A twist on an old Danish tradition.

So as you all know I am always trying to find ways to keep my girls memory of my mom alive and so this Christmas I have found a way to bring back an old family tradition of ours and to include my mom. As we were growing up my parents would hide these little pictures of Nisse men every morning and the first one to find it got good luck for the rest of the day and got to hide the next Nisse Men. Now I dont remember much of my childhood and I know I have blocked a lot of it out but I do remember the feeling we had in our home every Christmas because of how hard my mom worked to make it magical for all of us. Now I know we probably continued doing this tradition after she got sick but as I for me it died when she got sick. A couple of years ago I found all her little Nisse men pictures and photo copied them all and gave them out as christmas gifts to my siblings. I finally got mine out and decided it was about time I would bring back the tradition. I put a little spin on mine though. I love the elf on the shelf idea but its just not christmas with out nisse men for me. So I kind of combine the two and included my mom in it all. To introduce the nisse men here is acute little note "from" my mom with I made with the mymemories software and I am going to leave it on our porch for my girls.

Sorry the note is hard to read but here is what it says.

To My Princesses
I am so happy to see how big you have grown and happy to see how much you are caring for each other. With Christmas coming soon I wanted to send you some of my favorite little men over to help keep an eye on you this season. They are called Nisse Men and they are from very far away. Everday a new Nisse men will appear so keep an eye out. If you spot him first you will have good luck all day long. The Nisse Men will let Santa know if you are being good. and on Christmas Eve put your shoes out by the front porch and make sure to leave a treat for the Nisse men to say thank you and you'll get a wonderful suprise. I miss you very much and watch over you everyday.
  I love you,
Grandma Kairlee

See I got to mix the idea of the elf who is santa's helper and keeping an eye on the children and the nisse men all together. And if your wondering in Denmark they would leave out rice pudding on the doorstep to make the nisse men happy for another year that's why we leave a treat at the door for them and in return they will get a new christmas ornament in their shoe "from" my mom. Now the shoe part comes in because I remeber as a kid we would leave our shoes out and they would get filled with candy but my husband cant get past the idea of shoes on the table and candy in them so we comprimised and walla a new christmas tradition which helps keep the memory of my mom in our kids lives too.

Now as for the Nisse Men if you are wondering where these cute pictures came from, well my Mom's, Dad actually picked them up in Denmark while on his mission so I have no idea where you would find them now but lucky for you I have photo copied them all and can easily email them to you if you would like them too. I love the different traditions from around the world and I love teaching them to my kids as well. This one I love because my grandma on my dads side is actually full Danish and I know we have some Danish on my moms side to so I also get to teach my kids about our ancestors all in one big fun season. 

Here is a promo code for 10$ off the mymemories software that I just love! use STMMMS99421 at check out.

Fairy party for Breakfast!

 

OK so I have to say I didn't handle my moms passing as well as I thought I would. I know I am lucky to have wanted her to pass so she wouldn't have to suffer any more, but really I didn't know I would miss her so much. I also do not want my girls to forget Grandma Kairlee. So I found the solution to help me feel better and for my girls to never forget Grandma. Throw a party! I know I get my cookyness from my mom. She did do a lot for us kids and try to keep us busy and having fun. My favorite memory was one night soon after we had watched the movie Practical Magic, my mom woke up all of us kids at midnight for midnight margaritas. She had even got the soundtrack from the movie Practical Magic so we could dance around the table. Who wakes up, or at least tried to wake up, 9 kids in the middle of the night and I am pretty sure it was on a school night. That's my mom for you. It sure made a lasting memory for us. So to carry my mom spirit in our home I set up just a quick Fairy Breakfast for my girls last minute, but I gave credit all to my mom. When my girls think of fairies they always think of my mom because my mom had loved fairies and such. she even glued a little fairy door in her room. She loved her grand kids and was always buying stuff to encourage their imagination. Even though some of the stuff she bought she didn't want the kids to touch but I think that's because she couldn't get out of bed to make sure everything was put back and not broken. I guess that was apart of her anxiety, but she had good intentions I had also made up several stories about Grandma and how she was really good freinds with the Fairies and so did my dad.

So back to the party, I set this all up and then put a portable doorbell in my girls room and when to my bed and with the remote I kept ringing and ringing the doorbell until my girls got up. It was so cute to hear the excitement in their voices as they squealed Grandma Kairlee came last night!!!! now they know it was from Grandma Kairlee because about a week after my mom passed away a did something similar which I am not quite ready to share yet, it's to dear to my heart right now, but in short, I had bundled up a party package with a letter from "Grandma Kairlee" and left it on our doorstep and doorbell ditched my house. I told them it was from Grandma Kairlee and read their notes to them. It really helped Itylee who was having a hard time with dealing with her death. So I thought it was time to throw another party. I had told my girls Grandma must of had help from the fairies to make all these magical fairy food. They were so happy just to think Grandma and Fairies had come to our house while they slept.

I was so lucky to have just bought the BEST cookbook in the world recently. It's called Sophia's Cookbook For Mortals by Cheri Schmidt. It's a cook book from a point of view of one of her character from her Fateful trilogy and has recipes from some of the stuff they ate in the books, and lucky for me there is a section of fairy food! It was perfect, and the recipes are amazing!!

I highly suggest all of her books and if your lucky you might be able to get them while they are on sale! I got Sophia's Cookbook For Mortal for only .99 cents. Best .99 cents I have ever spent!!

Here's a link for all her books

From Barnes and Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/cheri-schmidt?store=ALLPRODUCTS&keyword=cheri+schmidt

KOBO http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=cheri+schmidt

Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Sophias-Cookbook-Mortals-Fateful-ebook/dp/B0082RYGVM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1344963761&sr=1-1&keywords=Sophia%27s+cookbook+for+mortals

This book is more than a cookbook to me. It's has really help in my healing process too. I know my mom would of totally loved all of Cheri Schmidt's books and I really wish I could of shared them with her, but for now when I read or make something like fairy food it really helps me remember my mom and how amazing she was and I know this is something she would do. So thank you Cheri you have really made a difference in my life with your books. Don't ever stop writing!

Picture below are Fairy Cakes (with a Delicious lemon curd inside) and Raspberry-Kissed Lemon Fairy Cupcakes

Fairy Fruit dip

 Inside-Out Cheesecake Bites

 Magic Fairy Juice (this is my favorite! It may look like milk but it's far from it)

 Such Happy Girls!

 The girls love the flying fairies

For those of you that don't agree with what I am doing to help carry on memories of my mom then simply don't read my post. This is our way of healing and yes my girls will one day find out it's been me but we will keep on doing these random parties in memory of my mom so that we will always remember her. In a way it really is from her. She raised me to have an imagination, and to always love and have fun with your kids. It's a piece of her that she had passed along to me in my blood. So thank you to all who have read this and I hope you have a wonderful day!

ABC Halloween Countdown

Okay so today is the last day before my favorite month! Yeah I am so excited for October to come. Halloween has been my favorite holiday off all times and I wanted to help make my girls excited too. So I made an ABC Halloween countdown. Remember that vase that I stuffed my extra screen scraps into well I was taking a walk around my neighborhood and found a dead tree in one of the empty lots. SCORE I cut off a couple branches and put them in my vase. Then I found these cute little bags at the dollar store and wrote a letter on each of them and the number of days left till Halloween. Inside of the bag is just a little piece of paper with a word relating to the letter of the day. I have a sheet explaining what we are going to do for the day for each letter. Most of them are decorating crafts so that by the time Halloween comes I will have lots of cute little homemade decorations from my girls.

These are the bags with the letter of the day and how many more days until Halloween. I then hole punch at the top so I could just put them on a branch easily

This is our ABC Halloween countdown tree















I will also post a picture everyday of our activities in case they don't fully make sense in my description.


Here is my Halloween alphabet that I came up with

A-     Apples

B-      Bat

C-      Cats 

D-     Donuts

E-      Eyeball

F-      Frankenstein

G-     Ghost   

H-     Haunted House

I-        Icky

J-       Jack-o-lantern

K-      Knight

L-       Lantern

M-   Mummies

N-     Night

O-     Owl

P-      Pumpkins

Q-     Quivering Queen

R-      Raven

S-      Spider

T-      Tombstones

U-     Ugly Face

V-     Vampire

W-   Witch

X-      X-ray

Y-      Yucky Yummies

Z-      Zombie

27- Halloween wreath

28-Flying purple people eater

29- corn maze

30-MOVIE

31- Halloween breakfast

And here is the explanations

A-     Apples Stain glass apples*, apples faces, pull and peel for hair and mouth and m&ms for eyes and nose stick together with peanut butter

B-      Bats Stain glass bats* and bat cups but use children’s hands for the wings bat puppet http://www.craftjr.com/halloween-crafts-finger-puppets/ http://www.thebestkidsbooksite.com/craftdetails2.cfm?CName=1758

C-      Cats and costume Stain glass cats* Cat finger puppet http://www.craftjr.com/halloween-crafts-finger-puppets/

D-     Donuts play the donut on a string game

E-      Eyeballs edible eyeballs http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/edible-eyeball-treats-685115/

F-      Frankenstein  Frankenstein Paper plate http://www.dltk-holidays.com/halloween/mplatefrankenstein.htm

G-     Ghost Ghost Foot print trace foot and cut out two hot glue them together but leave enough space to stuff with cottonballs then seal it up and hang  and ghost suckers

H-     haunted house Build a ginger bread haunted house

I-        Icky Icky game. Blind fold children and have these things in a plastic bag and have the kids guess what “body parts ” they are touching  Hot dog chucks: nose, Peeled grapes:eyes, Cooked spaghetti: guts Pistachio shells: finger nails,  

J-       Jack-o-Lantern Jack-o-Lantern egg carton http://www.allfreecrafts.com/halloween/egg-carton-pumpkins.shtml Felt jack-o-lanters Make a pumkin and small shapes out of felt. Let the kids put the shapes on the pumkin to make a jack o lantern, Jack o lantern puppet http://www.craftjr.com/halloween-crafts-finger-puppets/

K-      Knights Make Knight customes out if paper bags from the grocery store and a shield from cardboard and helment from an empty gallon milk jug

L-       Lanterns Make black and orange paper Lanterns

M-   Mummies Glue two googly eyes on a toilet paper roll(if you don’t have white toilet paper rolls paint them white first.) wrap in white streamers fill with some yummy mummy treats. Make hotdog mummies http://familyfun.go.com/halloween/halloween-recipes/halloween-dinners/hot-dog-mummies-715031/

N-     Night paint empty milk jugs black poke some small holes all over the jug if you are going to put these outside, put some dirt in the jug. Place a tea candle or the little fake tea candle lights inside of the jug.

O-     Owl Build an owl out of shape http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mshapesowl.htm

P-      Pumpkins Stain glass Pumkins* and visit a pumkin patch make pumkin snacks http://familyfun.go.com/halloween/halloween-recipes/halloween-dinners/pumpkin-roll-ups-684822/

a.       Gumdrop pumkins-  get two orange sliced-shaped gummies and trim the semi straight side on both gummies to make straight sides so that you can put the two together to make a full circle. Now get a green gumdrop and trim the bottom off and press it on top of the candy pumpkin.

Q-     Quivering Queen  Quivering Queen game. Have the kids dress up as queens or kings and fill a plastic teacup with jelly beans or other small candies and they have to quiver until their cup is empty. When they quiver they cannot have their feet leave the ground because that would be jumping and also they can’t move their arm they have to quiver with their bodies

R-      Raven Hand and foot Raven. Trace one foot and both hands on black paper. Use foot for boy and hands for wings glue googly eyes on and glue a yellow triangle on for beak

S-      Spiders  Trace two hands on black paper and overlap the thumbs for the spiders head and glue on googly eyes Egg carton spiders http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/insects/mspidercarton.htm spider finger puppet http://www.craftjr.com/halloween-crafts-finger-puppets/

T-      Tombstone Paint empty cereal box gray to make their own tombstones

U-     Ugly faces- Make a felt face with separate facial pieces that the kids get to put together to make ugly faces

V-     Vampire Vampire suckers http://familycrafts.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=familycrafts&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.craftster.org%2Fforum%2Findex.php%3Ftopic%3D272046.0

W-   Witch Make witches brew (homemade root beer made in a cauldron) Make witch hats http://4crazykings.blogspot.com/2009/09/halloween-kids-craft-witches-hats.html

X-      X ray x ray gingerbread men http://familyfun.go.com/halloween/halloween-recipes/halloween-desserts-cakes/gingerbread-skeletons-929720/

Y-      Yucky yummies- Make Halloween treats to share and to save for movie day.

Z-      Zombies Make zombie silhouettes.  Get a large piece of cardboard and trace your childs body in a zombie position . cut out and paint it black. We will be sticky these in our window.

27-Hand print Halloween color wreath

28-Recite the Flying purple people eater poem then play game Draw a large one eye one horn flying purple people eater on cardboard and cut a big mouth out of it. Make circle bean bags out of white fabric or felt and let the kids draw faces on the bags. Now toss them into the purple people eaters mouth.

29- Go to a corn maze

30-MOVIE DAY! Watch Kid Halloween movies all day

31- Happy HALLOWEEN have a Halloween breakfast http://hoosierhomemade.com/halloween-breakfast-food/

*Instructions to make stain glass
Supplies
       -Jolley ranchers
       -Metal cookie cutter in the shape you need cats, pumpkins, etc
       -Aluminum foil
       -Canola or safflower oil
       -wooden skewer
Pre heat oven to 350* F

Line the bottom and interior sides of the cookie cutters with aluminum foil and brush lightly with oil, set on baking sheet.

Arrange the jolley ranchers in a single layer in the cookie cutter and bake until the candy is melted about 10 min.

Remove from oven, let cool for 1 min. then poke a hole in the top with the wooden skewer. Cool then pop out the stain glass shape and peel off the aluminum foil. Thread some thin ribbon through the hole, and hang where ever you would like.