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It’s December 1st! Let’s Look at an Advent Calendar.

And just like that, it’s December! Does your family have an advent calendar? Our family hasn’t done one before, but this year I decided to get a Lego Friends Advent calendar. Each day I will share with you whatever little surprise shows up behind that day’s door. 🙂

Advent calendars help us count down the days until Christmas Day. There are soooo many kinds of Advent calendars out there! They have them for Lego, Hot Wheels, Matchbox cars, Play Doh, chocolate, beauty products, jewelry, pets, wine, The Elf on the Shelf, rubber ducks, candles and the list goes on and on!! You can buy them premade or make one of your own.

Back to our Lego Friends Advent Calendar…the first picture is from the front of the box. Now let’s look at the backside.

From the backside of the box, you can carefully cut through the tape holding it closed and a flap will open up. You can make a fun Christmas scene here by adding each day’s surprise Lego set after you put it together.

There are separate little closed doors marked on the box and each door is labeled with a number.

The numbers are not in order so you get to do a little search to find each day’s numbered door. Today is December 1, so let’s find the box marked with a 1. There it is!

Let’s carefully open door #1…look what’s inside!

A small pack of Lego pieces…

Hmm…I wonder what these make? There aren’t any printed directions to build from, but after looking at the box a bit, I think these pieces make Santa’s chair.

Yes, they do! How fun!

Ok, I’m putting the chair in the Christmas scene!

I wonder what will be behind tomorrow’s door? Check back tomorrow to find out! 🙂 This is going to be lots of fun!

Simple Felt Gingerbread Man Kit

I went on another trip to a Dollar Tree store to check out what might be new for some Christmas/Winter fun. I found this felt gingerbread man kit that I thought was cute and is simple enough for even the little kids to do with a little help with gluing.

I know you can’t tell from the picture, but this guy is big! He measures about 15″ tall by about 11″ wide. 🙂 Since I bought him at a Dollar Tree store, he only cost $1.25 plus tax. Pretty cheap fun, right? All you need besides the kit is some glue. Be sure to save the small picture of the finished gingerbread man to use as your guide in putting him together.

One tip before you get started…you might like to make a pattern for each felt piece before you glue them together and then you can make as many gingerbread men as you would like to make. 😉

Here’s what is inside: felt shapes for the gingerbread man, eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, snowflakes and rickrack.

The eyes and mouth punch out from the black piece of felt.

And the light green piece of felt punches out into 4 pieces of rickrack.

Please note that there is a wrong and a right side to the gingerbread man. One side has printing on it so that will, of course, be the back side.

Grab your glue and let’s put this guy together! 🙂 I started by gluing on his eyes, nose and mouth.

Add his cheeks and snowflake buttons down the front.

Glue the 4 pieces of rickrack on his arms and legs and your gingerbread man is finished! 🙂 Note: the rickrack pieces didn’t quite reach from side to side on his arms and legs but it looks cute anyway.

You can add a magnet or a piece of string to the back of your gingerbread man if you would like to be able to hang him up. Check your nearest Dollar Tree store for this simple and cute gingerbread man felt kit! Have fun! 🙂

Lego Advent Calendars on Sale Today Only for Cyber Monday!

If you are looking for a Lego Advent Calendar, today is the day to buy them! I found them on sale for Cyber Monday deals at a couple of ONLINE stores and these are the best prices that I saw for each of these sets. These are not links to the stores, just pictures to help you find a great deal! (I am not an affiliate with these stores.)

#1.) Lego Friends 2022 Advent Calendar #41706 at Walmart.com for $22.39, regular price $34.99.

#2.) Lego Harry Potter 2022 Advent Calendar #76404 at Walmart.com for $28.79, regular price $44.99.

#3.) Lego Star Wars 2022 Advent Calendar #75340 at Walmart.com for $35.99, regular price of $44.99.

#4.) Lego City Advent Calendar #60352 at Walmart.com for $28.00, regular price $34.99.

I found 2 similarly priced sets at Target.com…

#5.) Lego Harry Potter Advent Calendar #76404 at Target.com for $28.79, regular price $35.99.

#6.) Lego Guardians of the Galaxy Advent Calendar at Target.com for $28.79, regular price $35.99.

Hope you can grab the one you’re looking for! 🙂

Making Turkeys From Cheese and Cracker Packs

Today I’m bringing you a fun Thanksgiving craft for the kids that they can also eat! 🙂 Let’s make some turkeys from a pack of cheese and crackers or breadsticks.

You will need: individual packs of cheese and crackers or breadsticks, some colored paper, wiggly eyes, double sided tape or glue, scissors and a pencil.

Help your child place their hand on the colored paper and use the pencil to trace around it. Little hands work best for this project but I’ll show you what you can do if you only have a “big person’s” hand like I did. 😉

Cut out the hand shape using the scissors.

I made 2 to show you what it looks like if you care to use scrapbook paper.

Break a pack of cheese and crackers or breadsticks off from the other packs.

The hand shape will be taped or glued to the back of the cheese and crackers pack to be the turkey’s feathers. Lay the pack on the hand shape and see how it fits together.

Because I used an adult sized hand to make my hand shape, the turkey’s feathers are too large for the pack of snacks. I drew 2 lines and cut off the thumb part of the shape and some on the other side to make my feathers fit better.

Attach the feathers to the back of the snack pack. I used double sided tape.

Now glue 2 wiggly eyes onto the cheese part of the snack pack.

Cut a triangle out from a piece of orange paper or use white paper and color the triangle orange. Glue it in place for the turkey’s beak.

Your turkey can be finished here or you can add some turkey legs. I used yellow paper for some legs for 1 of my turkeys.

And that’s all there is to it! I hope your kids have fun making some mostly edible turkeys for Thanksgiving this year! 🙂

Delicious Cinnamon Sugar Toast

So earlier this week we talked about a healthy dish involving cabbage, apples and bacon. Today’s post is about a super fast, but delicious (and yes, not quite so healthy) way to have toast. This is a flashback to when I was a child and mom would let us have cinnamon sugar toast for a special treat. 🙂 (Yep, there was a limit on how many pieces we could have!)

All you need is bread, a toaster, butter, white sugar and cinnamon.

Mix up some cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl using 1 part cinnamon to 4 parts sugar. For example, use 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 4 teaspoons of sugar. Pop a piece of bread into the toaster and toast to your desire crispness.

As soon as your toast is done, spread some butter on it so the butter will melt.

Using a spoon, sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture onto the toast.

That’s it! Super quick, super easy and super yummy!

You might want to keep a close eye on your cinnamon sugar toast! It will smell so delicious that someone might sneak a bite! 😉

Cabbage and Apples and Bacon, Oh My!

Cabbage is a super food which means it’s really good for you and your kids. But how do you get them to eat it? This is an idea you might try because the cabbage flavor is masked somewhat by the other ingredients. 🙂 This is not an exact recipe but leaves it open for you to use the ingredients you like and make the amount that fits your family.

We’ll start off with some cabbage chopped in smallish pieces. Cabbage cooks down quite a bit so I suggest you chop up at least half of a head or more.

Using a large skillet, fry several slices of bacon until crispy.

Remove the bacon from the skillet and after it has cooled enough to handle safely, crumble it into small pieces. Set the bacon aside for a little later.

Put the cabbage into the skillet with the bacon grease on a medium heat. Add salt and pepper to suit your taste.

Add 2-3 tablespoons of butter.

Continue cooking till the cabbage softens. Add the bacon pieces into the skillet. Allowing the cabbage to brown some will add to the delicious flavor.

Lastly add in some apple slices and cook for just a couple minutes longer until the apples soften.

Sprinkle some cinnamon on top and stir to combine.

Serve hot as the meal’s vegetable and hopefully everyone will say “Yum!” 🙂

My husband likes to have onion and garlic added to this too. I’d love to hear what you think of this dish! Leave me a comment. 🙂 Thanks for visiting my blog!

Fun Toothpick Trick

Here’s a fun trick the kids can do to impress their friends and family. 😉 All you need is 5 wooden toothpicks, a small plate and some water.

Break each toothpick in the middle but leave the 2 halves attached. That’s important.

Place the broken part of each toothpick in the center of the plate as shown in the following picture. Place the bent toothpicks side by side but not quite touching each other. (Mine might be touching in the picture…oops!)

Very slowly let drops of water drip into the center of the toothpicks. You can use a spoon or an eye dropper but do just a couple of drops at a time. Watch what begins to take shape as you slowly add the water.

Keep slowly adding drops of water until the toothpicks form a….what do you see? Yes, a star! 🙂

Adding water too quickly or not in the center can make the trick not work quite right so be careful about those 2 things and you’ll do great!

Pretty neat, isn’t it? You can take it a step farther by telling your audience after you have laid the bent toothpick on the plate, that you are a magician and you will now make the toothpicks turn into a star without even touching them! 😉 I hope you have fun showing others your new trick! 🙂

Paper Bag Turkey from Crayola

Here’s another cute turkey craft for the kids to do to help get your house decorated for Thanksgiving! You can make a great turkey from a paper bag!

Directions for this fun project can be found on the Crayola website.

https://www.crayola.com/crafts/paper-bag-turkey-craft/

Crayola also has some free turkey coloring pages available for free! Check those out here:

https://www.crayola.com/search/?category=coloring-pages&searchText=turkey

Enjoy! 🙂