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We hope that you are enjoying the beautiful day and soaking in every ounce of Mother’s Day Love!
Here’s a photo of me with two of the most amazing moms that I know, my Mom and Grandmother. My mother for her selflessness, passion, energy, strength and endless love; and my Grandmother for her loving and nurturing nature, patience, determination, and she has always told the best stories at bedtime. 
Many wishes to you for a happy Mother’s Day!!!
-Heather and Jasmine
With New Year’s Eve around the corner, many of us are trying to decide how to ring in the New Year with our little ones. Below are a few family-friendly ideas. We’d love to hear your ideas, too!
1. Create a Year End Family Slide Show
One great way to put a cap on the year is to throw your favorite digital photos from 2011 onto a DVD, incorporate a little music that defines your family, and voila! You have some made-with-love family entertainment. The kids will enjoy reviewing all of the fun things they did throughout the year – family vacations, trips, birthdays, and anniversary celebrations. And, you and your kids will have a fantastic momento/yearbook to enjoy for years to come!
2. Create a 2011 Family Scrap Book
Along the same lines of #1, you could pull your favorite photos, ticket stubs and other momentos together into an annual family scrap book. You could gather a bunch of old magazines and let your kids pick and cut out photos of their favorite things – food, activities, movies, etc., for 2011. How cool will it be to be able to look through a few years’ worth of scrap books and see how your family’s experiences, preferences and favorite things change over time?!
3. Have a Family Game Night
What better night than to whip up some yummy homemade treats and celebrate over Chutes and Ladders or family Wii night? Even better, invite some friends over and make it a multi-family game night.
4. Watch Movies, Eat Popcorn and Catch the Late Night Count-down
If you’re looking for a more low-key NYE, pick a movie that your kids will love, make some popcorn and snuggle in under one big family-size blanket! And as the clock approaches midnight, pause the DVD and watch the final countdown on TV!
5. Make Some Noise!
What kids don’t like to make noise? At midnight (or if you have younger kids, you could stage a midnight earlier in the evening) and let your kids make as much noise as they want – they can bang pots and pans together, turn up their favorite music, or, if they are younger, use whatever children’s instruments you can find (shakers/old baby rattles, harmonicas, etc.). Old water bottles filled with small rocks or popcorn will work, too). They will love doing what we beg them not to do the other 364 days of the year. 
6. Create a List of Family Resolutions
Ending one year and beginning another is a great time to teach kids about making changes, for the better, in our lives. Whatever resolutions you and your kids choose, you could always write them down on pretty paper, glue a magnet on the back and place them – front and center – on the refrigerator in the kitchen.
-What are your New Year’s Eve plans this year?
-Do you have any New Year’s traditions that you like to do with your kids?
The Christmas Story couldn’t be retold any better than by these adorable children from St. Paul’s Church in Auckland, New Zealand. This video is full of innocence, sweetness, the cutest little Kiwi accents, and a few giggle-worthy moments as well. My personal favorite is when Mary first enters the picture with her pregnant womb. This is so clever and the perfect introduction to a Christmas weekend - a reminder of the true meaning of Christmas.
Heather and I wish you and your families a happy Friday and a very Merry Christmas! May you all be blessed!
XOXO,
Jasmine & Heather
Last Thanksgiving, I made five pies, two of which were apple pies. The pies turned out really well, were beautiful and delicious. I found my husband sneaking apple pie leftovers days after Thanksgiving, until not a morsel remained. Served with homemade whipped cream and/or vanilla ice cream, even apple pie haters (like me) will find plenty of room for this delicatessen.
So if you’re looking for a fab dessert to bake and take to a holiday gathering, look no further. Or, if you’re anything like my great-grandmother, you could bake an apple pie and serve it for breakfast – who needs danishes or strudels anyways?!
Apple Pie as Simple as, well, Apple Pie
Source: Adapted from Allrecipes.com
Ingredients:
1 box of 9 inch pie crusts (comes 2 per box)
1/2 c unsalted butter
3 T all-purpose flour
1/4 c water
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c packed brown sugar
8 Granny Smith apples – peeled, cored and sliced
1/2 t cinnamon
1/8 t nutmeg
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Remove refrigerated pie crusts from refrigerator and let them warm to room temperature while you’re getting the rest of the ingredients together.
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar and brown sugar, and bring to a boil.
Reduce temperature and let simmer. Add cinnamon and nutmeg. Remove the mixture from the heat.
Pour the apples into a large bowl, and, using a spatula, combine the apples with 3/4 (most) of the sugar mixture, reserving a small amount of the mixture to pour over the top crust later.
Place one of the crusts in the bottom of your pan. Fill with apples and mixture, mounded slightly.
Next, follow these simple instructions to create a lattice top crust (I promise, it’s super easy!):
You’ll see that I used some pie topper cut-outs like these that I had bought from Williams-Sonoma to create leaves along the edges.
Gently pour the remaining sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft.
Bon Appetit!
-Heather
I don’t know about you but in our house the holiday season has offered no break from melt-downs and temper tantrums. When I found my 7 month pregnant self wrestling with my 3 year old in 40 degree weather to keep her coat on her, I realized that it was probably time to introduce some new personalities in our household.
I had heard about the Elf on the Shelf, and decided to give it a try. When I brought our Elf home, she came with a book that I read through thoroughly before introducing the Elf and book to our kids. I wanted to be prepared to answer any questions my kids had regarding our new house guest. And believe me, they had plenty of questions!
As it states in the book, the first thing your kids need to do is name the Elf. My 3 year old named ours “Po Po,” which we found fitting considering our Po Po would serve as our Santa police. Every night Po Po flies to the North Pole, where he reports to Santa on our children’s behavior for the day. Po Po flies back every morning before the kids wake up, and the kids find him in a different spot every morning. In fact, finding Po Po is the first thing my 3 year old does when she comes downstairs in the morning.
So far Po Po has done a decent job of keeping the kids in line this holiday season. Although I’d love to say that they have been perfect angels, I’d be lying. They still have their moments, but it’s nice to remind them that Po Po is watching them.
Another option is to create a free, personalized video message from Santa to your children via the portable North Pole. It takes 10 minutes to put the video together and the kids will ask to watch their video a million times before Christmas. And the video will definitely get mom and dad into the holiday spirit, too!
-Do you have an Elf in your house?
-Do you plan to make a personalized video message from Santa?
Have you seen the ads for retailers opening on Thanksgiving this year? Some retailers are opening at midnight on Thanksgiving Day, while others are opening even earlier on Black Friday.
While some shoppers might prefer to get their shopping done earlier than ever, and attempt to “beat the rush,” earlier opening times mean that retail employees are forced out of their homes with their families and into the stores to prepare for the rush of shoppers.
-What are your thoughts regarding the earlier shopping times this year?
Please have a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday!
Last week, Jimmy Kimmel issued a challenge to his viewers to tell their children they ate all their Halloween candy and post their videos on YouTube. Jimmy shared a montage where most of the children reacted with tantrums and tears, but in the one below this mom got a dose of her own medicine as she was forewarned by her children of the impending bellyache. It was amazing how level-headed these boys reacted to their mom’s antics. The dialogue between these kids and their mom is awesome. Enjoy!
Happy Friday!
XOXO,
Jasmine & Heather
Are you tired of looking at all that Halloween candy? Or have you been ‘helping’ the kids eat the candy yourself? Looking for ways to avoid sugar-high kids and future cavities?
With Halloween over, we have two kids’ worth of candy that we normally wouldn’t allow our kids to eat, as well as leftover candy that we handed out to kids, all of which is sitting in our kitchen cabinet collecting dust. It doesn’t help that I’m nearly 6 months pregnant and craving chocolate, and am constantly tempted to dive into the kids’ candy.
As of today, both of my kids have forgotten about their stash of candy. I plan to keep a few pieces in case they ask, and donate the rest to one of the following outstanding organizations.
Below are a few suggestions for how you can do something good, too, by donating your children’s Halloween candy:
Sends care packages to our troops oversees. They are accepting Halloween candy to include in care packages, and if you scroll down to the bottom of the Operation Gratitude page, they have detailed shipping information. If you include a check for $15, you can cover the cost for Operation Gratitude to ship the candy to the troops overseas, too. They are also in need of letters of support for our troops, so now is the time to get out the construction paper and let the kids go to town! Your family really can make a difference.
Sends care packages to our troops overseas. If you are interested in donating your candy through Operation Shoe Box, you can mail it to:
Local food pantries typically accept candy donations. You can look for one in your area here.
Local Dentist Halloween Candy Buy Back Program
According to their website, this is how it works:
When I did a quick search for participating dentists in my area, I was able to find 13 dentists within a 15 mile radius of my house.
Lastly, nursing homes, churches, synagogues and other places of worship generally have candy drop-offs.
One tip that I had heard was to offer your kids your own exchange. You can offer them a choice – keep the candy and eat a small amount at a time, or keep a few pieces and donate the rest to charity. If they donate the candy to charity, they can have a ‘prize,’ like a new toy to pick out at the store, or you can always do something special with them like make some homemade goodies together (or take them somewhere memorable).
-Do you plan to donate your children’s candy?
-If so, which organization do you plan to donate your candy to?
With Halloween around the corner, and the excitement and anticipation of seeing our little ones adorn entertaining costumes, we thought we’d take a time-out to remind everyone of a few important safety tips. If you can think of any others, please leave them in the comments section below!
1. A responsible adult should always accompany young children when they go trick-or-treating.
2. Avoid long, flowing costumes that can easily catch fire when they come in contact with an open flame (i.e. pumpkins or candles lit on doorsteps). Although we wouldn’t normally recommend clothing that has been treated with flame-resistant chemicals, we do recommend flame-resistant costumes for Halloween, given the probability of your children being exposed to candles on doorsteps on Halloween.
3. If you plan to have lit Jack-o-Lanterns on your doorstep on Halloween night, use a flashlight or battery-powered candle to illuminate your carved pumpkins. Wax candles should be avoided whenever possible for the reasons above.
4. Make sure Halloween masks have eyeholes that are large enough to allow your children to have complete visibility.
5. Provide each child with a flashlight or glow stick to increase visibility and personal safety.
6. Never let your children eat any Halloween candy until it has been brought home and examined by an adult. Examine all treats for choking hazards and tampering before allowing your children to eat them.
One alternative to letting them eat all that candy is to offer your children a choice – they can work through the bag of candy over time, or turn over their candy to you, in return for a toy they get to pick out at the store. Stay tuned – we’ll be posting several options for how you can donate your children’s Halloween candy!
7. Fasten reflective tape to costumes and bags to help drivers see you. If you are in the market for goody bags, I found some yesterday that had reflective tape sewn into them, on sale for 60% off, at Williams-Sonoma.
8. Avoid homemade treats made by strangers, and only allow your children to eat factory-wrapped treats only.
9. Lock up your pets indoors. Sadly, pets often become victims on Halloween night, especially black cats.
10. Make sure that your children’s face paints are safe. Or even better, avoid them entirely. Sadly, lead and other contaminants are still found in children’s face paints today. You can read more about those dangers here.
Best wishes for a happy and safe Halloween!
-Heather & Jasmine
It’s that time of year, and the holidays are just around the corner. Did it sneak up on you like it did me? I can hardly believe we’re talking about Halloween, and before we know it, Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’re fortunate this year that my 3 year old has chosen to be Cinderella for the second year in a row (woohoo!), and her toddler butterfly costume will be the perfect fit for my youngest. But if you’re in the market for a costume, Saturday may just be your day. You see, it’s National Costume Swap DayTM.
Green Halloween.org has teamed up with Kiwi Magazine and Swap.com to encourage and assist folks around the nation to set up costume swaps. Most will occur this Saturday, October 8th, but many more will continue up through Halloween.
In fact, I found out about it through this announcement on my community message board:
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Girl Scout Troop 6823 & the Broadlands Wildlife Habitat Committee are organizing a
Green Halloween® Costume Swap
on Sunday, Oct. 16 from 1pm to 4pm at the Broadlands Nature Center.
Drop off a clean, gently-used child’s costume from now until Oct 16
and pick up a swap ticket from an HOA employee.
Then, stop by the Nature Center on event day to pick out a “like-new” costume!
Don’t have a ticket? Costumes may be purchased for $5 each. Any proceeds will go towards the planting of native trees in LoCo common areas.
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What a fantastic idea! Outfitting a family for Halloween can become quite an expense…and a chore. And unless your child plans to dress up in her costume on a regular basis, like my little princess has this year, it’s hard to justify purchasing a costume that might be worn just once.
If you’re interested in participating in a costume swap, check out GreenHalloween.org’s website here to see if there is a costume swap registered in your area. As of Monday, they had 152 registered swaps in 35 states, and they’re still coming in. If you don’t see one in your area, start your own! Green Halloween has provided plenty of information to help you coordinate one. It’s not too late. Check out their tips here. It can be as big or small as you like. And don’t forget to register your event!
What a great way to have an impact. Besides the impact on your wallet, you’ll be contributing to your local community and saving resources. According to Green Halloween, swapping half the costumes kids wear at Halloween would reduce annual landfill waste by 6,250 tons, equal to the weight of 2,500 mid-size cars. So help me spread the word and make this year’s National Costume Swap Day a huge success!
Happy Haunting!
-Jasmine
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