Where's Chloe?

I felt like baking something quick for the kids.  It's fun to bake with them, but sometimes it's nice to just cram it all into a short amount of time and do it myself.  We've been learning the colors brown and yellow.  Last December, Family Fun Magazine published a great recipe for what they called "Candy Cane Twist" cookies.  We loved them.  I used the same recipe and created some Thanksgiving twists, using brown and yellow.  Sweets for my sweets.

I love to use Wilton food coloring.  It's a thick gel, and very potent stuff.  The recipe I used is here at Family Fun.

To keep the kids busy while I had fun baking, we got out our pumpkin pie playdough.

 I love this cookie dough recipe because it didn't require extra flour to make it usable.  It was very smooth, easy to manipulate.  Easy to roll "snakes" for twisting.

Brown and yellow. The kids enjoyed them.  Meanwhile, Chloe had been missing all day.  It took hours, and after hearing a faint snore in the living room, we located her in what has been her new spot for about a week.

What a weirdo!  I can imagine that this spot is incredibly loud.

Silly Chloe, but we sure love this game!  Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥

Turkeys, Triangles & Leaves, Oh My!

Well, these are elephants.. I am feeling very calm and patient this morning.  Time to catch up on the blog!  Our computer is still at the computer hospital.  We, however, have been very busy! 

We harvested some beautiful sunflower heads for the birds.  They demolished them in a couple of days with some help from a couple of squirrels.  We sure love all of our critters.

Did Thanksgiving REALLY sneak up on us?  It seems like things are flying by too fast.  We created some colorful turkeys last week.

Fuzzy photo, but look what my niece wore!  I vow to start posting her awesome outfits.  She has a personality to match her clothing, too. ♥

We kept busy on Veterans Day with busy projects.  No school means extra planning to keep these guys busy.  They love the elastic beading lace.

Six yellow triangles.  "Create whatever comes to your mind!" 

I love to see what they create. 

More turkeys, this time puppets.  I loved that the turkey pieces were stickers.  This was a five minute project that created hours of play time.  I think of that as a victory!

Hours of turkey puppet shows!  I realize that my photos are pretty bad.  As if having a rotten temporary computer gives me the ok to take bad photos, too. LOL!

Yesterday was a beautiful day!♥  I raked up a pile for the kids to play in.  A leaf pile has some sort of magical force that draws children to it.  Like a magnet!

They kept reminding me, "Nicole, it's FALL!"  They know it is my favorite time of year.  Bless their hearts!

It doesn't seem like here in Snohomish the leaves ever dry out enough to play in them.  We were lucky.

The "pile". ♥

We were so grateful for the beautiful day!  Happy Tuesday!♥♥♥

Computer Crash=Lack Of Blog Posts

Our computer hard drive crashed on Friday.  It is now being shipped somewhere across the country for some magical computer repair and file retrieval.  Thank goodness for that-  I would just have to throw a tizzy if I had to buy all of that downloaded music again.  Who knows- maybe I wouldn't even have to.  We are now using the horrible computer that has been sitting in storage just in case the crash actually happened.  Just so everyone knows- I HATE THIS COMPUTER.  It pauses for a minute or two every couple of sentences typed.  I don't have access to my photos, but found this really old one of Aiden on this hard drive so I could at least post something for you to look at.   Anyway- it will be a couple of weeks.  Maybe I'll get bored and have the patience to post occasionally, but until then- I will be loaded with lots of fun stuff to share when I finally get my hands on our new hard drive. Happy Sunday!♥♥♥
PS. That is a CUTE little guy! He'll be turning 6 next month.

Birthday Day

It's this little guys 6th birthday today!  We usually throw a little party.  It is, after all, the most important day for a child next to Christmas.  We keep a birthday bulletin board in the playroom so I don't forget anyone on their special day.  I keep a tub of party supplies handy- tablecloth, napkins, hats, balloons... whatever the dollar store has to offer! 

Sometimes I make cupcakes the night before.  The kids frost and decorate them at the party.  My FAVORITE birthday treat is the cookie sandwich.  $1.99 for a pack of chocolate chip cookies, another couple bucks for a container of cream cheese frosting, sandwich it together and stand it upright before sticking a candle inside.  Yum!  (Easy and FAST!)

Sometimes they get a little toy or something.  I DO go to Kohls and snag the $5 book and stuffed animal that goes with the book just for the birthday kid. I want each child to feel special. I was blessed as a child to be home with my parents on my birthday.  If the kids must be here- then I must make it fun for them.  Happy Friday! ♥♥♥

Abe & Sarahs Kids Drive

Most of you know that Adam and I help with the AWANA program at Machias Community Church in Snohomish.  We have been leading it for four years (wow- is it four? I am not sure..) and each October we like to start a drive.  Sometimes it is for the local food banks, last year it was for a troubled youth shelter.  This year we have organized a drive for Abe & Sarahs Kids.  This program puts together what they call loads of love to be distributed to our local social workers in the event that a child is removed from their home to be placed into the foster care system.  Sometimes the kids have nothing- and imagine receiving a backpack that contains any of the following: new pajamas, underwear, socks, toothbrush, brush, bible, blanket, etc.  It isn't much, but it IS. We are collecting items for ages 4 and up.  Usually baby items come in droves, but what about those older kids?  Our drive has kicked off and is going very well!  The boys are battling the girls with a coin drive. 

Part of running AWANA and organizing a drive involves rewarding the kids if they reach their goal.  This one was pretty fun- it was a food drive.  The goal was to collect 500 food items to donate to the local food bank.  If they reached that goal, Adam would get pied.  (By EACH child.)  Then they surpassed that goal and we rewarded them further- Adam would wear a dress while being pied.  I love that man!  There he was, in my princess Halloween costume.

Splat!!

 The final result- happy kids, a bountiful donation, and learning about the importance of giving to others.  If you would like to donate to the Abe & Sarahs Kids cause, check out their list of current needs.  It's a worthy cause.  Happy Thursday!♥♥♥

Squirrel In The House

Our little Chippy- I know I've posted so many times about him but we really love him! Now he enters the back door to get his peanut right out of my hand.  See the video below!

He's outside our back door as I type this-  he might as well learn to use the cat door. 

Speaking of cats- we got to play 'Where's Chloe' yesterday!  This cubby is her new spot!  Nobody found her, but when I finally pointed her out- the house was roaring with laughter and she was rewarded by unlimited amounts of high pitch talking at her and petting, just for being so cute.  Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥

November

Right on cue, November has arrived.  It felt like it this morning as we wandered through the thick fog to the bus stop.  We were all excited and happy for the change!  It is as if God knows that we enjoy moving forward.  Change is good!

The fire cozied us right up.  Boy are we grateful for this wood stove!

The kids all noticed the changes inside, too.  Where Halloween decorations sat, we are now reminded about what is important.

They were quick to point out the cornucopia, which surprised me! It's a small one, and up high. 

Our pilgrim friends have returned.  Welcome November! ♥♥♥