A Pre-Schooler's Grocery List

My 4 year old likes to go grocery shopping with me, which is cool.

My 4 year old likes to touch everything in the store and can't be still or listen while in the store, which isn't cool.

I needed something to keep him occupied so I don't have to call a Wal-Mart employee (again) to clean up jars of busted baby food.

Thank you Publix Pre-School Pals! When I glanced through this quarter's flier, they had some ideas for getting your kids involved in the kitchen and cooking. One of their ideas was to give your child a grocery list at the store that they can check off when items go in the buggy. What a brilliant idea! Why hadn't I thought of something like this sooner?!

I easily created the following grocery list in about 20 minutes in Microsoft Word. I then slipped the sheet into a clear sheet protector (thanks to a good friend for the gift!) that he can color on with a dry erase crayon.

Voila!



He is already excited about going to the grocery store...now I just have to remember to grab some dry erase crayons and the new grocery list the next time we head out.

By the way, I did try to put the grocery list up here to share so anyone could download it and use it but I couldn't figure out how to upload it. It is a PDF file from Adobe. If you can help me with this please leave me a message or email me!

Donut Acorns

My son's pre-school did a full Thanksgiving dinner for each of the classes; they provided the drinks, turkey, and dressing, and the classes (aka each parent) brought in sides for their class.

I took homemade mac and cheese but since I love to cook, that wasn't enough for me! Since I didn't want to take the time to make cupcakes, I searched around and found an ADORABLE idea on Pinterest (haven't signed up for that yet?? what are you waiting for??): Donut Hole Acorns! Perfect for a class of 3-4 year olds!

They really were super easy to make and you only need a few ingredients (pictured below)!

small pretzel sticks
donut holes
chocolate frosting
chocolate sprinkles

I used the old fashioned style donut holes because of the darker color...looked more like acorns to me!

So, how easy are these to put together? Just follow these very few steps:

1. Break several pretzel sticks in half for the stems and set aside.
2. Swirl the top of each donut hole in the chocolate frosting (cover the donut no more than half way).
3. Sprinkle chocolate sprinkles onto the chocolate frosting.
4. Stick a piece of pretzel stick into the top.

DONE!

Seriously...how easy is that? And here is the adorable result. I wasn't able to make nearly as many as I wanted to because my jar of chocolate sprinkles was very tiny.

My son's teacher told me she HAD to have one of these after seeing my post on Facebook and I got lots of comments on how cute they were! Some variations are using Nutella instead of the frosting or using crushed up toffee pieces instead of the sprinkles...or a combo of all of them.

ENJOY!

The Many Adventures of Chipper the Elf

My son had such a wonderful time searching for "Chipper," our resident Elf on the Shelf. If you haven't heard of it, please look it up, especially if you have small children; they'll really love looking for their own elf each morning!

Anyway, this was the first year I've really done some fun things with good ol' Chipper (yes, my son named him after his favorite Braves' baseball player, Chipper Jones). He had quite an adventurous season! I documented some of his greatest adventures in pictures!

One morning he was hanging out (literally!) in Mommy's stocking!

Just sitting around on the fireplace mantel.

Chipper landed in the tree one morning.


Chipper must have landed in the wrong spot because he was zip lining one morning!


Chipper brought us a new Veggie Tales Christmas movie.


Being a Scout elf is such a dirty job! Marshmallow baths are always so nice!


Even Chipper remembers what Christmas is all about.


Oops! I guess he made a wrong step and had to stay like this all day!


Mmm...Chipper wanted some Christmas cookies!