I scoured the internet for a recipe that looked simple enough, and one that had good reviews. I came across a recipe on Tasty Kitchen for Grandma Betty's Caramel Apples recipe. I don't know who Grandma Betty is, but I do know her recipe was a huge hit for EVERYONE in our family! You can check the recipe out here http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/desserts/grandma-bettye28099s-caramel-apples/

I used Jazz apples, which are a blend of Braeburn and Gala apples. I also made one small tweak, and used double the vanilla in the recipe.

 

I filled the sink with water, and added approximately 1 cup of vinegar, and let the apples soak for a while. This helped get rid of the grocery store wax.

 

Our apples all ready to get their caramel bath going.

 We all took turns stirring our caramel. We stirred, and stirred some more. Then, we stirred a little bit more, and then a bit more. Don't quit stirring, unless you want crunchy burned bits in your caramel!

 Once the caramel arrived at soft ball stage, and we got our vanilla in, and the mixture cooled for a few minutes, the actual coating time flew by. You want to work as quickly as possible, otherwise, the caramel starts to thicken up, and it is a tad more difficult to get a good smooth coating on. Once I had the apples covered, I blew on them a little bit, to help set the caramel a little. Then, Big Sister and Big Brother rolled the apples in the different coatings.

If you are interesting in starting this project for your family, here is my layout for our project labels.

Frozen Watermelon Cubes

Life has a funny way of catching up with you. It's been a while since my last post. The kids and I went on vacation about a week after they went on Summer break. We spent about 3 weeks with my in-laws. We had a great time even though we didn't get a chance to get around to everything we had wanted to do. I've tried to carry on and get some more of my "To Do" projects done. Some have been successful and some not so much.


Recently, we bought a watermelon, and I knew we wouldn't be able to get through it before it spoiled. It is just the way it goes around here. We eat half, and I always tell myself I'll get around to cutting the last half. It never happens, and I hate wasting food. I tried to think of how I could make the other half of our watermelon last before it went bad. The idea popped into my head about cubing it and freezing it. I've seen a project where they cut the watermelon into triangles, stuck a popsicle stick in it and then froze it. If that works, then why can't cubing and freezing it work?


It couldn't hurt. Afterall, it would probably be the same story as always, and the poor, neglected second half would spoil before I could prepare it's good, juicy goodness for snacking.


I started by cutting the second half in half, and then I quartered it.

Next, I sliced it into approximately 1 inch slices (some were bigger, some were smaller)

Next, I chopped off as much of the rind as I could, without chopping too much edible fruit.

Next, I cubed the watermelon into about 1/2 inch pieces, and I removed any undesirable pieces, to include any pieces with rind on it. You know what you and your family likes. Mine won' t eat anything close to the rind.

I placed all of the pieces of watermelon on two trays. Technically, it isn't a full half watermelon, since all four of my kids kept looking me with puppy dog eyes. Even booga baby kept coming over and yelling at me for more watermelon.

These trays were in the freezer for approximately 14 hours, but they were fully frozen within 2-3 hours.

Bag it up, and keep it in the freezer for a quick frozen treat during these long, hot summer days.

Enjoy!