Christmas Cookies 2011

Mix the dough

 Make into balls

 

Flatten with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar (maybe a little less flat next time)

Put them in the oven.

Go take a nap while they bake.

Decorate them with Grandpa's supervision.

Sneak a cookie and a sprinkle... 

 

...or two.

So proud of the finished product!

Ryan's Christmas Cookies 2011

Mommy and Grandma's Christmas Cookies 2011

I think Santa will like Ryan's better!

Oil Drip Pan Magnet Board

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I've finished my first official "Pinterest-inspired" project. A friend of mine at work had re-pinned a picture from this blog, and we decided maybe we should actually DO one of our pinned projects!


Step 1: Buy a large oil drip pan from the automotive section. We bought ours at Walmart for less than $10. The ones at Napa have less embossing on them but they were $20.

Step 2: Hang on the wall using Command Picture-Hanging Strips. These will not damage the wall when removed and they are holding the weight just fine. I only put 4 on the corners but I'd recommend one or two in the middle also to reduce the "flex" which makes it really loud for little boys to bang on! Other sites have recommended using long velcro strips or screwing it into the wall. Just make sure you do the bottom too so it is flat against the wall.

Step 3: Make a fun header to cover the embossed part of the pan. I just used some scraps of paper I had to spell my son's name. I also brought it to be laminated at a local teacher store so it would last longer. Then, use rubber cement to stick it to the pan. The magnets will still work thought the paper and lamination, but mine is actuall above where he can reach at this age.

Step 4: Buy some magnets for your child to use on the board. I bought a set of magnetic upper-case and lower-case letters and numbers because I'm hoping to use the board to help Ryan start recognizing letters and numbers. I bought my set for $25 at the Education Station in Le Mars, but a similar set is Amazon.

 Other ideas: 

• You can use magnetic bulldog clips to hang a piece of paper up and use it as an "easel" or to display finished artwork
•  I plan to buy several magnetic photo frames so we can put photos of people or things in them while learning to spell their names.
• You could use this in your kitchen or mud room as a family calendar/reminder board. A coat of spray paint and some shabby/chic magnets would turn the look from "industrial preschool" to "gorgeous organizer".
• Paint with chalkboard paint it doubles as a chalk board.
• Cover with clear or patterned contact paper and it doubles as a marker board.
• Nic & Kate (this seems to be the origination of the Pinterest pin) cemented photo/letter cards so kids could match up the letter with the picture.   
• Real Life Travels did the alphabet thing as well, but horizontally.
• Teaching Stars used it to help her daughter learn spelling.
• Beach House View spray-painted her oil drip pan hot pink and displays artwork in her daughter's room.
• Pink Postcard found an old rusty oil drip pan and added old-fashioned "please take a number" magnets.
• Life with Little Ones Modge-Podged old storybook pages all over it. (I may still do this idea!)
• 2teachis2inspire4ever added a border and laminated words so kids can practice spelling high-frequency words.

 (*Disclosure: I participate in the Amazon Associate program, so if you use these links to buy from Amazon, I will receive a very small percentage of the sale. This links to other blogs are just for your inspiration!)

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Obstacle Course

With the cold weather limiting the opportunity to run around outside, Ryan has some pent-up energy. After some basketball and soccer in the basement, I needed to a do a few things in the kitchen so Ryan helped me invent an obstacle course.

First, we took off his socks for better traction, then we tried a few obstacles like running around the stuffed Kabota, carrying the football around the circle, making paths by lining up random toys, etc., but his favorite was "jump the gift wrap tube."

Nice vertical.

Small Town Christmas

Tonight we started what we hope becomes a family tradition: looking at Christmas lights! Since Ryan's attention span is still pretty short-term, we just went to a small town near us called Maurice who is famous for their "Small Town Christmas". Many of the houses in town are lit and there is a very large display that kids will really like. Ryan thought it was "pretty cool" which is how he describes anything good. 

My favorite thing was seeing my talented co-worker, John's, new painting which he displays on his front lawn in good weather.  Check out the post on his blog,  Paintings from a Small Town, for a few "in-process" pictures! It is amazing and I hope you get a chance to go see it this Christmas season!

Colorful Christmas Tree

Now that we have a little bigger house, we have room to put up two Christmas trees! We put up our pre-lit tree in the basement and lovingly hung all of our "collected" ornaments from over the years. Adam and I each got at least one ornament per year since we were born and we've continued the tradition with Ryan. So, this is really a collection of memories and a start of many more! I still love putting on my favorite ornaments: a 3D gingerbread baker, a Dutch girl looking over a door, shiny gold angels, and "Our First Christmas". Adam has several wooden ornaments from his grandparents, Vikings ones (we thought about leaving those off this year), and many fishing-themed.  Ryan's have been Hallmark ornaments that correspond to one of his current interests, like a miniature "Speak and Say", a Little People Firetruck, and a tiny picture frame with his newborn picture in it. He was going to get a Curious George Reading ornament this year but tonight as we were cleaning up supper, we heard some rustling and discovered he had gone downstairs, found the stash of wrapped presents, torn open the box, and managed to break off Curious George's foot and the ball that was balanced on it. We're not sure it's salvageable and I'm disappointed it broke so easily, but we'll give it a shot of Super Glue and see what happens. It'll be a good memory/conversation starter at least!

For the upstairs tree we originally strung white lights, added some old red and silver balls and put some red polka-dot ribbon around it. I hated it. I took the ribbon down right away and this past week I finally found some ornaments I liked. I picked up some funky light green, dark red, and glittery gold ornaments from Floral Expressions and today got some glass purple balls and jewel-like purple "picks". I also added some berry strands, berry picks, and flower picks from previous years. It's not perfect (and isn't decorated on the back AT ALL) but I like the colorful look a lot better! As always, it looks weird in pictures, but here's a little look at the new tree. You can click to make the picture larger.

Just so you get an idea of how this goes with the rest of the room, here's a shot that includes some other parts of the room. I also love how the nativity set my grandma got me from the Hull Pharmacy years ago matches perfectly with our new kitchen/living room colors. We recently took down the vertical blinds and put up some light blue/dark brown curtains with dark brown shears and really love the new look!

Music Class

For the past few months, I've been taking Ryan to music class every Thursday night. We have a 45-minute class of 8 kids ages 18 months-3 years plus one or more of their parents. We recently had our last class where parents and grandparents could come watch and see what we've been doing all semester. Ryan was very excited about Daddy, Grandpa and Grandma coming to Music!

We started every class with "It's Our Time to [clap] to everyone...[clap] hello, hello." Then each child gets to choose what action they want to do. We usually "stomped" to Ryan.

For this night, we did a special Christmas song of "Jingle Bells"

Next was one of the kids' favorite "lap bounces" with 3 verses:

Giddyup Horsey, Giddyup Horsey, Giddyup Horsey, Go, Go, Go
Giddyup Horsey, Giddyup Horsey, Giddyup Horsey, Whoa!

vs.2 Giddydown Horsey (bounce off to the side)
vs.3 GiddyWHOA  Horsey (drop between your legs)

We did a few "circle"-type dances and this one involved falling down whenever the music did a certain thing. Ryan interprets "we all fall down" to "tackle Mommy." Part of it also involved pretending we were airplanes.

We got to play with all sorts of instruments throughout the year including a drum, bells, tone blocks, guitar, windchimes, triangle, slide whistle and others. This night we played with some favorites: egg shakers and sand blocks!

The kids love the shakers and Ryan even likes to pretend he has shakers at home. We even have to put the imaginary ones away at home using the song "shakers away, shakers away, gently put the shakers away." With the sandblocks, we practiced "legato and staccato." Ryan was a bigger fan of "fast and loud" than "slow and soft" but he was pretty good at following directions.

Each week we also had one "quiet" song. Sometimes we rocked or rubbed their feet but their favorite was playing under the bubble machine. Ryan liked hitting the bubbles, blowing them, and attempting to eat them! (You will see he succeeded at all of these.)

 

 The kids also got to play with other props throughout the year, like a giant ball, a parachute, bean bags and colorful scarves. This time Grandma got her turn playing with the scarves with Ryan! Then, it was time for the "Good-bye" song where we wave good-bye to our friends.

We had a great semester of Music with Miss Sara and Ryan will miss all his friends he met, but we're glad he got to learn and experience so many things. It helped him learn to pay attention, obey commands from another adult, sit and listen, take turns, put things away, remember words and actions, and develop large and small motor skills. I highly recommend toddler music class and encourage you to take advantage if classes are offered in your area. Fortunately, ours were very affordable since they weren't under a "branded" title like Kindermusik, and I loved having a set time to be with Ryan 1-on-1 where we weren't distracted by things that needed to get done, or worried about making a mess or breaking anything and could just have fun together!

Cake for Work (not "will work for cake", but interesting concept)

One of the programs I run at my job hit a milestone this week and I wanted to celebrate with cake! As usual, my "keep it simple" strategy spiraled out of control and pretty soon I had 2 cakes, 2 kinds of frosting in 4 colors, and a LOT of dishes! But, I was happy with the overall result.  I didn't have a real strategy to start with, just kind of made things up as I went along.

I ended up with an Old Fashioned Devil's Food round layer cake and a Peanut Butter 9x13 cake, both with "Fluffy Chocolate Frosting" from Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor. I used the classic Wilton Buttercream recipe for the decorative frosting.  The "rope" border was a new one for me and I liked it much better around the bottom than my first try around the top. I love how the logo turned out (I used a toothpick to mark it out first)and since I had some leftover yellow and green frosting, decided a few wagon wheels with grass were just what the sides needed (especially to distract from the drooping/messy rope!) The 9x13 cake was designed to be cut into pieces so I staked out territories with mini Reese's Peanut Butter cups and "RR" initials.

Reviews at the office were positive, but I came home with much more leftover cake than is safe for me to have around. Too many people are sticking to their "Body by Vi" challenge (or "Body by Ry") as one of the guy's dubbed his diet and the 7 dozen assorted donuts and scones dropped off in the morning didn't help either. Too many people's "empty calorie allotment" for the day had been filled by 2:00.  'Tis the season for meat & cheese trays and various pastries from all our vendors. I think that's the REAL reason people start dieting in January. Your Christmas meal only lasts one day, but the goodies given in the hopes you'll continue doing business last the whole month through. I've never heard someone say..."Oh, Printer A? They gave us CAKE donuts last year, and what were they thinking with the Triscuits? We're going with Printer B. They're more of a cinnamon rolls and Sociables kind of company." But I digress.

I might just be cranky because it seems we're usually bursting at the gills with all sorts of food -  taste-tests (hello-where else do you get "hot mashed potatoes" emails at 3:30?),  leftover subs or pizza from meetings, aforementioned vendor treats and traditional co-worker-provided baked goods aka Scotcheroos - and the one day this week I didn't have time to take a break for lunch, there was NOTHING to be found and I had to settle for some Mint Meltaways I bought from the Girl Scouts that I found stashed in my drawer. It was a long 10 hours.

Maybe I should keep the leftover cake in my drawer.

Just in case.