Holiday Festivities | School Treats

School Treats

December 18, 2011

Between our trip to Target and our Jingle Jolly party, we took some time out of the day to make this year's school treats.  Thanks to Pinterest (my obsession), I was able to find two adorable, easy treats for the kids at school. 

Reindeer Food

We started our crafts by making Reindeer Food so the kids could all sprinkle it on their lawns Christmas Eve for the reindeer to eat.  We included very stale Cheerios from our pantry, store bought oats, red and green sprinkles and cookie sprinkles of all sorts.  Emerson did a great job making these bags almost all-by-herself.  I printed off an adorable free printable from The TomKat Studio (one of my faves), to serve as the gift tag and adorned with ribbon.  How cute!!  We hope all the kids sprinkled their lawns, sidewalks, or decks for their special reindeer visitors on Christmas Eve.  

Peppermint Play Dough

Our second crafty treat of the day, wasn't a treat at all.  We decided, instead of making an edible treat, we would make something the kids could play with and keep for months to come.  So we settled on Peppermint Play Dough.  It was a toss-up between gingerbread or peppermint, but ultimately the peppermint won out when I found the adorable candy cane cookie cutters at Michael's!  We used the recipe from a post on Pinterest via the Idea Room (again, love it!!).  You may remember our play dough making for preschool last year.  I always think it's going to be so messy and take forever, but it's really pretty simple.  I'm not sure I will ever buy PlayDoh again, except maybe for convenience. And, now I know you can any essential oil to it and make it whatever flavor you want.  YUMMY!!  Another great school treat idea!!

Had to buy these for the containers!!

Peppermint Play Dough Recipe

(via the Idea Room)

1 cup flour
1/4 cup salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar 
1 Tablespoon Peppermint Oil Extract 

* I used Peppermint extract and used a lot more than a tablespoon
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup water

1. Mix flour, salt, & cream of tartar in a medium cooking pot.
2. Add water, peppermint extract and oil.
3. Stir over medium heat 3 to 5 minutes stirring constantly.
4. When mixture forms a ball in pot, remove.
5. Knead until smooth.
6. Play and explore with this fragrant, brightly colored dough as you would any play dough.
7. Put in a plastic bag and refrigerate to store.

Holiday Festivities | Leading up to Christmas (Part three)

December 18th, 2011

Santa's Sack

You all may remember last year, we started a tradition in the Dever household of participating in the Santa's Sack program for the NC Children's Hospital.  We decided, along with the Herman Family, that it was more important to give to those in need, than to exchange presents between our families.  So, Sunday morning (12/18), we headed to Target to pick out the gifts for the children at the hospital.  Emerson gets so excited about picking out the presents and this year we told her she could help deliver them.  She did a great job picking out a few presents for both male and female and for different age ranges.  I'm glad she gets so excited about doing nice things for others, and I can only hope this will be a tradition we carry-on for a very long time!!

She took a minute out of shopping to show us the Lalaloopsy Doll she wanted for Christmas.  

3rd Annual Jingle Jolly Party

The evening of Sunday, December 18th we headed to the 3rd Annual Jingle Jolly party hosted by the Bryant family.  Haegan is a good friend of all the girls, but this is the first year she has gone to a new school so the girls were so excited to spend some time together.  As always, Kerry (Haegan's mom) out did herself with yummy treats and a special visit from Santa Claus.  Although it was quite chilly, we still had a great time with good friends, caroling, visiting with Santa, and getting in the holiday spirit.

Quite a threesome, these girls!!

Santa made an early appearance and let every child sit on his lap.  Santa is such a patient man!!

Emerson's visit with Santa!!

Haegan was really thinking about what she wanted!

Ready for some caroling....

Everyone in the "sled" and ready to drive around the neighborhood to sing some carols!!

Wordless Wednesday: This Year's Costume

.....we've begun the countdown to this year's recital!!  

First step is the theme of the show and the costumes!

This year's theme is "Turn Off The TV And Dance!"

Emerson's class will be dancing to the muppets (both a ballet and tap dance) and this is her costume...obviously the catalog picture!!