Holding the World in a Paper Cup

Archive for December 2010

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Good Christmas Times

Just a few of the things Chuck cooked up for us during Christmas.

Don't judge me.

Long Distance Relationships

Shock and Awe

They're in love.

They're also brother and sister.

Whatcha gonna do?

Joy

Concentration

I think this was Chuck's favorite part of Christmas.

Chex Mix from his Mama.

Hot Chocolate Beauty

Secrets

Uncertainty

I know it looks like we are holding My Friend there, but let me assure you, we are not. My Friend is always in our bubble. ALWAYS.

Inventory

Now Holly Jolly can here her Big Mama reading her a story anytime she wants. Very cute.

Christmas Morning

Christmas Night

The only time of year that I have trouble saying no is Christmastime.
It seems the rest of the family feels the same way.
She was spoiled, but she still isn't rotten.

6 Comments

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

I am having a totally LUDICROUS, COME AND GET IT WHILE IT IS HOT, CRAZY, EVERYTHING MUST GO, kind of sale right now.
Enter the promo code KNEEHIGH while checking out to save 50%!!! That is HALF OFF people!!
Click below to go directly to Mary Frances -vintage things-

These photos represent just a sampling of what you will find in my store.
Click any of the photos to go shopping!

2 Comments

Ho Ho

"The Santa Claus House"

THE NORTH POLE

83 miles from Delta Junction, Alaska

We've been there.

This here is Santa.

This is as close as we got to him.

Holly Berry was "too shy" to sit in his lap this year. It came as an absolute shock since, as most of you know, if Holly Berry has a shy bone in her body it is only the size of a stirrup.

(The stirrup is the smallest bone in the body and is located in the eardrum.

You can read more about it on www.google.com)

We found the "The Santa Claus House" to be much like (ok, exactly like) a gigantic gift shop. We made it out with all of our dollars in check. Shew.

A guy offered to take our picture with this big stuffed moose. It took him a while to figure out how to work the camera. It was pretty awkward. But nice.

I've heard Santa keeps his reindeer outside "The Santa Claus House" but we didn't see them. Of course, we didn't spend a lot of time circling the building either. It was pretty cold that day.

While "The Santa Claus House" is a really fun attraction, it should not be mistaken for the real North Pole. The real North Pole is a magical place. The real North Pole does not contain the only McDonald's we visit once a month. No one can ever really drive to the real North Pole (no one besides Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the elves) and no one ever should.

We told Holly Berry that North Pole, Alaska was just a city named "North Pole" and that Santa was visiting much like he visits other places in the world. Worth the trip? Yes.

Check it out for yourself.

http://www.santaclaushouse.com/visit.asp

6 Comments

Dinner Talk: Gift Idea

This is a great gift idea straight from the virtual pages of For The Luv of Boys blog at http://fortheluvofboys.blogspot.com/. It is a jar-full-o-family-friendly-questions for the dinner table. I LOVE this idea and will be using it again, and again, and again. So, if you think I may be gifting you in the future, look away.

I used an old salsa or spaghetti sauce glass jar. Nothing fancy.

I painted the lid with craft paint.

The most time consuming part was curling the paper strips. I did it by wrapping them around a pencil.

Ambrosia, from For The Luv of Boys even generously supplies the conversation starters on her blog. You can find them here!

9 Comments

Monday, December 27, 2010

Fun in the Snow

She was kinda ill that day. The snow doesn't always agree with her.

Most of the time spent out there was happy time.

This look says, "This isn't really working. Our sled is flimsy and there isn't enough snow, but we are doing the best we can."

This look says, "I am not sliding fast enough and somehow, though deep down I know it isn't true, I blame you, Mom."

We are caribou.

Christmas Card Photo Op: Do it yourself

8 Comments

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Melting Crayons

Still need an inexpensive gift idea? No? You're all done?

Well, you can save this one for next year.

I know this has been done to death all over blog land, but I am posting anyway.

We needed something to give the kids at school for Christmas.

I am super happy with the way they turned out.

STEP 1

Gather all the old crayons you can find. We ended up using some of our good ones too, but Almond Joy was perfectly ok with this. She has plenty and she understood we were making something to give to her friends. It was worth a few good crayons to her.

STEP 2

Take the wrappers off. This can be time consuming, especially before you realize you can take a sharp knife to make a slit down the paper sleeve.

Your welcome.

STEP 3

Then break them up into little bits and add them to your muffin tin. Almond Joy helped me with this step. She decided which colors would work well together. Bright colors work best. We used 2-3 colors per star but you could get crazy if you wanted. We've actually done this activity before and found that using more than 5 colors just results in a muddy brick of a crayon. Not pretty.

STEP 4

Then just cook them up! Put them in the over for about 10 minutes on 300 degrees. Check on them periodically. Once they are good and melted, pull them out. Let them cool completely before popping them out of the mold. If you pull them out too early, they are likely to crack. If they do, just melt them down again. No big deal.

Here are some of my favorites!

I attached them to this pretty glitter paper I found at JoAnn's in Fairbanks. Convincing Old Man Chuck to allow me to pull into JoAnn's for 10 minutes when he was ready to get on back to Delta Junction was not an easy task.

Figuring out how to affix the stars to the paper wasn't easy either. The top sides of the crayons were a slightly concave so getting them to stick with glue wasn't possible. I didn't want to just flip them over because the bottom sides were the prettiest. Then Chuck suggested Duct Tape. And it worked. And while I didn't like the fact that Chuck thought of it before me, I went with it.

I wanted to add something regarding the true meaning of Christmas so I searched for Christmas songs with "star" in the title.

I chose this one because it seemed simple enough for a preschooler to understand. Of course, most of our students can't read, but I thought if a parent were to read it aloud, the preschooler would be capable of absorbing it.