DIY Christmas Boxes

Christmas boxes are something I started doing last year.  It's like the official kickoff to the Christmas season. I saw a couple of ideas in my newsfeed a few years ago to be opened on Christmas Eve.  However, I decided to switch it up just a bit. 

Our kiddos get their Christmas box the day after Thanksgiving instead of Christmas Eve.  We actually didn't give them out the day after Thanksgiving this year because they all went to a football game and came home way later.  I was already asleep.  So the kids got their boxes the day after.

Each box has a few little Christmas goodies to kick off the holiday season.  For one, they each get new Christmas pajamas.  These cute ones are by Leveret and the kids look like the cutest little elves in them. Then I just add a few other holiday things.  

Here is a close up of the Christmas box for one of the twins.  They each got a new cup.  Then we added a candy filled candy cane, an ornament to paint for the tree and some bubbles.  The bubbles have been their all time favorite thing.  They love bubbles all day every day.  The bubbles, cup and ornament are all from the Dollar Tree, but you can pretty much put whatever you want in them.

The big kid box is almost the same.  I didn't add cups in because I knew the box wouldn't close.  I did add in some lip balm though because it's getting a little cooler outside.  I scored a mom win too.  Watching my 15 year old come out in striped Christmas pajamas made my day.  Then I thought, man I'm turning into one of those old folks who buys the corny things for the over grown kids and demand they wear it!  I was so happy though!

All five boxes

The kids opening their boxes.

And here's last year's boxes.  This was our first year so of course, I got carried away.  I filled them with pajamas, candy cane, a Santa hat, a blinking Rudolph nose, a Christmas cake and a movie.  Most of the movies we already had and I just put them inside the boxes.  They just got to choose which day we got to watch them. 

I'm always extra excited about the holidays so I'm a bit extra myself at times!  I love making the Christmas boxes.  I don't know how long we're going to keep it up.  However, for now it's a becoming a bit of a tradition. 

25 Things I'm Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope everyone had a great day spending time with family and Friends. When I look at my life, there is so much to be thankful for, so much we've been blessed with.  I believe the good and the bad, the bitter and the sweet, the overflow and shortage all work together to teach us gratefulness.  I might not know it all the time, but I'm thankful for it.  Here's 25 Things I'm Thankful For 

1.  Family

2.  Everything God has removed from my life that wasn't for my good.

3.  Creativity

4.  A Voice to motivate, uplift, and share

5.  A home.

6.  Health that hasn't failed me

7.  My flaws no matter how big I think they are.  They make me me.

8.  Food

9.  Second Chances

10. Mistakes that provide opportunities to learn

11.  My pastor who not only teaches but truly lives the word of God

12.  A washer and dryer.  It takes it to tear up in a family of 7 to be really thankful. Lol

13.  A husband that takes every aspect of the job seriously.

14.  To be able to stay at home with my tiny humans 

15.  Music -all the feels

16. Friends

17.  Books

18.  Pictures that capture all the phases and all the moments that I don't want to forget.

19.  Clothes - I'm a messy crafty mama so I don't wear real clothes much, but I've been on point lately. Lol

20.  Coupons that help me provide savings for my family and bless others

21.  Amazon prime and UPS because twins and store meltdowns 

22.  A teacher spirit/teaching supplies to be able to encourage, reinforce and challenge learning for my crew.

23.  The struggle - wouldn't be where we are without

24.  Patience - ^^^^

25.  Life - to make the absolute best of the best way we know how and the best way for us

Not So Spooky Halloween Food and Lunchbox Ideas!

Fall is my absolute favorite season.  The clothes, the decorations, the the crafts and activities, the crisp air and crunchy leaves...I love every single thing about the idea of Fall.  Every single thing except for the fact that it's still 200 degrees in south Georgia (when I started this post)  Fall has finally somewhat arrived. We're where it's cold in the morning, 90 degrees in the day, and back down to 40 degrees at night.  That's the south for ya. I took the babies for a run the other day, prior to our Fall weather greeting, and I was sweating before we started.   So it was taking me a while to get into the Fall mood and I hadn't even begin to make some of the lovely freaky Fall food for the littles.  Say that three times fast. 

So to encourage my Fall mood and to give you guys some fun ideas, I've pulled together some of the fun foods we've been making and some made in years past for Halloween! 

Today, my littlest monsters were all happily giggling and making lots of messes helping in the kitchen.  Never mind my little Halloween sign back there.  I opened it up and it was missing an A.  I keep saying that I'm going to let Caleb color me one, but I haven't.  I think it fits in with the chaos around here anyway.  We are making little ghost and jackolantern cakes here.

Ghost Sandwiches!
Cookie cutters are your best friends for making quick and fun treats for any occasion.  I pulled out the ghost cookie cutter and some raisins and turned our ordinary sandwiches into fun creations.

Jack-o-lantern Blueberry Muffins!

Holiday food molds are another favorite of mine.  They come in a lot of different forms and designs and I would love to have them all!  However, the way my account set up.....

Therefore, the trick to these is buying them after the holiday when they are on clearance, preferably 75% off or more.  I always go in and check the holiday clearance for things that I want but would rather not pay full price for.

Mummy Dogs!

The kids will love these!  They are just as fun for them to make as they are to eat.  Cut up dough/crescent strips and wrap hot dogs in.  Bake and add candy eyeballs for fun.

  

Candy Corn Fruit cups!

Now I'm not going to say I like candy corn because I believe it belongs in the trash.  Note that one glass on the table with Recess pieces!  Layer pineapples, mandarin oranges and whip cream in a cup.  Add candy corn for decoration and you're all set.

Pumpkin Pancakes!

Again cookie cutters here made breakfast just a tad bit better.  Raisin eyes, a candy nose, and a sausage mouth pulled this pumpkin breakfast together.

Love how Caleb added whipped cream eyebrows here.

Silly Face Tacos for Taco Tuesday?

Yes!  Use candy eyes, a food marker to draw a mouth, and arrange the cheese for hair!  I love these.  They are almost too cute to eat.  You could always replace the eyes with something else.

Cinnamon Roll Pumpkins!

Make a pack of cinnamon rolls as usual.  Use food coloring to change your icing.  Add raisins for a face and we used a spinach leaf up top.  We can pretend that makes this healthy. 

Owl Toast!

Now, I discovered these a while back and decided that I had to give them a try.  Variations of fruit make the horns, wings, nose and eyes.  Cereal makes the little feat.hers at the bottom.  I can't wait to make these for the twins.  I can just see their facial expressions.  They probably won't eat it at all and throw it on the floor. lol

Halloween Hot Chocolate Station

Since we have finally been blessed with some cooler temps, hot chocolate is back on the menu.  Our little station usually consists of a few snacks and different little goodies to put in the hot chocolate.

This is this year's station. 

These little ghost and jack-o-lantern cakes are what the littles were cooking in the first pic.  We had little cakes and hot cocoa tonight.  If you saw my Instastory, you might remember my epic fail on these. lol

Spider-Man Waffles

If you have a Spider-Man fan, then they are going to love these!  First, you can find these waffles at Walmart.  They are Eggo brand and berry flavored.  I cut grapes in half to make a spider for the "web."  Cut the tops off strawberries and add icing for the eyes.  It's easier to outline with black icing first, then fill with the white.

Ghost Marshmallows
Use marshmallow bags to stuff marshmallows in.  Then, draw a face on the outside of the bag.  We gave these out as preschool favors one year.

Ghost Cheese
Same concept here just with cheese sticks.

Pumpkin Patch Breakfast
Mini pancakes on a scrambled egg vine technically counts as a pumpkin patch, right?  Use food markers to make faces and pick away!

Witch Hats
We have a mini Halloween party every year and I like to deck the table out.  However, the rest of my party pics are somewhere in a sea of many. lol  So here's witch hats!  These are made from those fudge cookies that are just turned over and a Hershey's kiss.  Use peanut butter as your glue.

Fall and Halloween Lunch Ideas
As you already know, I love packing lunches and I love challenging myself to make themed lunches. I also love the look of excitement on little faces as they open their lunch boxes.  I'm only doing them now for Caleb as the other too have outgrown them.  However, they still think it's kind of cool.  #winning  So Caleb and the twins will be showered with my creative side in the meantime.

One of the easiest ways to make a lunch more festive is by adding a Halloween napkin.  Add a lot of the methods from above to give your lunches a holiday makeover.  Holiday molds, cookie cutters, food markers, candy eyes easily transform lunches.

For more school lunches, click here.

Create silly or spooky faces with sandwiches.

We Still Enjoy The Fourth of July

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  Galations 5:1

When I was in school, I had never heard of Juneteenth.  I had always learned the Declaration of Independence which almost advertised "a happily ever after" notion.  I was not aware such a thing as Juneteenth even existed.  It wasn't until adulthood that I gained knowledge of most African American history via social media outlets and various Facebook pages dedicated to the study of African American history.

Juneteenth, June 19, 1865, marks the end of slavery in America.  The last slaves were freed in Texas meaning that is was almost 100 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 stating all men are created equal.  That is clearly worthy of celebrating! Being that African Americans were not free on the actual "Independence Day," some choose not to celebrate it and that's okay.

 

Dragging late as usual, we finally made it out of our door to have a picnic at the park and enjoy the fireworks show together.  We celebrated family, life, and let's not forget food. We enjoyed our time together.  Shoot, my husband wasn't working. That's a celebration all in itself. 

We know our history and are still learning it.  We are woke.  We still enjoyed ourselves.

However, what I don't get is when others complain about the folks not celebrating (and vice versa).  I mean I totally get that too.  It's like you've been told a lie all your life or kept out of this secret that directly affects you. Now you have finally learned the truth, and it's upsetting.  Think of people in your life that have lied to you or kept something from you that directly affects you.

One thing about us as a people though, we looooove to tell people to get some knowledge and educate themselves.  It's like our favorite thing to do.

So being disrespectful and mad at someone for attaining understanding and knowledge of one's self and one's history is kind of ridiculous.

Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover up for evil; live as God's slaves.  Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor. 1 Peter 2:16

Whether you celebrate or not, that's up to you.  I can think of plenty of things to celebrate, one being the freedom of gaining knowledge.  I can celebrate all the things that God has freed us from.  I can celebrate the wonderful family that He's blessed us with ( even if those tinier ones are running me ragged).  I can celebrate life and I can do that all day, every day.  If one of those days is Independence day, then so be it. 

God (Please) Bless America.

2 Corinthians 3:17

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

DIY Easter Themed Bento Lunches and a Bunny Breakfast

Packing lunches has always been a fun and creative outlet for me.  I've always loved surprising the kids by creating fun things for them to find inside of their lunchboxes.  Here are a few lunches that are just in time for Easter and Spring.

Simple cookie cutters automatically turn sandwiches into fun creations. 

This is one version of our diy lunchable.  The baby chick cheese and turkey were made with little stamp cutters that I found at Walmart.  They come in a set of 4 springy characters.

Have you ever heard of Wilton food markers?  They are perfect for drawing on food and making little creations like this fun Easter egg.  You can let your kids use them too to decorate their own lunches.  Our last Easter touch is adding a plastic egg with a few sweet treats inside.  I think we added fruit snacks and marshmallows.

Here we used the little stamps again, but this time it is the Easter egg.  They made cute little mini sandwiches.  A bunny egg mold also helped transform our boiled egg.

"Some bunny loves you!"  Now "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" is not an Easter book, but it happened to be our read aloud at the time.  So we did a lunch that related to the book which happened to be about a bunny and I just think bunny cheese is great.  I found those bunny pics at the Dollar tree packaged with the cupcake liners. 

Another colorful and fun decorated Easter egg with some Spring flower power here.

"You are egg-cellent."  I love to leave little messages for the kids to read.  I used to get kind of carried away when Caleb was smaller because I used to forget that he couldn't actually read.  LOL!  Someone usually helped him read it though.

And a bunny Easter breakfast is sure to put a smile on any kid's face!  Pancakes with bacon ears, string cheese whiskers and mouth, a raspberry nose, blueberry eyes and a scrambled egg tie makes this an extra special bunny friend for your littles in the mornings.

Do you enjoy packing lunches too?  Click here for more lunch packing ideas.  Oh, and don't forget Easter gifts and crafts.

I hope you enjoyed this post!

XOXO Miranda