January 8, 2019

Winter Wonderland - Kids Night In Review

Winter Wonderland - Kids Night In Review
*This post does contain affiliate links. I do make commission when any purchases are made using these links.

What a busy time of year! Between Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and birthday planning, it seems we haven't had time to stop. We've also had family in and out for the last 2 months, and my parents came to stay over Christmas. This was great because I had some help with our December Kids Night In box! The theme I am reviewing is Winter Wonderland. Did you get yours?! January's theme is Stand Tall, which is geared towards teaching kids confidence! The order cutoff is January 13th!



What's Included:
Night In Itinerary
Included book - Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
Art Paper
Water color tissue paper
Pipe cleaners
beads
Black marker
Glitter
Glue
Dancing snowflake cards
Juice mix

Winter Wonderland Themed Menu:
The menu involved a favorite breakfast food around here....french toast! Except you cut them into circles to make snowmen. How fun! We actually have french toast at least twice a month on the weekends, so it worked out perfectly. We didn't make the topping for them, but I have super picky kids anyways so they were fine with the usual butter, powered sugar, and syrup!

Activities:
One of the activities was acting out how a snowflake moves. What does a snowflake look like if it's floating? Or twirling? My son got a kick out of this and tucked the cards away for playing another time.



We also worked on our fine motor skills by making a snowflake using pipe cleaners and beads. After forming the snowflake with the pipe cleaners, my son had to carefully place the beads on each end. Once it was finished and the ends were secure, we could bend and reshape the snowflake to any shape. After all, all snowflakes are different!



My favorite activity (and this is surprising because I usually put off the drawing activities from this box, ha!) was drawing and creating a sparkly snowflake. Most months, the drawing instructions are laid out in the itinerary and I end up drawing most of it. This month was different, we had to watch a step by step video in order to draw the snowflake and it went better than I had imagined. My son listened so well and followed every step so wonderfully, I didn't have to help at all with the exception of pausing the video every once in a while to allow him to finish the step.



After drawing the snowflake, we put the watercolor tissue paper around the paper, brushed on some water, and let it dry. Once dry, we removed the tissue paper and revealed a super colorful snowflake. The next step was to add the glitter to the flake. I really loved how it turned out and how great my son did. It showed me how helpful it is for young ones to have step by step directions rather than all at once.


The included book was Snowflake Bentley Jacqueline Briggs Martin. The book was rather long and a little to deep for my little guy, but he still enjoyed the pictures. The focus of the story is that all snowflakes are beautiful no matter how different, which relates to all living things. We may look different, but we are all beautiful in our own ways. It would be a great story for older children.


If this sounds like something right up your alley and want to try out the January box, you have until the 13th to get yours in time, so click my affiliate link here: Stand Tall.

*This post does contain affiliate links. I do make commission when any purchases are made using these links.






January 7, 2019

Christmas Tree Keepsake Ornament

Christmas has come and gone, and seriously wayyyyy too quickly. I love building up to Christmas Day and it's always so bittersweet when it's over. We aren't huge on yearly traditions, but I think we may have found a good one this year!

Growing up, my family always had an artificial Christmas tree. Being from Florida it just wasn't a big thing to go out and get a tree, and it wasn't a big deal as a kid because I didn't know any different. Our kids are almost 5 and almost 3, and this year we decided to get a real tree in addition to our regular artificial one.


Although Christmas is over, this is something you could probably do before hauling your tree away as well, though I got the idea when we picked out our tree.

Since this was our first tree I have no idea if this is something that happens everywhere, but part of getting our tree ready to go was cutting off a slice from the bottom of the trunk. Rather than leaving it on the ground, I picked it up to bring home with the thought of making an ornament with it. It was easy to prep and turned out so cute! You could do this every year to see how your trees have grown or changed, and see how your family grows.

Step 1:
Clean all the dirt and grime from the slice of wood using water and a sponge. Really only one side will be dirty.

Step 2:
To completely dry out your wood slice, place on a cookie sheet in a preheated oven (250 degrees) for 30-45 minutes PER SIDE.


Step 3:
Once your wood slice has cooled, use some sanding paper to smooth out the flat sides (top and bottom; not the sides with the bark).


Step 4:
Use paint for stamping your family's thumb prints on the ornament. I chose to just do my kids, but the whole family could probably fit.


Step 5:
Use a drill and drill a small hole through the top of the wood slice, and then place a ribbon/twine/string through to hang on your tree.

Step 6:
On the back (or front), be sure to write the current year!

Easy right? I decided to make my children's thumb prints into little reindeer, and to do that I waited for the paint to dry and then used a permanent marker. For their names I SHOULD have used one with a little more of a fine tip, but their finger prints are what will mean a lot in the coming years. I would LOVE to do this every year we get a real tree!