Revamp Your Grocery List

Do you ever go grocery shopping thinking you've spent a certain amount and then check out and hear the cashier say "your total is blah blah blah" and you think OMG, how did that happen??? 

A few years ago that was a regular occurrence for me. I found that I was often spending more than I thought I'd spend, impulse buying, forgetting items I needed, etc... It's so frustrating when you go to cook a meal for your hungry family and then realize you're missing something you need!

I started revamping the way I shopped and the way I made a grocery list. Since then, I walk into the store knowing exactly what I'm going to spend and I have to say that 9 times out of 10 I'm right on the money and I rarely forget what I need to get.

Snow Ice Cream Blizzards

Take that Dairy Queen!

Snow Ice Cream

1 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 tbsp Vanilla Extract
Fresh White Snow

Mix the first 3 ingredients together in a large bowl. Slowly add snow and stir up until you reach the desired consistency. I took a tea pitcher outside and filled it with fresh snow then used about 1/2 to make the ice cream, about 4 large serving spoon fulls. Just do a bit at a time and taste as you go.

*Tip: Don't add sugar after you add the snow, it will just freeze and stay gritty.

We added crushed m&m's and candy canes to ours. Sweet and fun treat that the kids really enjoyed. This will be a new tradition for winter time in our house. Can't wait to make some chocolate!

Bath Time Finger Puppets

I saw this post with a super cute idea to make finger puppets that the kids could play with in the tub:

http://spoonful.com/crafts/waterproof-puppet-theater

My kids love puppets and they love to play in the tub so this idea is genius! It's also easy, fast, and cheap. Pick up a couple packs of rubber cleaning gloves for $1, cut the fingers off, then draw whatever you want on them with permanent markers, and you're done. Your kids will think you're super mom and bath time tonight will be full of imagination, fun, and giggles!

Elf on the Shelf

A New Christmas Tradition

This year we jumped on the bandwagon and got an elf. My kids were a little apprehensive about having him in the house at first so I didn't really emphasize the part of the story that states that he would be watching them and reporting to Santa. We read the story and they did see that part but I just chose not to remind them of it over and over. I wanted them to think that he was a cute little elf not a creepy little stalker. We just looked at him as a fun addition to the magic of Christmas around our home. I decided not to make our elf naughty either, though I have found a lot of hilarious things I would have enjoyed doing, it just didn't make sense to me to have an elf that belongs on the naughty list! 

My kids named our elf "King Kirby". My 2 year old wanted to name him Kirby, after the Nintendo character, and my 8 year old wanted to name him King of the Elves... neither would budge so we agreed to a combined name of "King Kirby". 

If you are contemplating adding an elf to your Christmas traditions next year, I say go for it! I had a lot of fun with it, it took very little of my time, and it was great to see my kids reactions as well as to share the adventures with others online, everyone got a kick out of our little guy this year. I think that I will get another elf next year and then another the following so that each kid can have an elf. I would love to think that when they grow and have their own children that they will continue this tradition using the elf they themselves had as a child.

I found lots of cute ideas of things to do with Kirby on Pinterest and also came up with a few of my own: