Family Movie Night {How the Grinch Stole Christmas}

 This past weekend we once again had our Friday Family Movie Night, this time the feature presentation was How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  This is one of our absolute favorite Christmas movies, so the kids were super excited.  Plus, my husband was out of town and I had promised them we could camp out under the Christmas tree and watch it...it ended up being kind of a magical night.

Before our movie got underway, I prepared these super easy and yummy Grinch-themed treats for the kids to enjoy.  I have seen BOTH of these ideas on Pinterest...but when I tried to look them up I could never find the exact links!  So please leave me a comment if you know where these darling ideas came from, I definitely cannot take the credit!

First up, we made Fruity Grinch Kebobs.  Just green grapes, strawberries and a mini-marshmallow make up this treat, and the kids loved sticking everything on the toothpicks.

For our drink I made up these really simple Grinch Floats.

All I did was dip the tops of little mason jars in some green crystal sugar.  Then I filled the cups with some lime sherbet and topped them off with Sprite.  After that I just threw in some festive straws and we were ready to begin our movie!

Thanks so much for stopping by Blue Skies Ahead today!!

Simple and FUN Elf on the Shelf idea {PicMonkey}

 I'm curious...how do you feel about the Elf on the Shelf trend?

I personally love it.  We have never used our elf the way he is intended...as someone that watches to see if the kids are good and reports back to Santa.  Our elf is simply a cute little guy that does silly thing around the house and completely adds to the magic of the Christmas season.  My husband and I enjoy staying up and trying to think of creative things for Christopher to do.  However, I'm not gonna lie...3 years into it and its getting harder and harder to stay original and not do repeats.  

As I was trying to think up something fun I could do, I thought of editing some pictures on my FAVE site, PicMonkey.  The thing I loved most about this was it took me under 15 minutes and now I have these darling pictures of my kiddos.  I had Christopher sitting next to all the pictures with a sign that said "My best friends from the North Pole"

Avrie the Reindeer

Britton as Santa Claus

Cohen the Cute Cuddly Boy

Kendall the Snowgirl

Skylar the Elf

Too fun, am I right?!

Do you do Elf on the Shelf at your house?  If so...how do you find new ideas and PLEASE share them! ;)

Linking up HERE

Printable Christmas Bingo!

 Man, I am loving the printables this week!  I mentioned yesterday, but it has been FREEZING in our neck of the woods.  This means that I will do just about anything to avoid leaving the house...and it means I am having to find some fun ways to entertain the kids :)

My younger kids, 2 and 4, are both at great ages for playing BINGO.  We played for quite a while, in fact we only stopped because my little guy had to leave for preschool.  And using M&M's doesn't seem to make it any less fun either ;)

If you are looking for a fun, simple activity to do with your kids at home, for a school party, or even Activity Days feel free to print out your own BINGO sheets and calling cards below!

I had some serious trouble figuring out how to do the calling cards...not the best at technology here ;)  Sorry I couldn't get them all on one page, just print out both pages below and you will have all the cards you need to play!

I hope your kiddos love this BINGO game as much as mine did!  Have a wonderful, WARM day! 

Linking up HERE

Printable Christmas PlayDough Mats!

 Happy December everyone!  It is the beginning of the best and busiest month of the year at our house ;)

I promised myself I wouldn't get SO caught up in Christmas prep that I ignored my kids this year, so today I whipped up a few really simple playdough mats that I printed out, laminated and then enjoyed with my kiddos.  They loved decorating the tree and making their own gingerbread man.  I got in on the fun and enjoyed creating accessories for the snowman :)

The fun thing about these playdough mats is that they simply get the creativity flowing, then its fun to see where your kids take it!

Isn't my little guy cute? ;)

Here are the printables if you want one for yourself!  Just right click, save, and print away!  I laminated mine so we could use them again and again, but plain old cardstock would work for a few times too!  

I hope you enjoy these with your kiddos, and thanks so much for stopping by today!!

Our Elf is at it again!!

 One of our favorite traditions the last few years has been having our very own little Christopher Elf come and stay with us for the month of December!

The kids wake up every morning excited to see what kind of shenanigans he has been getting into and where they will find him that day.  It is just one simple thing we do to make Christmas even a tiny bit more magical.   It's actually a lot of fun for me and Paul too :)  We stay up late trying to think of funny things to do with him that the kids would love, and laugh ourselves silly over some of the ideas we come up with.

Here is where we find Christopher so far this year :)

Since we don't have any snow in Utah right now, Christopher had to get creative and use marshmallows to make his snowman.

This has been my favorite one so far.  Christopher got a hold of Santa's List and was checking it twice :)  I got this adorable printable from Lil Luna and just added my kids names to the Nice side.

Christopher is apparently pretty crafty...look at those paper snowflakes!!

Christopher and his pals having their weekly game night.

Finally we found our little daredevil elf repelling over our banister with our unused Christmas lights!

There are SO many great ideas out there, and these are just the few that we have done this year already.  I can't wait to see what else Christopher gets into this year!! ;)

Elf Hunt!

One of our favorite holiday traditions is to go to Gardner Village and go on our annual Elf Hunt! This year we decided to go a little bit more prepared...

Big Christmas pencils tied to clipboards with the elf hunt attached...made the elf hunt MUCH more enjoyable for mom :) And yes, there is a little 2-year old in the background crying his little heart out. Should have been my first sign it wasn't going to be easy! I actually took this pic yesterday...halfway to our destination my little guy threw up everywhere! We had to reschedule our elf fun for today, but I am SO glad we did!

Even though it was freezing, we all had a fantastic time searching high and low for those silly elves! I was really proud of my kids, they had a wonderful time in spite of the cold...in fact, they didn't want to leave :)

Everyone perked right up once we went to the bakery and got some hot chocolate to warm us up!

Do you remember being little and the magic of trying to catch a snowflake on your tongue?! I am so in love with this picture.

I am so glad we were able to make it out to Gardner Village today. I kept thinking of all the things I needed to do, and how cold it was, and literally talked myself out of it 3 or 4 times. However, my love of tradition got us there, and it was truly magical. Christmas music playing, a light snow falling, the smell of hot chocolate in the air, and my kids with bright red noses and huge smiles on their faces :)

Happy Holidays everyone!

Holiday-scented Playdough Gifts

My kids LOVE giving little gifts to their friends and cousins every year, and every year I try and come up with something fun, that they can help put together, and isn't too sweet! This year (thanks to Pinterest :) I found a great idea that we tweaked a little to give to all the cute little ones in my kids lives :)

I'm sure you have all seen the Gingerbread Playdough making the rounds on all the blogs out there :) Well, I made it last week with my kids and they LOVED it!! We had so much fun playing with it that we thought it would make a great gift as well. Because I can't do anything simple I thought it would be fun to make some other scents as well...Peppermint and Wintergreen. We packaged them up, added a cookie cutter, and here they are!

First up...you have to make your playdough! This was so easy and fun, if you haven't made the homemade stuff before...DO IT! Your kids will love helping and they will feel so proud that they made their very own playdough! I used the Gingerbread Playdough Recipe from HERE

And to make the Peppermint and Wintergreen Playdough I used THIS basic playdough recipe with my special ingredients...

Food coloring and flavoring to give it that wonderful holiday smell! For the Wintergreen we used green food coloring and Wintergreen flavor, and for the Peppermint we used red food coloring and, you guessed it, Peppermint flavor. I just found the different flavors in the baking aisle at my local grocery store...just make sure your little ones know these are JUST to smell...not to eat :) Because of the different spices in the Gingerbread Playdough you don't need any food coloring..it comes out a nice, pretty brown all on its own.

Now comes the fun part...the wrapping!! I wanted to get my kids in on the fun as well, so here is what we did!

Remember my love for brown paper sacks?? They're back! This time I took a cookie cutter (candy cane for the Peppermint Playdough, tree for the Wintergreen Playdough, and gingerbread man for the Gingerbread Playdough) and got out my acrylic paint. Then I let my kids make stamps on the paper bags to their little hearts content...I think they did a great job!!

Once our bags were all dry, I put a ball of playdough in a plastic baggie so it would stay sealed, dropped it in the paper bag, punched holes through the top and tied it off with ribbon and a fun little cookie cutter!

I don't know how I missed getting a picture of the Peppermint Playdough, but you get the idea :)

I loved that my kids could help with every part of this gift for their friends, including the handing out which we will be doing today!

Oh, I hope you are all just having a wonderful Christmas season!! We have a little stomach bug going rampant at our home, but I am just thankful we are getting it now and not this weekend :) Thank you so much for stopping by and checking out some of our last minute gift ideas!

Pinecone Christmas Trees

Have you been looking for a simple, fast, FUN craft to do with your little ones this Christmas?

Look no further!!

This is one of those crafts that is so simple you feel silly blogging it...but I can't be the only mom that loves these kinds of things so I figured I would share :)

I found something HERE on Pinterest that inspired this little craft. We changed it up a bit to work better for small hands.

I love crafts that don't take a ton of prep or supplies...this one is simple in both aspects. Here are the fun Pinecone Christmas Trees we made.

These are as easy as the look :) All you need to get started are some pinecones spray-painted green. I used some of the cinnamon scented ones...my kids loved that they smelled too!

Then I just dumped out a bag of Mini Pom-Poms to use for our ornaments.

From there I let the kids go at it. They played for about an hour, decorating their little Christmas Trees. Once they finally settled on just the way they wanted them I hot-glued the pom-poms to the pinecones. My oldest daughter didn't want hers glued so she could decorate it again tomorrow :)

Yep...probably one of THE easiest crafts we have done, but the kids loved it. Just goes to show you sometimes simple is really best. Maybe I can keep telling myself that... ;)

Have a wonderful day everyone and thank you SO much for stopping by!!