Mothering with Grace

Gingerbread House Making Party

stangtx — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 01:06:11 +0000

We started a new holiday tradition this year with a Gingerbread house making party. There were 5 families that participated with around 12 children total. My wonderful BFF graciously agreed to host the party at her house, which I was oh, so thankful for. We had each family bring pre-made gingerbread houses and an extra bag of candy to share. There was SOOO much candy. The children and even a few moms diligently worked on their houses for about an hour. Then there were cookies to decorate, snacks to eat, and a craft to do. I think we could have done without the cookies, because honestly after spending so much time on the houses the kids were ready to move on to something else- Including playing hide and seek (again, thank you Janette for hosting) Everyone had a great time and I’m looking forward to adding this to our December schedule next year. Decorating our houses is something we do every year as a family anyway, so it was fun to share that with friends and watch all the creative ways everyone came up with to decorate their houses.

Here Zoe proudly shows off her almost finished house

Zack is very seriously working on his house

Olivia worked very hard at adding every piece of candy to her little house while adding a few to her tummy as well. We decided to use graham crackers to make her house, which turned out to be a great idea because it was just the right size for her not to get too overwhelmed and it still kept her busy for a good chunk of time.

I neglected to bring my own house to decorate so Janette allowed me to work on hers. I used frosted shredded wheat for the roof. We saw it done at a craft fair and I thought it was genius, and since none of my children were impressed enough to try it I was glad Janette let me work on hers. This is also one of the few pictures that I have allowed to be taken of me during pregnancy. (I just hate how round my face gets when I’m pregnant)

Some of our finished gingerbread houses!

Here a few of the kiddos were making pictures with Christmas stickers. We also had scratch off paper ornaments for them to do as well.

We closed down the party with the children watching the movie/show Elf on the Shelf. This gave us grown ups time to clean up without everyone running around. (pay no attention to the two naughty little girls breaking the rules by climbing on the furniture, or the fact that I didn’t notice it while taking the picture- tsk tsk)

A great tip for putting those pre-made gingerbread houses together is to use a glue gun. It saves so much time and you don’t have to worry about whether the icing is going to keep the pieces together.

Christmas Advent

stangtx — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:56:29 +0000

Every year we try to do something as a family that would keep the true meaning of Christmas at the center of the season. The last two years we have done the Jesse tree, I love the idea of the Jesse tree but the readings were long, and I think some of the meaning got lost, so this year we put it aside and tried something else. We may go back to it when the children are little older. So this year I went on a search for something that would be a better fit for our family. I came across several devotion books that looked wonderful but not being much of a planner I was running out of time. Then I happened upon several blogs that were promoting a devotional called Truth in the Tinsel

I looked at a sample lesson and thought we would give it a try. So far we have loved doing the nightly devotions. It is age appropriate and there is a simple craft to go with each story. We haven’t been able to do the craft every night but my goal is to be able to do a few a week. All of the children seem to really enjoy the time and I love how easy it is. It doesn’t require a big time committment and usually only takes us about 10-15 minutes a night.

Birthday Bliss

stangtx — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:47:38 +0000

This year Zoe and Zack decided that they both wanted to have a super hero birthday party and since their birthdays are only a week apart it worked out well for us. They are both obsessed with super heroes so it was a natural choice for them. For weeks I scoured websites and Pinterest for ideas and planned, baked, painted, decorated for the entire week beforehand. It was all worth it when both of them said it was the most awesome birthday party EVER! Here are a few pics from the party day.

We started the party out by making masks and coloring pictures of super heroes. This gave time for everyone to arrive before we started the party games.

Using an overhead projector and a picture we painted Superman and Wonder Woman then cut out the faces for pictures. Unfortunately my camera died after only getting a few pictures of some of the party guests.

Party Games!!!

We created a Super Hero obstacle course which included going through some cones, a batcave, ring of fire (Hulu hoop with red paper around it), and a balance beam. The kids loved this and wanted to do it several times.

lining up to get ready for the course

Kryptonite balloon toss, because of the number of children I had them all sitting or kneeling on the floor to play this game. The idea was to keep the balloons from touching the ground.

Bowling for Super Heroes, originally it was supposed to be bowling for villains but we forgot to print off pictures of villains last-minute and decided to just use pictures the kids had colored from super hero coloring books it didn’t really matter, the kiddos just loved knocking over the pins.

We also played “Mr. Freeze” dance.

Food!!

We kept the food pretty simple in an effort to try to keep this party affordable yet still fun. Hotdogs, excuse me…Hero Dogs, Buffalo Chicken dip, fruit and veggies. Of course there was cake and cookies.

Don’t look to closely at the cakes…I tried so hard, but it was one of those things that no matter what I did I couldn’t get either of them to turn out the way I wanted. The more I messed with them the worst they got. I eventually just decided that it was good enough and it didn’t matter that they weren’t perfect. Thankfully they still tasted great. I refused to use shortening in the frosting so I was nervous about how using a true buttercream frosting was going to work. Turns out… it works just fine, and tastes so much better.

Here are some of the cookies that I had baked and decorated for the party bags.

Here are some of the party bags. I decided to go with baked goods instead of the usual party bag “junk” that you can buy. I know I always hate having those little toys laying all around the house. So I included a couple cookies and a cake pop in each bag, then stuck on a cute little tag that we printed.

It was a great party and I think everyone had a great time!

Happy Birthday to my two Super Hero’s

Our Home for the Holidays

stangtx — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 03:53:38 +0000

Here are a few pictures from last year of our home at Christmas time.

Moments in History

stangtx — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:29:55 +0000

Recently in our Co-op group Zoe studied the story of the pilgrims. They made a makeshift boat and cute little stick pilgrims out of spoons. Her and Zack spent an entire afternoon coming up with a “skit” to share with us the entire story starting with an explanation of how the King of England treated the pilgrims all the way to thier arrival in America. It was very cute. I especially loved how they used Zacks pirate ship as the first boat that they tried to sail on. And you can’t help but appreciate the tinker toy prison either. They have such great imaginations!

Studious

stangtx — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:27:00 +0000

She is such a serious student…sometimes. Mostly when it’s a subject that she enjoys or if someone besides mom is teaching. This particular day she got real excited when she came up with an idea for a story. She insisted on sitting down right away and getting to work.

I sat across the room watching her and had to quietly grab the camera. I wanted to capture this moment of such seriousness and such deep thought as she pondered all the right words to write.

Precious.

It is one of the very reasons I love homeschooling.

Pumpkin Time

stangtx — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 21:17:44 +0000

We have neglected the Fall here altogether until just this week. It has just been too warm to even consider the idea of fall decorating outside. Inside with the air conditioning on I can pretend that it’s cold outside. But The kids finally talked us into buying a pumpkin a few days before halloween and then insisted upon carving it. Here is a little bit of our carving fun.

Pumpkin Time

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Fall…Please.

stangtx — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:07:00 +0000

Ugh! it’s still in the 90 degrees here in Texas! I can’t express my disgust enough. the weather certainly did not get the memo that fall has arrived and it’s time to usher out the summer heat. So being the rebel that I am, I decided sizzling heat or not, I was putting up my fall décor. So we drug out the box and then I changed my mind- because honestly it was just too hot to look at pumpkins and fall leaves and although the rebel in me said do it anyway , the sensible side felt too ridiculous. So the box set in my kitchen for 2 weeks before I decided again that despite the heat the pumpkins were coming out, this time I went through with it and now we are officially fall (ified). Wouldn’t it be wonderful if overnight the temps dropped 30 degrees and instead of the heat and drought causing all the leaves to fall off our trees, we could actually pretend that it’s due to the changing seasons.

We picked those huge lovely acorns last year and I have been waiting an entire year to use them somehow. (forgive the photography, I still can’t figure out how to take candle pictures well)

Homeschooling isn’t meant to be done alone

stangtx — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:40:00 +0000

We are part of a homeschooling co-op that meets once a week, both of our older children take classes in a variety of subjects and enjoy the opportunity to get together with other children. One of the things I love about the Co-op is that the children are all at different levels, abilities, and ages but still manage to work together well. I love that they can take classes in things that interest them that I’m not necessarily strong in- Like Zoe’s sewing and cooking class. I especially appreciate that the class sizes are small and they can develop real relationships with their teachers and peers. As a bonus, I love that when I’m not working in a classroom I can rock a baby in the nursery and chat with other mommies about all things life. I couldn’t imagine traveling this journey alone. Many have done it and continue to, but I need the support of others around me who are going through the same life trials I am.

Here they are working on measuring with non-standard units (crayons)

Now using marshmallows

Zoe was just finishing up creating a model of the solar system (with LOTS of glitter)

Pinterest… my new time waster

stangtx — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 21:29:57 +0000

If you have been around the web for any length of time lately you surely would have come across Pinterest. It’s my new obsession. It will probably be yet another excuse to keep me from blogging, and housekeeping, schooling, bathing… (just kidding) If you have never checked it out, you can click on my link and see why I have become so obsessed. Pinterest does exactly what I have been trying to do on my own for years in a very easy compact way. It takes all of the wonderful ideas I find across the web and puts them in neat categories that I can easily reference. Plus I get to see what my other friends on Pinterest are up to and borrow from their genious ideas. So if you don’t have an account, please make one and follow me so I can follow you back and glean from all the wonderful ideas you find. I am working my way through every recipe that I have placed in my board and so far I have not been disappointed.

Who knows, maybe it will give me something more to talk about on this blog… because lately I’m seriously lacking in original thought.