How I Spent My Weekend (and Other Monday Musings)

I think I'm officially holiday-ed out...and Christmas is still 15 days away! I spent my entire weekend getting things ready for the holidays. I assembled 22 bags of reindeer food (and they turned out even cuter than expected!), made two dozen apple-cinnamon Christmas ornaments (see below), and Christmas shopped for close family and acquaintances (I still have some odds and ends to pick up for Princess A and Deedle). I have gobs more to do, including wrapping everything and squirreling it away in trash bags to take to KShaf's family's house in Pennsylvania for Christmas, but I feel like, at least, I have a head start on things.

Princess A mod podging (yes, that's a verb) her little heart out

The ornaments turned out great! I used this recipe, but I ended up having to add almost an extra cup of cinnamon to the dough to make it manageable. My house smelled uh-mazing, though, while the ornaments were drying in the oven. Today, the kidlets covered the ornaments with mod podge and sprinkled them with glitter. They can't wait to give them to their bus drivers and teacher's assistants as gifts!

At school, we are working on a mini-snowman writing unit. On Friday, we made the snowmen, using Elmer's glue and shaving cream (who knew, right??). This Friday, we'll be adding eyes, mouths, noses, arms, buttons, and scarves. We'll be writing about them, too! I'll post a pic of the finished product this weekend. Head over to my TPT store to pick up the lesson, link to the craft, and writing paper!

I also grabbed this great unit to teach my students about holiday traditions around the world. It's a little pricey, but trust me, it's well worth it. I'll be teaching my students about traditions in Mexico, Germany, Israel, and the United States. The best part is that the lesson about Mexico includes a great poinsettia craft that can also double as a Christmas ornament...two for the price of one! I bought (what seemed like) 3,000 squares of felt at Walmart after work today (with two small children in tow...fun times!), and I'm planning to spend my evening, cutting out poinsettia flowers and leaves, while catching up on The Real Housewives on Bravo. Ah, the life of an elementary teacher is glamorous...try not to be jealous.