Wordless Wednesday: Our 10th Annual Cookie Exchange

Recovering from twelve delicious varieties…

5 Gift Ideas for Your Little Ones

Loving handmade, handcrafted gifts for the kids. So, I’m sharing these links with you.

1) For the little “rock star”, wooden teething and grasping toy by littlealouette

2) How about for the superheroes in your life? A Superhero cape for your crusader by Susipants

 3) Made with Rubberwood and Organic Cotton, “I Love My Planet toys” are fun and safe for children. Check out the rubberwood Giraffe at Peaceful Parlour.

4) Cooking Time play set from Studio Wren – super cute!

5) A cute “So Handsome Tie T-shirt” by We Choose Joy

What are some of your favorite buys this season? Or are you making a lot of your gifts this year?

Five Foodie Books for Festive Gifts

Here are some gift ideas for the foodie in your life, or for yourself! These food books live on our bookshelves with the exception of the children’s book and Ruhlman’s Twenty. That’s on my wish list – maybe Santa will leave it under the tree for me. Click on the images for more information. What’s on your “to-read” list?

Book Review and Giveaway: Make and Takes for Kids by Marie LeBaron

Sometimes (more often than you might think) I run out of crafty ideas. Really. Enter Marie LeBaron, founder and managing editor at Make and Takes. Her book “Make and Takes for Kids: 50 Crafts Throughout the Year” (Wiley) arrived and I devoured it cover-to-cover.

Marie LeBaron uses her background in early childhood development and creative edge to develop kid-friendly projects. But what sets this book apart is the fact that she outlines learning objectives and skills associated with the projects. The creative process is the focus for the kids, not necessarily the final project. However, if you’re looking for inspiration to make new things to sell, this is not your book – personal use only.

The projects are organized by months with four projects per month, some have five. The colorful book is beautifully layed out.

And, like a good educator, LeBaron gives a nice overview (at the beginning of the book) of basic supplies needed, which you probably have lying around in your house or they’re easily found at a craft supply support. The “simple instructions” for seasonal and holiday creations, edible and decorative, are exactly spot-on.

We tried the Paper Spiral Christmas tree project with some supplies we have in our stockpile.

Not too shabby working on identifying shapes, cutting and fine motor skills. My kids and I can’t wait to try more!

I would love to share this fun and insightful book with a reader, and what better time as we head into the holidays. If you love spending time creating with kids, won’t you share a favorite craft or food idea that you like to do in your home? Leave a comment by December 1, 2011 (11:59 pm CST) and I’ll randomly choose a lucky reader to send a copy of “Make and Takes for Kids”! Don’t forget to include your e-mail so I can contact you if you’re chosen.

Thanks and enjoy the weekend!

**This giveaway is not affiliated with Wiley, MakeandTakes.com, or Craft Critique**

Lego Birthday – Fun and Games

Taking a cue from the parties my parents threw for me, I put together a bunch of games for the kids knowing that we might get to all of them, or maybe only a few of them. I found that the kids were really happy to play on their own.

Activity Table: Just for starters, I printed out a bunch of coloring pages from the Lego website. As the kids finished a page, I hung them up with clothespins. I also placed a box of Legos in the middle of the table for random building.

Fill the Jar (relay): Typically there are two teams, each with a spoon, and a bucket of Legos. At the other end of the room, there is an empty jar or box, one for each team. The object of the game is to fill the box as quickly as possible with only as many bricks as you can hold in the spoon, and not spilling any of them while traveling to the box. Since there were a handful of younger kids, we just made everyone part of the same team, and they filled a jar together. Team effort with kids between the ages of two to five – much better!

Where’s Lego Man? This was easy. I taped the cut-out Lego men all over our basement. Double purpose: decoration and game! (And, as the kids collected them all, they were actually helping clean up! Sssshhhh!)

Pin the Brick on the Roof (a.k.a. Pin the Tail on the Donkey): Clearly, a very low budget, last minute drawing on a big sheet of paper. This game is self-explanatory, right? Blindfold, tape, and paper bricks made from construction paper. I wrote all our guests’ names on the “bricks”.

Bingo (Zingo): It’s a game by Think Fun; bingo with pictures and words instead of numbers. The kids were on their own on this one. The older kids called out the pictures. While they were playing this, my husband and I were getting dinner ready.

Zingo - we love this game

We also had estimating while the kids were eating pizza. I filled a jar with bricks and the kids tried to guess how many were in the jar – closest guess won a little prize. Lastly, we had an impromptu building challenge between the girls and the boys. Interestingly, the girls built houses, and the boys built spaceships.

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All the work my parents put into birthday parties while my brother and I were growing up – I appreciate it so much more. Ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins, and the party games my mom (and my friends’ moms) planned… It seems so old-fashioned now. Birthday parties. They are so much easier to host elsewhere. And it’s so nice to come home to a clean house. I know. We’ve had a few birthday parties outside of our home, too. But, the memories my kids have of their home birthday parties – priceless.

Lego Birthday – Treat bags and name coasters

So happy

These are the happiest little faces, next to my own kids smiling at me… but to get it right, it took a few tries.

Too far right, too high, too low, just right

Here are my tips.

• It may have been easier to just draw them with a permanent marker. I opted to use my inkjet printer and almost broke it.
• If you have a printer that you can feed through, I suggest you tape down the paper bag flap. It caused a few paper jams.
• Try some blank pieces of paper until you get the right placement and size that you like.

Lego-inspired place cards on paper coasters

If you look closely at the party table, you’ll see the coasters. This afterthought was a life saver with thirteen kids at the table. No one fought about where they would sit, and the kids were happy to see their names. We have an insane amount of paper coasters from a restaurant supply store – perfect. I just handwrote their names in bubble letters using black, yellow and red permanent markers.