Attempting to keep them busy AND happy

- We are trying to take walks more. Usually I can't convince the girls to go along unless there is a goal that they'd enjoy, like the park, store, library, you get the idea. So if I know a trip can be made without needing to carry much back home in return, I opt for walking (or bike ride) over the car.
- Watercolors can usually get me 30 minutes of quiet time to get something done.
- MAKING COOKIES. My kids love to help me make cookies (or anything edible for that matter), even if it's only so they can reap the benefits of cookie dough. Then we send them off to work with daddy.
- Playdough, both non-edible and edible! If I don't need to keep them clean, then we make peanut butter playdough. Otherwise, we break out the regular stuff and mommy's cookie cutters :-)

Peanut Butter Playdough
*Big scoop of peanut butter
*Big squirt/spoonful of honey
*Powdered milk, enough to make a playdough consistency
Stir them all together and that's it! 
Add fun little Teddy Grahams for added fun to play in the playdough (and inevitably get eaten as well)


Regular Playdough
*1 cup of flour
*1/2 cup salt
*2 tsp. cream of tartar
*1 cup of water
*1 Tbsp. oil
Mix all ingredients in small saucepan. cook over medium heat about 3 minutes or until desired consistency. Mixture will pull away from sides of pan. Add food color and knead to blend. Store in airtight bag or container.


-What about play with their toys and books? Well, that's a given. The amount of time I get varies depending on how invested they are in their activity. It sometimes come down to the girls dragging me away from my chores to play with them or my eldest talking my ear off to know every detail about what I'm doing. That's why I'm curious if any of you have tricks to getting chores like cleaning the bathroom (where I use cleaners I would prefer them to not touch and/or get on their clothes) or sweeping, without "shadows".... which the electronic babysitter ends up being my downfall :-(

(Did I mention my 3 1/2 year old hasn't done naptime for a year now???)

Topic: Jan 3 week

Hope you are all ready for a wonderful new year!

This week's topic is an idea collecting subject to help myself, and I'm sure other moms will also appreciate it, so if you can answer it, please do!

What activities do you like to do with your kids on just a regular day? 

You have nothing planned away from home and/or you have mommy chores to get done. 

What do your kids do so you don't have to resort to the default: Movie/extended TV?

(no guilt trips here...I'm as guilty as they come!)

If recipes are used that can be shared for our use, we'd appreciate it!

Christmas Traditions D-fam Style

I swear Christmas is my absolute favorite time of the year because of all the great family traditions. We have so many and we keep adding on! Like some of you have mentioned when J and I first got married we traveled (and still do) a lot. And that was one of our biggest conversation topics while on the road...family traditions. We pulled a lot of traditions from what we both had done as kids (after all, isn't that where we get a majority of our traditions...from our predecessors?) So here are some things we do:

Each year each member of our family gets a new Christmas tree ornament. It is uaually specific to something significant that year (ie, a family trip, a favorite character, etc.) This has been a tradition since my parents were married. After each child got married they got to take all their ornaments with them and I decided to keep that tradition in our family.

Since we have families in 2 different states, we do the every other year thing. On the years we travel to Arizona our Christmas usually gets bumped up a day. We wake up early Christmas Eve morning and open presents...then after breakfast we jump in the car for a 12 hour road trip.

We get new pajamas every year that we are given the night before Christmas to sleep in. I try hard to make them match, but it is really hard to match adult and baby pajamas! So we do our best.

On my side of the family, my mom started a tradition that along with each gift we write a note to each family member following this starter "If it were in my power, my gift to you would be..." It can get really funny and very thoughtful.

We make it a point to get to the temple to see the Christmas lights each year. It's such a great atmosphere walking on temple grounds, hearing the Christmas story, and feeling the wonderful spirit that is there! (The last 2 years it has been on T-Rex's birthday!!)

These are only a few of so many I could list!

I realize that as the kids get older and more in number things have to change, bend, stretch...and I am flexible. But it is exciting to have a family of my own to have our own traditions that they can remember from their childhood and even take to their new families.

Merry Christmas to all of you and Happy New Year!!

A Great time of Year

Up until this coming Christmas, I've always done Christmas morning with my parents. Just lucked out that way, I guess. So this year will be a whole new start to our family’s Christmas J

Upon getting married, I asked my husband what traditions he did that he would love to continue, and combined it with my favorites.

These are some of the things we like to do:

-         We decorate the day after Thanksgiving (if we didn't go anywhere) or the Sunday after (if we did J), which we let our kids do some of the hanging of ornaments, as they are able. This year we even got a train for the tree!

-         We make treats to give to our friends, and my oldest gets to help.

-         We go caroling. We’ve always done it with Ed’s “2^nd Family”, but since we don’t live in Colorado anymore, we will just have to find new friends to go with!

-         We open one present on Christmas Eve, usually something like a book or pajamas.

-         We have a large breakfast on Christmas morning and a simpler dinner. We only look at our stockings before breakfast, and unwrap our presents afterward.

-         My girls are into Hot Wheels, which is a toy we think is pretty gender-neutral, so we give them a new one in their stockings J

-         There’s always the ol’ “Take a picture with Santa”  which we do at our ward Christmas party (Santa at the mall is a rip off)… this year’s is rumored to be Hawaiian… imagine that…

Mele Kalikimaka Everyone!

christmas traditions

I love to listen to christmas music, and also sing it. As for traditions we get ornaments in our stockings every year. Its something my parents started in 1988. So they have continued it on with our spouses or significant others and our children. She also has quilted a stocking for them every year. Another thing I like to do is go driving around looking at christmas lights. Also for the last few years since we are now alumni of institute choir I like to go visit and sing some of their songs they are learning. Its such a wonderful time of year. One last thing I like to do is watch the fun movies they put on Fox family they call it the 25 days of christmas.

Since this past week was probably busy (myself included), we're going to continue the current topic for another week :-)

Christmas Traditions

Christmas is my favorite holiday. I tend to listen to Christmas music all year long, I love to make gifts, so I start planning what to make fairly early in the year, & I put up my tree this year the first week in November. There are just so many things that I love about this time of year, & I don't think it hurts to be reminded of everything just a little bit early.
My husband & I don't have many traditions of our own aside from going to spend Christmas with my family, but I'm sure we'll do more now that Sharon is around.
One of the traditions that my family started when I was young was instead of having the "traditional" Christmas Eve dinner of a turkey or ham (because we just did that for Thanksgiving), we chose a different country each year & then had a meal of authentic food (or as close as we could make it) & watched a video tour of the country checked out from the library or learned about their Christmas/major holiday traditions. We also make or buy an ornament to represent that country on our Christmas tree. It is always so fun to try new cuisine, & especially fun to find out what things you do and don't like. Some of the countries that I've enjoyed the most (or remember the most) are Australia when we had humongous steaks for dinner, Native American (not a different country, but definitely a different culture) when my husband & I brought squirrel and elk for my family to try, Hawaii (again, different culture) when my mom made bowls from a chocolate shell filled with homemade coconut icecream topped with fruit, to look like a real coconut, Ecquador when we had avocado soup & shrimp cocktails, & there are so many more that were so much fun!
I asked my mom last night if there had been discussion as to what country to do this year, & she is leaning toward India. Bring on the curry!
I would have to say that this is one of my favorite Christmas traditions, because it is so different from anything else we'd ever done & it always produces wonderful & lasting memories!