Homemade Christmas- Monogram plate gift

Here is one of the hostess gifts I made this year!

Monogram Fabric-backed Plates:

Here is what you will need:
a clear glass plate
fabric (enough to cover you plate)
Scrapbook paper (enough for your monogram)
Xacto Knife
Scissors
Mod Podge and bush

1.) Make your monogram. I free handed my "N" but you could print a letter off of your computer on the back of your paper using the Mirror Image Printing option. I also traced around the bottom of my plate to know how big to make the letter. 2.) Cut out your letter using an Xacto Knife.

Optional: I distressed my letter with some brown ink. 3.) Cut a piece fabric in a square that is about an inch bigger on each of the sides of the plate. (I know the plate is hard to see but it is clear) 4.) Place your plate on a cup with the bottom facing up. I found it was easier to work with this way!

5.) Brush on a coat of Mod Podge. on the inner circle only for now.



6.) Place your monogram upside down on the Mod Podge.

7.) Brush on Mod Podge over your monogram. Make sure the keep the monogram flat and to press out any bubbles. Now- let dry (Have a sandwhich or something)

8.) When it is dry, bush on more mod Podge all over the whole plate... Be generous with it

9.) Place the fabric over your plate and flatten out any bubbles.

10.) Brush on more Mod Podge all over the top of the fabric. Let dry... this can take a while so just put it off to the side. Or, you can do what I did and check on it every 10 minutes or so... is it done yet?- nope... is it done yet?- nope....

11.) When it is FINALLY dry cut off the extra fabric by cutting around the plate as close as you can. If you are worried about the edges frying you can brush a little more Mod Podge around the edge.

12.) Flip it over! Very Cool!
Wouldn't this be so great as a hostess gift? You can bring it with cookies, bars, or other sweets on top of it and they get to keep the plate!

I also think that it could make a very cool Grandparent gift if you print a picture of your kids or family and put it in the place of the monogram.

Thanksgiving Crafts and Fun Stuff

My kids are really excited to try some of these Thanksgiving crafts we found online over at FamilyFun.com (and just so you know, I am not being paid to promote them, I just find a lot of cute stuff there. It's my "go to" spot for holiday crafts and ideas.):

These Pilgrim hats are cute and easy

And the Turkey Hats will get you in the mood to "gobble" up your Thanksgiving dinner!

The Mayflower Toppers are the cutest ship chapeaus I've ever seen.

We're thinking we'll make a 3-D version of the Mayflower as a table centerpiece to hold our "I'm thankful for..." notes. KID 1 is a pro at folding paper into boats, thanks to Curious George Rides a Bike!

The Marshmallow Pilgrim Hats look easy and delicious...but maybe a bit messy for little ones, both making and eating.

Older kids might enjoy making these Pilgrim and Native American tube people to decorate the Thanksgiving table. They're adorable and could be saved and reused each year.

Our Top Ten Favorite Holiday Traditions, from Pat

1. My children each have an advent calendar. They can open one pocket each day. It's just something small (barrettes, a coin, earrings, etc.) but they look forward to it each day.

2. Each day for 16 days the children and I bake a different kind of cookie. On the 17th day, we organize the cookies onto plates that we then give away to everyone who helps us throughout the year from the librarian to the garbage collector, as well as to all our friends.



3. The children and I make all the Christmas cards that we send to friends and family. (Often while the cookies are baking!)

4. We read a different Christmas story for bedtime each night starting on Dec. 1st. We always read Silent Night, In the Manger and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve.

5. We put the tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. There is a picture ornament for each christmas since the children were born. There's also an ornament for every trip we've taken. They always bring out the stories of "...remember when....". Last we tie a red ribbon on the tree and remember all our loved ones that passed on during the year.



6. Each year, each child picks out a new ornament for the tree that represents something from their life that year to add to the family tree.

7. As often as possible, we sit together as a family in the evenings before bed and sing Christmas songs while Mother plays the piano.

8. In the evening on Dec. 5th, we put our shoes out for St. Nikolas filled with apples and oats for his donkey. We tell the story of St. Nikolas. The next morning, it's been replaced with small gifts from him.

9. We spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my husband's family. We always go to the Christmas Eve service at the church together with his parents, brothers and their families.

10. We put up the Nativity set each year and tell the story of Jesus birth as we unwrap each piece. The children have a plastic version they can play with and retell the story over and over again.

Homemade Christmas - Placemat Apron

Here is my first holiday tutorial for you! We are going to start out simple! If you have a sewing machine and can sew a straight line you can do this!

**The place mat apron is not my original idea... But I have adapted it to make it my own... this is how I make it.***

Here is what you will need:
A place mat

Ribbon

A water soluble pencil

Sewing machine (with sewing tools such as scissors, thread, pins etc...)

1.) Fold the top corners down on the WRONG side of the place mat and pin.

2.) sew a 1 to 1 1/2 inch seam on the folder side of the corner. You are making a casing for your ribbon. Repeat on the other corner

3.) Flip the place mat over to the RIGHT side and fold up the bottom edge about 4 inches and pin. (I sewed ribbon on the bottom edge -the back side so that when I folded it up you could see it)

4.) With a water soluble pencil (or something washable) make vertical lines at 2 inches, 4 inches, 8 inches and 10 inches. This is to make our pocket with little slots to hold our utensils. (click on the picture to see it better.)

5.) Top sew your pocket on the edges and on the lines that you marked.

I also sewed ribbon across the top part of the apron for a little extra decoration... this is optional!

6.) Cut your ribbon long enough to go over the head and be able to tie about the back, I cut mine about 4.5 feet. Attach a safety pin to one of the ends

7.) feed the safety pin into your casing.

up and out of the top and back down the other side.

Fill it with some baking utensils and you have a CUUUUUTE gift! Use Bryssy's Freezer Paper Stencil tutorial to personalize it!

This is going to a VERY special little girl!

Bins and Purge

This week I have begun the semi-annual event that I like to call "Bins and Purge". Not to be confused with the eating disorder. I really hate to throw up. No, this has nothing to do with food. It has to do with toys. About every six months the toy situation at our house gets a little out of control and that is when it is time for an overhaul.

I don't know about you, but our toys seem to multiply like rabbits. I bet they are down there in the playroom reproducing right now. The Super Heroes procreating with the Barbies resulting in hundreds of little Legos and K'Nex. OK, that image might be a little disturbing. However it happens, the toys start to take over.

In anticipation of the barrage of new toys that will surely come with Christmas and the two birthdays that follow, it's time for "Bins and Purge." This event begins with sorting through all current toys and toy chests, which is a lot because we have five levels in our house. This is kind of like a treasure hunt because we usually find pieces and parts that we have been missing, and the kids rediscover old favorites they haven't seen in a while.

After everything is sorted, we return all pieces and parts to the appropriate bins and create new bins as needed. Voila...


We have many bins in different shapes and sizes. I really like these clear bins because it is easy for the kids to see what's inside of each one. Our basement already had a bunch of built in shelves when we moved in, so it's easy for us to store the bins.

Then it's time to purge. If you hear something go bump in the night, it's probably me sneaking around while my cherubs are sleeping "trashing" the place. I have found that giving away or throwing away toys while the children are awake doesn't work. Everything suddenly becomes their most favorite item that they cannot live without.

So I become the "toy-reaper". Items headed for the trash are: anything with missing pieces or parts, anything broken, anything toy that came out of a happy meal. Items headed to give away: anything decent that hasn't been played with in the last 6 months, random small toys that don't fit into one of the "bin" categories, items that all of my children have surpassed developmentally, and stuffed animals with no significance (I'm just not a big fan of stuffed animals). I kind of like the idea that these toys could have an extended life someplace else with new little people.

Ahhh...it feels so good to throw/give things away. And everything is organized.

For a moment.

And as soon as the kids wake up tomorrow it all starts over again. But I guess the point of having toys is to play with them, not store them away, right?

Swine Flu

This is probably a very sensitive subject, but I've decided to start a discussion about it here anyway. I am really not worried about swine flu (or H1N1, if you want to be PC for pigs), as it doesn't seem to be any worse than the regular flu and I try not to get swayed by media hype, but I got my kids inoculated against it anyway. In fact, I called and called the pediatrician's office for weeks to see if they had yet received any vaccinations. My kids got colds over the weekend and Ethan had goopy eyes, so I had to take him in and luckily, they didn't have fevers and were able to get the H1N1 vax. The next night, I took them to tae kwon do for Ethan's class and I was talking to a guy I know there and mentioned the pinkeye and the flu mist my kids received. "You got your kids the swine flu vaccination?" he asked, appalled. "Yeah," I said testily. "1976 - same thing happened - lots of people got Guillaine-Barre syndrome from it and DIED," he responded. Now, first of all, I don't like it when people question the decisions I make for my children. I am an educated person and I researched the new swine flu vaccine as well as the one for seasonal flu and I also trust my pediatrician. However, I was scared. I came home and read all I could on the subject. And here are some things I learned:
1. Yes, it seems that some people have developed Guillaine-Barre syndrome from flu vaccines. It's rare and although no cases have (yet) been linked to the H1N1 vax, it has been linked to the shot from 1976 and the seasonal flu vaccine. Do you know what else causes Guillaine-Barre, though? The flu. Mono. Surgery. AIDS. Most commonly, it's food poisoning. And sometimes they have no idea what causes it. These "causes" are merely educated guesses by doctors.
2. The flu mist that my children received doesn't have any preservatives in it. I don't believe that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism or anything else, for that matter, but even so, it's not in the flu mist. And there's so little in the injection that you're more likely to get mercury poisoning from eating fish than from a vaccine.
3. This was the most interesting to me: When we are bombarded with facts and opinions about an issue, our brains aren't wired to make logical decisions about risk vs. benefit. We have definitely been bombarded with this swine flu stuff and a lot of us (myself included) are panicky about whether or not we should "subject" our kids to such a "risky" vaccine. But what about other health risks? If you suspected you had appendicitis, you'd go to the hospital, right? You wouldn't worry about the too-high rates of post-operative infection or medical errors. You'd have that sucker cut out of you before it burst and killed you, because you understand that the benefit outweighs the risk. Same with seat belts. People have been killed by seat belts in car accidents. However, you'd just be outright stupid if you didn't put one on every time you get in a vehicle, because you know more people have been saved by seat belts and, again, the benefit outweighs the risk.
Let's face it: life is risky. And my philosophy is, don't worry about stuff, but protect yourself and your kids the best you can. For me and my family, that means vaccines. I read an article in a health magazine years ago that listed the 10 best things to do for your health. #1 was childhood immunizations. #1! It beat out exercise, eating a lot of vegetables, giving blood, and whatever else was on that list. So I don't see the need to have a "chicken pox party" when my kids can get a simple shot and avoid that illness (and, possibly, shingles later) altogether.
My friend at tae kwon do has his own views about the H1N1 vaccine. He's a smart guy, he's done his research, and he's decided it's not the best thing for his family. I can respect that. My point is not to blast anyone who doesn't get their kids the swine flu vax because, honestly, it's probably not that big of a deal and it's none of my business. My point is this: research it. Read reputable sources. Base decisions on facts and what you think is best for your family, not what politicians or conspiracy theorists or homeopathic medicine vendors or windbags on the internet (myself included) say.

A Word of Advice from Donna

Paul and I learned a hard lesson this week, one that I hope you can avoid. Here's what happened:

Last month, our son developed a watery, itchy red eye over the weekend. We took him to the pediatrician on Monday and our suspicions were confirmed: it was pinkeye. He couldn't go back to school until he had at least 24 hour's worth of antibiotic eye drops. The doctor also mentioned that we should go ahead and use these drops on our daughter as needed, since pinkeye is extremely contagious.

His pinkeye cleared up in a couple of days, but he kept complaining that his eye was very sensitive to light. Hmm. I read all the fine print of side effects from the Tobramycin eye drops, but didn't remember seeing light sensitivity as one of them. I assumed it was from the pinkeye and would eventually go away.

No one else in the family ever developed pinkeye (although I was hyper-aware of every little itch in my eyes for days...sort of like when I was teaching and one of my students would have headlice and I couldn't stop scratching my head, sure that I had bugs crawling on my head, too.)

Well, the pinkeye came back in full force on Monday this week, as we made the two-hour drive to the space coast to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis lift off. By the time we parked our car and found a good spot on the river in Titusville to watch it, KID 1 could barely even open his sore eye. The good news is it was bright and sunny, a perfect day for a launch. It went up without a hitch and was an awesome sight to see!

When we got back home that night, I got out the Tobramycin drops and dosed his sore eye and his good eye (that's what you do for pinkeye) and sent him to bed. Paul and I decided that we should take him to our family eye doctor this time, worried that this could be some horrible deep-socket infection doing damage to our son's vision. I need to stop watching House.

The drama involved in our first appointment with the eye doctor was exasperating, but he eventually allowed the nurse to put drops in his eye (while I held his head back and restrained his arms...he managed to kick me in the shins several times before I got my leg wrapped over his leg the way the pediatrician's nurse does when we take him for shots. I wish I didn't have to know the best way to put a full body lock on my child, but there you go.) Everyone was assuming it was an infection until the doctor finally put the blacklight magnifier over his eye and said, "Oh, yeah. There's a foreign body in there." My heart clenched and I tried not to panic.

He allowed me to look through the magnifier and, sure enough, there was a spot on his iris, right at the lower edge. Turns out he had metal in his eye for over a month. The metal had come out, but it left rust in his eye which was preventing his eye from healing properly, leaving him susceptible to infection. We had to come back in the afternoon when another doctor was there who could remove the rust ring from our son's eye.

Really?! Rust in his eye?! We have to do all this again?! We went back and met with the second doctor who gave our son several doses of numbing drops, allowed him to feel the tiny brush he would use to brush away the rust in his eye, and then waited patiently for our son to cooperate while he stuck this little brush in his eye while holding absolutely still. After several threats and a bribe ("We'll have to hold you down and pry your eye open," "We'll have to take you to the hospital and give you gas to make you sleep so we can open your eye and remove the rust," "We won't be able to go camping next week if you have to have eye surgery,"...it was awful, to say the least), he eventually did cooperate, and it took all of two seconds (literally) to remove the rust.

He cried afterward but told us it didn't hurt. He just had to release some of that stress. Poor kid had dealt with this foreign object in his eye for over a month...I'm trying not to feel the heavy weight of guilt that is pressing on my mind. Why didn't I bring him in for a check when he kept complaining about light sensitivity?

Rachel and I were discussing this yesterday after it was all taken care of. We decided that we tend to want to believe that our kids are fine, since most of the time they are. We don't like to act like hypochondriacs...it doesn't go over well at the pediatrician's office. But in the end, no one else is going to be my child's advocate. If I end up with a reputation, so what? I will know that my child is healthy, with no broken bones or metal in his eye.

My advice to you:


1. Even if you know for sure it's pinkeye, go to the eye doctor. The pediatrician doesn't have the necessary equipment to see into the eye for a thorough examination. I'm not blaming our pediatrician. I just wish I had taken our son to the eye doctor in the first place.


2. Listen to your gut instinct, especially when it comes to your kids' health. If you think something is not quite right, have it checked. If it all turns out fine, your mind will be at ease. Who cares if the pediatrician's staff thinks you're a hypochondriac? You're single-handedly keeping them in business!