Preschoolers' Christmas Books

 

For Christmas this year I wanted to make an Advent calendar for my family.  I have seen all over Pinterest making the Advent calendar out of Christmas books, so for weeks I have been searching and scouring the internet looking for good suggestions for books.  I had compiled a master list of the best books.  Or so I thought.

Image from http://www.oopseydaisyblog.com/2011/11/christmas-book-advent.html

I placed holds on these books over Thanksgiving weekend.  When I got them all home I was devastated. These were books for children 8 years old (or so) and older.  My kids are 3 years and 6 months old.  We need more pictures and less words.  

I returned 90% of the books I checked out and went on a search to find age-appropriate Christmas books.  What you will find below are the books that we have read and like for this Holiday season.  Some of the books are religious, some are Christmasy, and some are just winter books.  I don't have any suggestions for Hannukah, Kwanzah or other holidays.  In fact I am on the hunt for a good preschool St. Lucia book.  Please let me know if you have one!  

I have included a picture for each book and have also hyperlinked the title so you can easily find each one.

First up, Room For A Little One by Martin Waddell.  This one takes place in the manger and is simple enough for my son to understand.  He LOVES reading and talking about the animals in the manger.

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.  I grew up reading this winter book.  I used the board book version and my son has loved looking at the winter scenes.  I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and so I remember reading about snow with wonder.  Now reading it and living in Salt Lake City I understand the story better.  Although my son doesn't exactly understand why the snowball disappears.  haha.

The Christmas Mice by Fiona Watt.  This has been one of my favorites.  It's a touch and feel book and the best one I have come across yet!  I love that on each page there are multiple items to feel and different textures on each page.  This is how all touch and feel books should be!  I get so tired of having the same single texture on each page.

Elmo's Merry Christmas by Lori Froeb.  This is my son's favorite, but it is my nemesis.  It has flaps that open up on each page, which Stephen LOVES.  Eh, not so much for me.  There's 10+ flaps on every page and my son takes FOREVER to open each one.  I will be taking this one back soon, but I am sure children love this book.

 

Llama Llama Holiday Drama by Anna Dewdney.  I found this one from a Christmas book list. It is perfect for preschoolers.  It talks about the excitement of waiting for Christmas that can become too much for a little one.  We are going through this exact thing.  My son has asked almost every night if we can have Christmas already, "Please, Please, Please, Please!"

 

What Am I? Christmas by Anne Margaret Lewis.  Each page of this book has clues for the child to figure out what the Christmas figure is.  Stephen LOVES flipping to see the answers to the clues.  It's a cute one.

 

Any of these books would make a great addition to your home library, and only one of them has gotten on my nerves.  I will continue to add to this list as we read more of our choices.

Sewing Tips for Beginners

I am pretty much a beginning sewer. Anjeanette is the one who is much more proficient. Thankfully I have had some time to learn some of her sewing skills. I have come up with a list of decent tips for any beginner.

1. Use measurements and not clothing sizes to purchase patterns. I LOVE browsing the patterns at any sewing store and I am surprised at how many people buy clothing patterns based on their clothing size. THIS WILL NOT WORK! Unfortunately most clothing pattern sizes run SMALLER than our typical retail store sizes. So measure yourself before buying patterns and you will be much happier.

2. Buy patterns on sale.  Awhile back I went craft shopping and somehow managed to convince my husband to come along too.  He was pretty bored the whole time while I was sitting looking at all the patterns that were on sale for $.99.  I picked up 10 to buy and Stephen was shocked that I was going to buy so many when I hardly ever sew (it's true!) but I knew what a great deal I was getting and we went to check out.  When the cashier handed me my receipt she joyfully pointed out that I had saved over $100 and had only spent $10, my husband was again shocked.

The point of this story is that patterns can be expensive.  Some of the fancy dress patterns I purchased would be $16.99 regularly.  Now, unless you are talking about a vintage/specialty pattern, I would suggest NEVER paying full price.

3.  A seam ripper is supposed to be your best friend.  Even professional seamstresses uses seam rippers...often.  Don't be afraid to rip out what you have sewn and to resew it.  Plus, this just gives you more times to practice your sewing ;).

4.   Buy good quality pins and a pincushion.  Pins are so important for holding your fabric together.  Even if you are just sewing a straight seam and think the fabric will not slip...think again.  Then as your seams become more complex, the pins will become even more valuable.

Pincushions are not just for decoration.  As you are sewing, you will need someplace to put the pins you are pulling out from your fabric.  Putting them in a box makes it hard to get out one at a time...but a pincushion makes things tons easier. 

5.  Test your sewing on scrap fabric.  Different types of fabrics will require different thread tensions and stitch lengths.  Testing out your fabric will prove to be beneficial, and playing around with thread tensions and stitch lengths will help you feel comfortable in your sewing skills.

I hope these tips help you in your sewing endeavors!  And let me know of any tips you feel are valuable to pass along to others.

~Erika

Strawberry Lemonade Slush

I found this recipe a while ago and I LOVE it!  It is so cool, light and refreshing.  Just a few days ago I was out shopping and I saw an advertisement for McDonald’s Strawberry Lemonade Slush.  I thought it would be the perfect treat.  Not so much.  It was gloppy, and didn’t taste any good.   My Strawberry Lemonade Slush is sooo much better!  And it’s easy too.

You need water, ice, Country Time powdered Lemonade, and strawberries.   And I’m sure the top to my lemonade container is in the trash.  Lovely.

First off you need to put 1/3 cup of the Country Time Lemonade powder into a blender.

Next, add 1/2 cup of water.

The recipe calls for three cups of ice.  I eyeball it.  I add some in first so that my blender can handle it.  Blend until smooth.

Add in more ice and a cup of strawberries.  I chop off the green tops and then quarter the strawberries so my blender can handle it.  If you have a nicer blender like a Vita-mix, you could add all the ice at once and wouldn’t have to chop up the strawberries.  Lucky you. 

Blend until you reach the desired consistency.  It should be icy but not have any large chunks of ice in it.

Here’s the recipe I got this from.  They show such a deeper colored drink, mine NEVER looks like that!  And it still tastes amazing!

Garnish and enjoy.  It makes two servings.  The leftovers can be frozen and thawed for later use.  Like if you make some for your husband and he doesn’t want it.  More for me! 

Strawberry Lemonade Slush

1/3 cup Country Time powdered Lemonade

1/2 cup water

1 tray of ice (eyeball it)

1 cup of fresh strawberries

~Erika

Chocolate Chip Cookie Tip

I love to make cookies but I've often complained that mine never look as good as those in the stores.  This is purely a presentation tip, if your chocolate chip cookies don't turn out I'm no help.  And I'm still on the quest to find that "perfect" chocolate chip cookie recipe.  The ones I photographed were made with vanilla pudding as the secret ingredient.  

Now onto the tip.  When making your dough, don't add in all the chocolate chips, save some for adding to the top.  Once you've placed the dough balls on the cookie sheets, then add some of the extra chocolate chips to the top of the cookies, pressing lightly to secure in place.  Here are the dough balls before.

And after.  They already look better, right?

 And here's my cutie-pie helper.  He HAS to watch the cookies as they bake.

 The final product.  I did one pan with the extra chips and one without to convince you that the cookies look better this way.

Yum!

~Erika

An Easy Way to Cube a Watermelon

I was visiting a friend the other day and she served us cubed watermelon.  I was totally in awe of how she cut it and decided to show how it's done. 

 First you need to cut the watermelon in half.

 Then you want to cut it in half again.  (So we have a fourth of the watermelon).

 Next, you will make vertical cuts into the watermelon.  You won't just be able to slice straight up and down, you will have to take the tip of the knife and swipe down right along the rind.  Don't worry about accidentally slicing through the rind, it is much harder to cut through than the pink flesh.

 Next, turn the watermelon on it's side and make cuts parallel to the cuts you just made and parallel to the other cut side of the watermelon.

 Flip the watermelon to the other side and make cuts on the other side as well.

The picture below shows how you really have to cut.  You have to swipe the knife tip close to the rind at the back of the watermelon.  Again, it is really easy to tell when you are close to cutting the rind because it is much harder to cut through.

 Here's the finished watermelon.

 Once you have found a bowl big enough, put the watermelon inside and using a fork, pull out the pieces.

If you have cut it right it should actually just fall out of the rind.

This is what you will have afterwards.

The hardest part of this whole thing is cutting out the last pieces.  And even that isn't too difficult.  

I begin by slicing the leftover watermelon where I had cut the watermelon before, I just cut through the rind this time. 

Then I flip those pieces on their sides and cut the pink flesh out. Pretty easy.

 Ta-Da!  A big bowl of watermelon ready to eat.

~Erika

Pumpkin Carving Option

With Halloween coming around, many of us tackle the tradition of carving pumpkins.  I have always enjoyed carving them...or so I thought.  My jack-o-lanterns have never been great creations of art and so this year I decided to tackle something a little more complex.  I even went out and bought a special Pumpkin-Carving Dremel tool from some hardware store.  I spent hours scouring over the internet to find the PERFECT design.  

Then I started carving the pumpkin.  Not only was the dremel tool a bust (I'm sure it works great for some people) but I realized that I lack the patience to carve an elaborate pumpkin.  So I settled upon one of the patterns I had deemed too "EASY" for me to undertake.  Turns out it was the PERFECT way to go.   

I LOVE this Jack-o-Lantern.  I only had to cut out the windows and the moon, and then I painted in the house.  SO easy!  Did I mention that I love to paint?  Much more so that I like to carve, so this way I got an elegant design without spending all those frustrating hours carving it out.  And I like that it looks cool during the daytime as well!  Looks like this is how I will be carving pumpkins from here on out.

 

Erika

Baking Secret

I love to bake and cook.  However, my life is busy.  With a small child to take care of, a husband to talk to, the phone to answer, and various other family members dropping in and out of the kitchen, measuring for my baking can be quite daunting!  

I know this has happened to other people before; you are measuring out your flour (of which you need a million and two cups EXACTLY) when someone comes up to talk to you and suddenly you've lost count.  Did I just add in four cups or only three?  

Well, you could always use the french method "mise en place" (you know, when you're watching your favorite chef on t.v. and they have all these cute bowls with the ingredients already measured inside each one so all they have to do is dump it in) but for us home cooks who also do their own cleaning, it is not worth it to dirty EVERY single bowl I have just to make baking "easier".

So I created this solution:  I place my measured ingredients into different spaces of the bowl so I can visually count how many tablespoons of baking soda I've already added.  

This has saved me a COUNTLESS number of times!  I've written in what each of the ingredients are so you can see and understand this process as well.  

Voila!

P.S. I actually didn't think this trick was so wonderful until I was baking our family's famous Crazy Cake for my husband's birthday (it's an old recipe on his side of the family too!) and my husband came in, took one look at the bowl and declared me to be a genius!  I love him!  (he happens to be a good cook, however careless in the kitchen and he always loses count or forgets to set the timer almost every time he cooks.  Now if only I had a solution for that dang timer problem we'd be all set)

Erika

**Anjeanette here. Erika, I love this. I'm not sure which impresses me more, the fact that you know what "mise en place" means (I had to look it up. I've seen it forever, but never knew the words for it.) or that you do this. I've done it from time to time, but not necessarily on purpose. I'm totally doing this now;)

1st Annual Lady-Bug Launch

I was looking at my garden the other day and realized that my mint plant had aphids on it!  My husband and I immediately ran out to a garden store to pick up some Lady-Bugs.  I was so excited for this because I remember letting the Lady-Bugs go at a friends house when I was younger and I LOVED it!  Since my son is still too little to appreciate this (he turns one in a week!) we decided to invite all of our in-town nieces and nephews over to join in the fun.  

Apparently dusk is the best time to release Lady-Bugs as they don't like to fly as much at night, and so they will stay in your garden/yard to eat all your pests.  Unfortunately, this time of day made picture taking quite difficult!  

We decided to make a night out of it and started off crafting until everyone arrived, then we had dinner and finally it was time to Launch those Lady-Bugs!

The nieces and nephews had a great time.  It was fun letting the Lady-Bugs crawl up our arms but not any higher than that!  And surprisingly the girls were less afraid of these little critters than the boys were.  Who would have guessed?!

All in all, the Lady-Bug Launch was a success!  And we can't wait to do it again next year!

Oh, and YES, we are thankful to be living in AZ right now and to be experiencing spring, but for a good majority of everyone else, this would be perfect to do later on when Spring really gets underway!

Erika,
I am so glad you were able to find lady bugs.  My mint has bugs too (but they look different than aphids).  My mini roses have some aphids.  Alas my garden center does not have lady bugs yet.  I had to settle for spraying mine with water with a touch of dish soap mixed in.  Works great but not quite as fun as lady bugs.  It is also a very cool lesson for the kids.
Katrina

Rebecca here:  Erika, thanks for inviting us to do this, it was such a great idea and so much fun!  We loved the Ladybug Launch!  Yup, my girls aren't afraid because we do this every year in our garden (in fact they are begging me to buy the praying mantis eggs...but I just can't do it...that gives me the heebie jeebies!).  What a fun lesson to see hands on.  I can't wait to do this in our garden (thankfully we don't need the ladybugs yet).  An interesting tidbit is that the ladybugs will stay around as long as there are bugs for them to eat.  So if the ladybugs are gone, your "bad" bugs should be, too!  Yay green gardening!