Sharing Saturday #51 Features

As promised I finally got to visit all of the 70 shared posts from Sharing Saturday #51. There are many amazing ideas shared there including many, many Christmas ones. Since Christmas was over a week ago, I am not going to share those here, but if you have leftover candy canes there are a couple of ideas there as well as some great Elf on the Shelf ideas and many Christmas crafts and lessons. So you if you want to be inspired for next Christmas go check them out and pin them!!

My mind this week has been on snow. Perhaps since our ground is now snow covered and Hazel finally got to make a small snowman. We did not get as much as I had hoped, but she really wanted to make a snowman. We also have been reading some great snow books which I will share another day. So my first features are snow related.

1) From Everyday Mom: Snowmen Cupcakes
2) From Adventures at Home with Mum: Melted Snowman Sensory Play
3) From Little Wonders' Days: Epsom Salt Pine Cones
4) From Life with Moore Babies: Snow Ice Cream
5) From School Time Snippets: Snowflake Canvas
6) From De Gulle Aarde: Pasta Snowflakes
7) From The Stitchin' Mommy--My Silly Stitchin' Adventures: Crocheted Snowflake Clip
8) From Boy Mama Teacher Mama: Snowflake Math

And here are a few of my other favorites that were not snow-related.

1) From Life on the Gravelly Road: Felt Stove Top (sorry I can't take a picture from her blog)
2) From Tousled Day: Angel Messages
3) From Bridgit's Bell: Winter Gnomes

What were your favorites from last week's Sharing Saturday? I hope you will join us tonight for this week's!!

Gingerbread Play Date

Today we had a gingerbread play date with one of Hazel's best friends and his mother. To get started we had foam gingerbread men to decorate. I had bought them ages ago at the Dollar Tree I think. We had glitter glue, stickers, ribbon, googly eyes, beads and pom poms out to decorate them.

Hazel and I also read Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett (December's author of the month for the Virtual Book Club for Kids). Our friends were running late, so we did not have time to read it as a group, but Hazel and I enjoyed the story.


We had made some gingerbread cookie dough. I cheated and used a Betty Crocker mix I bought on sale post-Christmas. I had planned on making the dough from scratch, but didn't quite do it and then read my favorite recipe needed at least four hours in the refrigerator before rolling and cutting, and since they were due in just over an hour, I decided that wasn't going to happen. I had bought a white cookie icing for each of them and lots of candy and sprinkles to decorate.

We also made some gingerbread playdough. I combined the recipes from The Imagination Tree and Two Big and Two Little. I used all the spices in Two Big and Two Little's recipe, but the amounts and mix style of The Imagination Tree's recipe. We did not have a lot of time to play with it together, but sent some home with her friend and Hazel and one of her high school babysitters played with it more this afternoon. These pictures are a combination of both.

I know we were a little late for gingerbread, but we had fun anyway!

Happy Family Times #39--Build-a-Bear

Have you done something fun with your family this week? Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are collecting fun ideas so we can all have more fun family adventures. Please share yours below.

Decorated Bedroom Door

Well we had a lot of family time this week since we celebrated Hazel's birthday. However I already shared her birthday party pictures. On her actual birthday, we had planned on having a small gathering of her grandparents and us, however my father got a bad cold, so they could not travel. We did some special things in the morning. I had decorated her door before going to bed. She loved it! She opened her gifts right away and we had to dress all her dolls. Only Pocahontas had to get an older outfit. Even Ducky got a new outfit. Sarah is still sick, but she got new pajamas and was put back in bed.

Steve's mother came over and wanted to take her to Build-a-Bear. We had done Build-a-Bear when she was two and she really was too young. Now at four she is a perfect age. And Nonni let her get whatever she wanted. We all went to the mall.

It was hard to choose, but she decided on the rainbow bear. Then she picked the Brahm's Lullaby to go in the paw. Next she picked outfits. Oh, so hard to choose from all the choices. I think she ended up with a First Communion Dress, but she really liked it because of the cross necklace.

And Nonni got the bear a pink purse and brush and Hazel a carrier.

Yes, Hazel walked around the mall carrying her new bear, Princess Teddy. We stopped in the Disney Store and they gave her a crown and pin for her birthday. Then we headed over to the rides they have in this mall. While Nonni and Hazel played on the rides Steve and I did our other errands. Then we came home for lunch and a cake of course. Overall it was a great birthday.


Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

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Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

Happy New Year!!

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So it is a little after 9 p.m. on New Year's Eve and I'm the only one up in my house. It is amazing how my perspective on New Year's Eve changed having a child and especially having a New Year's Eve baby. Pre-Hazel we would host a New Year's Eve party for a few friends (a tradition I started long before I met Steve). It stopped when I had Hazel since that first New Year's Eve I was in the hospital. 

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Now with our schedules and such, we often don't even stay up until midnight. In the past four years I think the only time I stayed up until midnight is when her birthday party was on New Year's Day so my mother and I stayed up preparing for the party and watched the ball drop at midnight. Last year her party was on New Year's Eve so I did not stay up until midnight and since we had a bad night last night (someone woke up from a scary dream around 11 and was up for at least an hour), I will be going to bed soon. I should add with Hazel up by 6 if not earlier most days and Steve up at 4:30 for work most mornings our schedules are just much earlier than they once were.



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What are you doing to ring in 2013? I hope you will share your family's adventures tomorrow at Happy Family Times!

Princess Party Food & Free Printable Signs

My Superhero Princess

So yesterday I shared some pictures from Hazel's Princess Birthday Party. Today Hazel enjoyed several of her gifts. She ran around in her new tutu, cape and waving her wand plus a crown from the party and a bag with her bell in it yelling "Here comes Superhero Princess." She rang the bell to let people know she was coming. So much fun!! (She also dressed herself today and her outfit showed it. Nothing matched, oh, well!)

 Today I am going to share our Royal Menu with you. (Well besides the cakes since I shared them yesterday--well I'll share some pictures and then you can check out how to make them and recipes, etc. in yesterday's post.)

We also bought some cold cut platters and roll platters to make the party a bit easier for me. Of course we have lots left over so we will be eating sandwiches for quite awhile. As for the rest of our food and beverages we did a princess theme. And I made signs to go along with them and shared information about the princess and/or princess story. All the information came from wikipedia unless otherwise stated on the cards. And yes, I saved the signs as pdf's so I could share them with you. I made them on Print Shop as quarter fold cards, so  the real-life princesses' information was continued on the inside of the card.

Front of Beverage Cards

For beverages, we had Princess Belle's Tea (sorry I seemed to miss taking a picture of it), Princess Aurora's Coffee, Snow White's Apple Cider, Princess Ariel's Spring Water and some Pink Princess Punch (sparkling and non-sparkling). (Note: Click on each link to get that sign for yourself.) Sorry I didn't save the Pink Princess Punch sign since I did it quickly the day of the party.

Back of Beverage Cards

For appetizers/snacks we had some vegetables and Princess Kalina of Bulgaria's roasted garlic dip (Princess Kalina is a vegetarian) and Princess Jasmine's and Queen Raina's hummus.

Then we had Princess Letizia's Chips and Salsa and crackers with three types of cheese (and yes, I picked the cheese by where there are princesses). We had Princess Mafalda of Savoy's Toscano Cheese, Princess Diana's Cheddar Cheese (I used Diana since Kate is not officially a princess),  and Princess Maxima of the Netherlands Gouda Cheese.

Then to go with the sandwiches we had Princess and the Pea's Vegetable Soup (vegetarian). I based the soup from a recipe from one of my mother's cookbooks by Jane Brody. I'm pretty sure it is Jane Brody's Good Food Cook Book. My mother has had it forever and always uses it. The recipe was simple and I did it in my slow cooker. I just chopped some onions and celery. Added some Italian seasoning and vegetable broth. A can of diced tomatoes and then lots of frozen vegetables. I included frozen diced potatoes in case there were any vegetarians. I wanted it to be filling. Plus of course I made sure to include some peas. Then I poured more broth on and added some ground pepper a small amount of salt (since I use low sodium everything). Everyone who tried it loved it and raved about it.

I was going to make Rapunzel's Chicken and Broccoli Braid, but ran out of time. We will have to have it another time since I have the ingredients to make two of them. I was going to use this recipe at Taste of Home.

So that is our princess themed royal party menu. What do you think? We had fun and have plenty of delicious leftovers. Unfortunately, my father got a cold (either from me or my nephew at Christmas) and they will not be visiting for Hazel's actual birthday, so we are going to have to eat the leftovers ourselves. Hopefully he will get better soon.