Oops….

I feel like a bum. I didn’t get to post each day’s advent activity for our Halloween advent calendar. Ill go back and make a list and add some pictues though. It was a BLAST! And now its past Thanksgiving and not long before Christmas and it’s tiem for our Christmas advent!

I decided not to make a Christmas advent this year. We bought a playmobile advent calendar for our little man. He gets to start it today and he is going to be SO excited! Were waiting for daddy to get home from work before we start it. Ill add pics later!!

Link to the calender we got this year: http://www.amazon.com/Playmobil-Advent-Calendar-Xmas-Forest/dp/B000NVI0BM/ref=pd_bxgy_t_img_b

Halloween advent: Day 1

This was day one’s piece for the calendar and the activity we did. Ill take pictures of the spiderwebs and add them tomorrow!

Halloween advent calendar

Halloween is a big thing in our house. Not only is it a super fun holiday, but first and foremost, it is my little man’s birthday! He is totally into everything spooky and halloweeny (his word – lol).

I wanted to make October (a month that is already very busy for us) a fun filled month of Halloween activities and things.

I (at the last minute) decided I wanted to make a Halloween advent calendar for my little man. So I threw this together using what scrapbook supplies I had on hand. I hand pieced each one except one or two of them.

Each day my little man will get to stick a new piece to the calendar and along with it will be an activity for him to do that day, a treat, or a gift. He has not seen any of these so he is going to be totally surprised by them!

Ill post each day what we do or what he gets!

My knitting Adventure

So I decided to teach myself how to knit using online tutorials. I got a big skein of this yarn and plan on making my little man a scarf (which he has been asking for for a while now), matching hat and gloves. So far, I have about 16 rows done on the scarf. I kind of made my own pattern for it so it is pretty basic,. Also, it is not without it’s flaws…LOL…but hey, that is to be expected, its my first project! Ill post progress pics as I go.

Frost vs. Top Pot: Battle of the doughnut shops

There is a new doughnut shop in town. Frost recently opened it’s first store down the hill from me in Mill Creek, WA. One of their more popular doughnuts is the Smokey Bacon Maple Bar. I personally don’t eat pork, but my husband does and tried it and L O V E D it. I loved their old fashioned glazed and plain maple bar, but my favorite has to be their Salted Caramel. And my son loved the frosted cake one. (cannot remember the actual name, but it was a cake doughnut with pink frosting and sprinkles.) Our first time there was about a month ago, and since then, I think we have been at least once a week for a tasty treat.

Well, we recently discovered another doughnut shop in the same parking lot, Top Pot Doughnuts. I guess it is ranked the TOP doughnut shop my MSN. So of coarse we had to try it out and compare to Frost.

Yesterday before getting groceries, we stopped at Top Pot in the University Bookstore in the Mill Creek Town Center and I had a maple bar. My husband had a maple bar and an apple fritter.

Our first observation was that at the UW bookstore, they had all the doughnuts for the day brought in by truck in the morning. At Frost, they are cooked and hand dipped fresh throughout the day as they are needed. At Frost, you can watch through the windows in the back as the employees cook and hand frost and dip each doughnut and then bring them to the front.

The prices between the two shops are pretty much right on. It costs us about $8 at each place getting 3 doughnuts and 2 drinks both times.

But to use my husbands words, the Top Pot doughnuts tasted like a “supermarket” doughnut compared to Frost. Everything about Frost’s doughnuts were better. In my opinion, and my husband’s, Top Pot doesn’t hold a candle to what Frost has going on.

So if you are in the area and want an excellent doughnut, stop at Frost and take a pass on Top Pot.

You can visit the Frost website @ http://frostology.com/ or visit their Facebook.

Restaraunt Survival Kit

I have to admit the word “DUH” popped into my head when I came across this post. It is so simple. Why didn’t I think of it!?  I now no longer leave home without this. My restaurant survival kit. My son has a hard time sitting still while we are waiting when at a restaurant. Once he gets his food,  he is fine…too busy eating to wiggle much. But in those sometimes upwards of 20 minutes of waiting after we order, he gets pretty restless.

Not only is this good for restaraunts though, you can use it anytime you and your kids are going to be sitting and waiting for anything. At the dentist, waiting for an oil change, anything.

So far in my kit, I have what you see pictured. Play-Doh, a mini Cootie game, a transformers mini skateboard, a nemo coloring kit I found at the Target dollar spot, and some mini markers I also found at the Target dollar spot. I cut up some paper to a more manageable size and voila! A Restaraunt Survival Kit! I think the whole thing cost me, $6. And whenever I find little things to add to it, Ill do so, and regularly switch things out to keep my son interested.

Since taking this picture I have added a few packs of transformers trading cards and a pack of Pirates of the Carribean trading cards, which actually turned out to be a game with mini pirate ships inside, which were very amusing. Each were only around a dollar each too.

I keep this plastic tub with a lid on it in my car so we always have it on hand. I am so thankful I came across this idea. I have used it 3 times so far, and it works like a charm. I highly encourage you to make one of your own. You can visit your local dollar store or Target and check their dollar spot for cheap things to add to you kit.

Going on a color hunt!

This is a super easy, super cheap and really fun activity. I saw it on a blog somewhere, but cannot remember where, so if this is your idea, let me know and I will link you!

So all you need for this activity is an empty egg carton and paint. Fill in each section of the egg carton with a different color of paint. If you don’t have too many paints on hand, remember you can mix a few to make new colors. I didn’t have gray or brown so I mixed those ones. I also left one section empty for my little man to put anything he wanted.

Once your paint is dry you can go on your color hunt! It was a nice sunny day here when we did this, so we went for a walk and found as many different things as we could and placed them in their matching color in the carton. Once we got back inside we went through all our stuff to see what we had found! You could also do this indoors on a rainy day.

My little man really liked this. He loves any kind of I Spy, or seek and find games and they are good for them too! Not only did he have to match colors from the environment, he had to find something small enough to fit into the egg carton. An added challenge!

Have fun on your color hunt!

Arrrggh!

I was reading my favorite blog one day ( Se7en ) and came across her post A Plethora of Pirate Puppets in Se7en Steps… I tucked it in my memory for one of those day’s when my little man is just totally bored, and I could sit and help him do a fun craft. He is very much into pirates and make believe so this was so much fun for him! Here is the pirate I made. I used an idea I saw when googling pirate puppets and I like how he turned out. I used an actual feather for his hat, and of coarse he needed a parrot! Every good pirate ship captain has a parrot!

Our pirates also needed a ship. So I used a milk carton and covered it with brown paper and made a jolly roger sail for it. Once it was done, I used a knife to add slits in the carton so our pirates could stand on their own, on the ship.

Once that was all done, I made a few other props for my little man to make up stories with, including a shark, treasure map, spotting scope, compass, and treasure chest.

The 3 puppets in the last picture, down the left side are the ones my little man made. I LOVE how they turned out!

This craft was so fun! I have so many ideas for additions to this new collection! Keep an eye out for them!!!

Raising Your Spirited Child By: Mary Sheedy Kurcinka

Is your child MORE? More intense, more sensitive, more perceptive, more persistant, more energetic? Your child just might be spirited and I highly suggest you read this book!

This book has made me realize exactly who my son is. He is not broken, he is not damaged, there is nothing wrong with him. He is just…MORE! He is more of everything the average kid is which is very trying and absolutely amazing! Because not only is he more of the difficult things, he is more of the great things too! And I truly am blessed to have a spirited child in my life.

What Kurcinka has done in this book is amazing. She gives exact tools for parents of spirited children to use to help their spirited child be successful and help use what they have MORE of in a positive way.

I have written an overview of each chapter that I am going to share with you. I use this as a quick reference when I need a tool in a hurry to help deal with something happening or just to read as encouragement. I hope you can use this in your life with your spirited child and I HIGHLY suggest reading the entire book. The information in it is indispensable to a parent of a spirited child.

Spirited kids are the super ball in a room of rubber balls. Other kids bounce three feet off the ground. Every bounce for a spirited child hits the ceiling. (pg.9)

Keep an eye out for each chapter’s outline. I will be posting them over the next or two. Feel free to print them out and keep on hand! And consider purchasing Raising Your Spirited Child.

Grandma’s Banana Nut Bread

This banana nut bread is so yummy! And really very easy to make. My husband would have me make it every week, but then it wouldn’t be so special. This bread is really dense and thick and SO flavorful! My favorite way to eat it is warm, with butter melting on it! Mmmm… Try not to drool as you think about it!

This is also an activity that my almost 4 year old LOVES! He loves helping me cook anything in the kitchen, but this is one that he especially enjoys and requests frequently! I listed his jobs below!

I hope your family enjoy’s it as much as mine does!

Grandma’s Banana Nut Bread

You will need:

-3 ripe banana’s
-3/4 cup sugar
-2 eggs
-2 cups flour
-1 tsp salt
-1tsp baking soda
-1/2 cup walnuts

Crush banana’s with fork or something similar. Beat eggs lightly and add to banana’s. Sift flour with salt and baking soda and mix with the sugar. Mix all ingredients and add chopped walnuts.

Grease a 5×9 loaf pan and bake for 1 hour @ 325 degrees.

ENJOY!!

Alyx’s jobs: Alyx get’s to chop the walnuts, smash banana’s, sift and stir.