fun with gingerbread

the past couple weeks the girls have had a lot of fun with gingerbread people. normally i don't think to do too much with gingerbread men at christmas time. sure they're cute and i've always wanted to buy one of those kits to make a gingerbread house but never have. this year, my mom gave the girls a cute foam gingerbread man ornament kit to put together so along with that the help of pinterest (my crafty bff resource) i found some fun things for us to do.

we made yummy chewy gingerbread cookies. i'm not a big fan of gingerbread cookies but wanted the girls to experience them so i searched around for a recipe that had good reviews and when i saw a chewy one i knew this was it. much better than the hard, crunchy gingerbread cookies. here's the recipe link: http://stickafork.net/2011/12/chewy-gingerbread-cookies/

we painted gingerbread people using gingerbread paint. just mixed some brown (and white to lighten) paint with ginger, cinnamon and cloves. it smelled wonderful! and the fact that we could paint outside was an added bonus!

 later that evening when the gingerbread paint had dried the girls decorated their gingerbread people with paint and glitter. sophie remembered that i had mentioned it. i am still finding glitter in my dining room. i think we'll go outside to glitter next time (even if it's freezing).

here are the foam ornaments that grandma gave the girls. molly was set on turning hers into a girl so she opted to place the bow on the side of the gingerbread's head rather than using it as a bow tie as suggested. sophie followed.

 

of course there has to be some learning involved (it's the teacher in me, i can't help it). sophie worked on patterning with gingerbread houses, men, and candy.

molly worked on vowel sounds and spelling words that were on the gingerbread.

both girls enjoyed counting out buttons and placing them on the gingerbread. they also enjoyed just decorating also.

 we made the cutest book that i found on this site called one yummy gingerbread. first the girls decorated their gingerbread people. 

here is the story

finally, today, we made our gingerbread houses. this was supposed to be done last week but molly had a little problem when she was told she couldn't have a sucker after lunch. her behavior resulted in a consequence of no treats for a week. it's tough to make a gingerbread house if you can't eat it so waited. sophie needed a lot of help assembling hers. molly really only needed help on the roof. decorating was a cinch!

 

sophie's finished product

 

and molly's

 

such fun times. oh, and they did eat dinner, no one was sick, and went to bed and fell asleep without any problems. guess they get their high sugar tolerance from me! 

update on sneak the elf

here is what sneak has been up to the past 5 days!

 

sleeping in the doll bed

reading christmas books to the snowmen

riding on the snowman's shoulders

 

holding baby Jesus

replacing stockings with underwear. he did replace matt and my stockings

with our underwear also but i'll spare you the picture of it!

 

the girls are having so much fun with him. molly had a mild panic attack yesterday morning as she accidently touched him while trying to set up the wise men that had fallen over at the manger scene. she lost her balance and her hand came down on his legs. she was so upset and crying. i assured her the magic would probably not be gone becuase it was an accident and she just lost her balance. fortunatly sneak felt the same way and came back this morning with one of his silliest ideas yet!

meet sneak

sneak the elf came to visit us on december 1st. having an elf is a new thing for our family but i was sure molly and sophie would love it, and they do! especially molly. she loves magic and make believe and just eats it all up. the girl believes in fairies and loves the magic of things so i knew the elf would be a hit. on saturday morning, the girls found him hanging from the fireplace door with a note. next to him was a box containing the book that gave us all the instructions about him. we chose the name sneak because he'll be sneaking around our house. the girls spent lots of time by him on saturday reading him books, wondering if he was going to change positions, and how he was going to get the note off (which reads, "hi molly and sophie! please do not touch me! open the present i brought and lets have some fun!)

 

day 2 he was a little tricky to find. it wasn't until they were taking a bath sunday morning that they spotted him.

sophie found him on day 3 munching on some gingerbread cookies. molly was hoping he'd eat one of the cookies we'd made the night before. he made a mess of crumbs which the girls thought was hilarious.

 

day 4 was playtime as sneak decided to have tea with molly and sophie's babies.

 

today, day 5 was probably their least favorite because he covered up some ornaments when tp-ing the christmas tree. sophie was very bothered she couldn't see her monkey and both girls were anxious for the toilet paper to come off. while they still thought it was silly, they didn't like their ornaments covered.

and there he sits, still perched in the toilet paper roll at the top of the tree waiting to see where i'll place him tonight. i still don't know....perhaps he'll read some christmas books.

 

 

 

 

 

christmas time is here....

on saturday we headed out to the great outdoors in search of the drake family christmas tree. ok, we didn't do it quite christmas vacation style, but went back to the little tree farm we found up here last year. this year, we discovered that we need to be there on the friday after thanksgiving at 9 when they open to select our tree. we chose a nice tree but many of the "good ones" were already tagged and purchased. one thing we are getting better at is finding a tree that fits in our house. we've always had a habit of picking a tree that was way too big. 

when we lived in paola we had a huge picture window and in 2009 this was the tree we found. it filled our living room to the point that we could only sit on one side of the couch to see the t.v. half our living room was taken up by tree. but it was a beautiful, full christmas tree that brought us lots of compliments from those passing by our house.

here is this year's tree all decortated minus the girls' new ornaments for the year. we're still waiting on molly's to come. hopefully it will be here tomorrow. we have a wonderful tradition of getting our kids a new ornament every year to build up there collection. my parents did this with me (and still do) and i loved when i had a place of my own to have all my special ornaments. to this day they're still on the tree (many filling in the sides and back, but they're there). molly and sophie are building up quite a collection and it's so fun to see their faces light up as they rediscover their ornaments each year.

 

tonight we watched how the grinch stole christmas (the animated version). this along with charlie brown's christmas, is my favorite christmas movie. we read the book after dinner and i whipped up some green peanut butter grinch cookies. the girls were so excited to watch (and eat). they really enjoyed the movie (and the cookies).

no, sophie didn't eat the entire platter. i removed it after the picture and limited them to two cookies much to their disapproval.

following the grinch was shrek the halls which they were not at all interested in. molly was begging for a grinch craft though so i got on the internet and found this one. make a grinch head, add eyes, mouth, and santa hat and then on the mouth write what you would do to make the grinch grin.

here are the completed grinches. sophie's mouth says, "to make the grinch grin i would dress him like a princess and dance", and molly's says,"...i would tell him stories, kiss him, and make friends with him."

 

 

i think we're going to do some fun gingerbread activities next. stay tuned....

goodbye mullet!

this past tuesday we took a trip to paola to visit friends and get haircuts from our favorite stylist, emmy. i was in desperate need of  a trim and sophie, well, she had a mullet. poor girl, the sides of her hair just wouldn't grow. i left it like this for the summer and just pulled her hair up a lot but gave up on the sides catching up. i've trimmed the back once before but she was not going to allow me to do it again. so, the appointment was made and she was excited to sit in the big chair and get her hair cut (she also knew there was a sucker involved when she finished).

front before



 

back before

 

the cut

 

front after

 

back after

 

she looks so cute and a little older, too. when we got out to the van after getting it cut she looked at me and said, i didn't cry. she just went snip snip and it didn't hurt. she asks me daily if it's still short. hopefully it will grow evenly this time. if not, she'll be in a cute little bob until it does!