Check out my sister-in-laws post about our family's Christmas Ornament exchange with pictures of all our ornaments. I think it may be my favorite Christmas tradition :-)
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Oy, the cuteness!
Last week Ella had her Christmas concert with her pre-school. The 4-year-old class is the oldest in the school thus, they get to do their concert at night (ooOOOooo) and they get to have a wardrobe change and present the nativity scene. This was new and exciting after 2 years of a daytime show with no nativity story (they're lucky to get the 2 and 3 year olds to stay on stage when the sing, let alone act out Luke 2!)
I had anxiety fun putting together Ella's sheep costume in the preceding days. I ended up finding a furry, white hat with ear flaps that was on clearance for $3.59 and even though it was 18-24month size, it fit her!! She has lots of hair but apparently a tiny little head (or as my MIL suggested, the hat was on clearance because the size was mislabeled!). Ella was not satisfied with the hat's flaps so I made some felt ears to pin onto it, pinned a tail on a white, velour jogging suit and she was ready to Baa!
As expected, the concert was heart-meltingly cute and the kids were hilarious-including the one who belted out the lyrics loud enough to carry all 30 kids, the one who put his sweater over his head for most of one song, and one of the "3 kings" who was wearing a Burger King crown. I'm so glad I have another kid who will allow me access to preschool programs for years to come-it's great, free entertainment! I always leave smiling :-)
Ella and a few of her best buddies from school
Check out Ella waving to us! So cute!
Ella's class plus the other group of 4's
Ella's cheering section :-)(Notice the row of parents in the back with cameras ready-that was only about a third of the cameras in action in the room!)
My little sheep is in the front row!
And here's a video of one of the songs they performed. My Aunt said it sounded like herding cats so take that into advisement :-) To a mother's ear it sounds wonderful :-)
Belly Buttons!!
Christmas time means belly-buttons! We've been making these for years and they're a really good kids-can-help project. And, they're SO tasty when they're done :-)
1.Start with some Hershey Kisses. Almost always on sale around this time :-)
2.Employ a small child to unwrap the kisses. Ella chose to wear gloves "just in case" she had germs (they were later abandoned once she realized her dexterity was minimalized).
3.Try to move quickly to the next step before the bowl of kisses empties as people mill around and distract you while sneaking your chocolate out of the bowl.
4.The small child can be put to work again spreading out square-shaped pretzel snaps (or round ones if you can find them, they tend to elude me in the stores lately). Then place 1 kiss in the center of each pretzel. Use an oven safe container with sides (they slide off too easily on a baking sheet sans edges).
5.Bake the kiss/pretzels at 200 degrees for 5-8 minutes. When they're ready they'll be shiny and soft enough to easily press an MnM into it. DO not let them cook too long. If they're burnt they'll start to crack and get hard and smell really bad (can you tell I've made this mistake in years past?)
6.Gather some MnM's. Peanut are the ones I originally learned to make them with but do whatever you like. This year I tried Peanut Butter along with some Peanut and Chris loved 'em. I prefer the crunch of the peanut but, to each his own :-)
7.Carefully press MnMs into the softened chocolate! Let them cool and enjoy the sweet, chocolatey, salty, crunchy, smooth goodness. Mmmmmm.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Pirate Baby
Let's just say Sadie got in on the action at her cousin's Pirate themed party... (don't call Social Services!)
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