Sharing Saturday 2013 #1

Happy New Year!! I know the last few weeks have been a bit crazy for me, but I am almost all caught up now. I hope 2013 is going well for you and wish each of you happiness, love and good health! Thank you to all of you who shared your wonderful, creative ideas last week. We had many inspiring ones, so if you have not had a chance to check them out, please do so!!

You may remember at last week's Sharing Saturday I had not had time to visit all the posts that had been shared the previous week and therefore did not pick features. I finally did visit them all and picked features earlier today here.

We had a tie last week for most clicked, so I am just going to share some of my favorites.

1) From Life with Moore Babies: Icy Water Bead Cubes
2) From Family Home and Life: Fold-up with Handle Toddler Play Mat (Yes, I had to show you two pictures to give you the full picture--open and folded)
3) From Pam's Party Planning & Practical Tips: Pretzel Snowmen
4) From Raise a Boy: Decorating Popcorn Balls
5) From Adventures at home with Mum: Outdoor Play of Mixing Flower Cocktails for an Afternoon Tea Party
6) From The Iowa Farmer's Wife: Blessing Box


Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here or earlier this week, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog.

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From Your Hostess: Hazel's Princess Party Actual party and Royal Menu and more

Now for This Week's Party 
I made a few changes with the beginning of the new year. Since Mama Mia's Heart 2 Heart has not had a new post since July, and I have not heard from her since that time, I decided to take her name off the party button. If and when she returns to the blog world, she of course will be welcome to join me in hosting again, but for now I'm solo again.
 
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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.

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
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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!