…To See If Reindeer Really Know How To Fly Printable

'Twas the night before Christmas.  I think I might like Christmas Eve even a little bit more than Christmas Day.  I love the anticipation of today.  Once Christmas Day hits, its almost like it's already over.  Lucky for us, we do everything with my family the days right after Christmas, so our Christmas continues for a few extra days!

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Here's one last Christmas printable for you.  I've been in love with this reindeer from Picmonkey's Santa Land, and have been wanting to use it as a printable.  Then, the other day I was listening to "The Christmas Song", and the line in today's printable totally jumped out at me.  The perfect caption for a beautiful reindeer.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.
Merry Christmas Eve!

P.S.  Do your kids get a little bit nervous about leaving Santa's cookies inside the house?  My boys do.  We have to leave them on the porch (with the reindeer's carrots).  They love the idea of Santa bringing them gifts, but I'm not sure they love the idea of him sneaking into the house in the middle of the night.  I don't want them to EVER grow up!

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Christmas Word Gift Exchange Game

Last year I posted a list of fun gift exchange games from Alisa Bangerter.  It's been slightly popular, (apparently my family's not the only one who likes a little game to go with their gift exchange) so when my sister told me her friend had a new  idea for a gift exchange game, I knew I needed to share.

My family will be playing this game later this week, so I haven't even tried it out yet, but my sister's friend said it was a big hit at her work party.  The game reminds me of a mix between Outburst and Apples to Apples.  

HOW TO
*Choose a Christmas word to begin with.  You can change the word each round, but my sister's friend said they just used Santa the entire game, and it worked just fine.
*Choose one person to be "it".  They think of a word associated with the Christmas word (for Santa you could do cheeks, jolly, lap, suit, chimney, etc…).
*Each person playing the game then takes a turn guessing the "it" person's word. 
*The first person who guesses the word correctly gets to choose a present from the present pile (inexpensive, gender-neutral gifts work best for these type of games).
*Continue playing, changing the "it" person each time the correct word is guessed, until all of the gifts are gone.
*You can have each person choose from the present pile when he/she wins, or you could allow stealing of gifts that have already been taken.

Like I said, I haven't played this one yet, so I'll let you know how it goes, and if we come up with any alternate rules or variations.  Give it a try with your family and see what you come up with.

Hope you're enjoying the excitement of these magical few days before Christmas.  I know we sure are.  We have fresh snow, lots of excited children, and wonderful family to share this special time of year with.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

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Christmas Hymns Playlist {On Spotify}

It's a busy day filled with classrooms parties, teacher gifts, gingerbread men, and packing up to go visit my brother, his wife, and their two adorable kids.  They moved to Atlanta just over a year ago.  We're so excited to see all of them, but they had a little boy in April that we haven't met yet, so we're extra excited to see him!

Here's my last Christmas playlist for the month.  This is my favorite playlist, and is by far my longest!  I have both instrumental and vocal hymns, so you get a little variety. 

If you have a Spotify account you can listen to my entire playlist, if you don't have an account you can easily sign up for free.
Enjoy!

And here are my other Christmas playlists if you missed them earlier in the month.

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Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

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Brainy Gifts for Kids from Midware

Being a mom of three energetic boys is absolutely wonderful!  And even better is having an energetic husband who can keep up with their rough and tumble play.

I'm a complete believer of rough and tumble at times, but I do love finding activities that will quiet my boys down and engage their minds.  I know it's the teacher in me, but nothing is more satisfying than making dinner while all three of my boys are sitting at the table working on an art project, maze, dot to dot, brain teaser, or just coloring.  And I tell you what, they really get into it!

Last time we were visiting my parents my mom had ordered a bunch of Mindware Color Counts books.  She's always so helpful in hunting down post ideas for me, (stay tuned for my New Year's Eve post for her latest idea) and my boys usually get a fun project/activity to do as a result.

Are you familiar with Mindware?  At the top of their website it says, "brainy toys for kids of all ages".  That pretty much sums them up.  My boys LOVE what they have to offer, and I REALLY love what they have to offer!  We haven't tried any of their toys, (except for the game Qwirkle, which the entire family LOVES!) but the books we've tried have been phenomenal!  Here are the ones we've come to love.

Prism Designs from Mindware

Color Counts from Mindware

Mystery Mosaics from Mindware

Extreme Dot to Dot from Mindware

My twins are seven, and they are totally into all of these books!  Some of the pages take quite awhile.  We keep my boys' latest pages clipped to a clipboard, and whenever they have a bit of down time, they grab it and go to work. Even my four-year-old can do a lot of the color counts with some help.

  We took a few of these books to church last Sunday, and I tell you there wasn't a kid on the row in front, behind, or to the side of us that wasn't memorized by what my boys were doing.  We ended up sharing a darling horse picture with the kindergarten-aged girl sitting next to us, and she was loving it!  These books are perfect for some quiet time, and they definitely stretch and engage the mind. 

I think the maze craze pack is going to be our next purchase.  All of my boys love mazes, and it's hard to find books dedicated to just mazes.

Maze Craze Sampler from Mindware

If you're thinking these would make the perfect gift for any of the kids on your Christmas list, (did I mention they're under $10, except for the packs) then check your local Michaels.  I have seen just about all of these books there before.  I'm afraid it's a day too late (sorry, I should have posted this last week) to order from their website, but ordering for any future occasion (or just because) would be a fantastic idea.

Their website also has a "Best Sellers" list you can check out if you'd like.  There are so many awesome toys, games, activities, and books to choose from!

Less than a week until the big day!  My boys think it seems like an eternity.  I'm thinking it's way too soon!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

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3-Ingredient Chocolate Mint Sandwiches

We have the best hamburger and shake joint here in our valley.  It's called Dairy Keen (for many local Utahns it's know as the train place).   Fun side story here, my family lived in eastern Utah when I was very young and would stop in Heber City to eat at the train place on our travels from the Uintah Basin to Cache Valley.  Little did I know I would marry someone from Heber Valley, and frequent the train place more times than I could count. 

Anyway, my boys love going to see the train that travels the entire distance of the upper wall of the restaurant, and the food is yummy!  It's my favorite time of year at Dairy Keen because they serve different soups each day of the week during the winter months.  They're soups are amazing!   Pair that with a slice of Swiss Bread, and you have the perfect meal for a cold day!  

  The local family that runs the restaurant put together a Dairy Keen cookbook (they also have recipes on their website).  There are a lot of recipes that the restaurant uses, plus many other family and friend favorites.  As I was looking through the cookbook the other day, I ran across these chocolate mint sandwiches.  They only had three ingredients, and I always have a hard time passing up any recipe with chocolate and mint.

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These came together so quickly (microwave only!), and I was so pleased with the result.  The flavor and texture were perfect.  I did half a batch, and tried using a glass bread pan instead of a 9 x 13 pan.  It worked just fine, but the sandwiches were a bit thick.  I think they'd be a bit better thinner.

I didn't have peppermint oil, but the peppermint extract I had worked just fine.  I did use a little extra.  Probably around a 1/4 teaspoon per layer of chocolate (milk and white) instead of 1/8 teaspoon.

What are your favorite mint chocolate recipes?  This one is definitely added to my lengthy list now, and I'm always game for more.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth  your time.

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Merry Christmas Printable

My posts are never very lengthy here at Blissful Roots, and December just keeps getting busier and busier.  Which means my posts are becoming shorter and shorter.  

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I'm reminded of my wonderful cooperating teacher my first year of teaching.  She had taught for 20 plus years, but was always at school for at least an hour after her students left, but not in December.  She let (sometimes had to force) herself  leave at contract time (half an hour after school was out) every day in December so she could enjoy the holiday season.  I've always remembered that about her.  Thanks for the valuable lesson, Mrs. Lewis!  So, I let/force myself to leave a bit less time for blogging this time of year, and more time for the holiday and family.

You may have noticed that I like red for Christmas.  I really like green as well, but I have a tendency to use lots and lots of red this time of year.  Well, I'm venturing out, and I have to say I'm LOVING all the green on today's printable.  

This printable would be perfect to print out and attach to one of the dollar store oven burner covers.  You can click here to see my Halloween version of the stove covers.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

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DIY Christmas Gift Box {And Our Favorite Marbles}

I love pretty packaging!  I wish I was organized enough to start wrapping my gifts in November so I could make each package a work of art.  But life is busy, and that has  yet to happen.  So, I'm content with several simple packages, and a few extra special ones here and there.

This package comes from my DIY gift box tutorial (visit this link for the how to on making the box).  If you've visited Blissful Roots before, then  you've probably seen these boxes before (here and here).  They're like my upcycled tin cans.  I've made these for years, (I learned how in the fifth grade!) and once I start making them I can't stop.  They're so simple, and they're my favorite way to wrap up small gifts.

I stopped at my favorite scrapbook store last week and rounded up some darling scrapbook paper (this reindeer paper is from October Afternoon's Silent Night collection).  Every time I see cute scrapbook paper, I visualize it on a tin can, or folded up as a darling box.  I like to be able to see the pattern on the box, so I usually just stamp the name on the corner, and use a simple ribbon, yarn, bow, or pom pom on top. 

I'm using this little box for my boy's marbles this year.  Are you familiar with Mega Marbles?  Well, at least I think that's what they're called.  I've had a hard time tracking down the actual brand name.  Anyway, my boys found some of these marbles last year, and got several packages for Christmas.  They still love them this year, so we're getting a few more. I want to collect these marbles!  They're so beautiful, and clever in their naming.  I'm amazed with how each marble looks exactly like the name!  They come in names like cow, jellyfish, comet, zombie, camouflage, Bengal tiger, monarch butterfly, jungle, sea turtle, and on and on.  Most of the names come from animals, space, insects, fantasy or creepy things- all perfect for little boys, and girls as well.  Here are just a for you to see.  There are many, many more!

Milky Way

White Tiger

Unicorn

Pirate

Aren't they gorgeous?  I never knew marble collecting could be so much fun!  My boys even got a marble mat last year, and know how to play.  They each have their jar of marbles.  Sometimes they trade marbles, and other times they lose a few in a game.  It's been a fun hobby for them (and me).

These marbles make the perfect stocking stuffer, or in my case, small gift to fit inside a DIY gift box.  Oh, and they're not expensive at all.  You get a shooter and 24 marbles for around $3!

Thank you to Land of Marbles for all of the marble images.  And thank you for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

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Instrumental Christmas Playlist {On Spotify}

I promised more Christmas playlists (click here for my Christmas classics playlist), so here I am with another one.  

I love the holly, jolly festive feeling this time of year, but even more than that, I love the quiet, peaceful feel at Christmastime.

Here's a list of some of my very favorite instrumental Christmas songs.  I love to turn all the lights out, except for the tree lights and play this mix at night.  



My boys fall asleep listening to some of the songs on this playlist (we have the whole Christmas Lullabies CD found on my playlist).  Their room is so cozy on these cold December nights.  The glow from their tiny tree lights, and the soft music playing is the perfect way to end the day. 

Once again, if you have a Spotify account you can listen to my entire list.  Spotify is free, so go ahead and get yourself an account if you don't already. 

Stop in next week for my religious/spiritual Christmas playlist (my favorite!).

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

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