A Is For Apple Stamp

If you haven't noticed yet, I am home schooling our youngest Daughter for preschool. We have been busy learning the begining letters of the alphabet and learning to recongize them. We are also working on our numbers.

With that being said here is what we have been working on lately.

A is for Apple Stamp!

Photo Friday Blog & Instagram Hop!!

Welcome to the Photo Friday Blog Hop

Welcome back & Happy Holidays!!

DIY Card Stock Christmas Ornaments

If you have not already, don't forget to head over and check out this fun Christmas craft. It's still not too late.

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2.Link up your blog & Instagram below

3.Leave a comment so we can follow back. 

4.Please visit other bloggers

5. You can link up any 2 post no rules!

Co-host: If you would like to join the team for next friday blog hop please fill out the form:

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Happy Halloween!! Pictures

Happy Halloween from the Hoffman's! Sunday we had our own little pumpkin party. Ev carved her pumpkin with help of course. The two young ones painted their pumpkins. It wasn't a pumpkin party without our Halloween treats. The girls had so much fun.

 The calm before the storm.

 And it begins...

 Busy painting their pumpkins.

 A few breaks for snacks.

 I refused to gut the pumpkin this year since I was stuck doing all three pumpkins last year. Hence the two younger girls painting. 

 Busy!

Helping daddy dry the painted pumpkin in the end. 

Now we wait for the evening to prepare for our costumes! Stay tuned to see what they are!

Noodle Painting

This craft is just as much fun for the kids as the name sounds. We were introduced to this fun way of painting at our local library's craft morning last week and I just had to share. This craft is great for all ages. Although the young-ins may need a little help.

 All you need is...

• yarn
• paint
• and bowls for the paint

It is truly as simple as it probably appears in your head. 

• Set up your supplies and cut the yarn into strings for each color if you are using multiples.
• Dip the string into the paint and drag the paint covered yarn across the paper.
• Voila you have created a noodle paint picture. 

If your anything like me at all, they make great artwork to frame! I love colorful artwork in my home that my own kids have created.

2 Spring Time Crafts

Even though it may not feel officially like spring just yet, we must accept the fact that it is truly is spring.

Being said I am sharing two fun and easy spring time crafts to get in the spirit.


Paper Plate Sun

All you need is...

A yellow or white paper plate. (White if you choose to paint it yellow.)
Yellow paint (If you choose to paint a white plate.)
Paint brush (If you choose to paint.)
A glue stick.
Yellow construction paper.
Siccors
A marker

How to...

If you choose to use a white paper plate, paint it first and left dry, then continue.
Cut triangles out of your yellow construction paper.
Glue the yellow triangles onto the yellow plate around the edges.
Lastly, you may draw your sun's face on.
Now you have some sun in your day!

Paper Plate Rainbow

All you need is...

A paper plate
Siccors
Elmer's liquid glue (glue sticks do not work well at all)
fruit loops cereal
colored crayons

How to...

Cut your paper plate in half. (Your going to only use half of the plate.)
Color a rainbow with your crayons.
Trace the color with glue and simply glue on your fruit loops matching the colors on the plate. While trying not to eat them, he he he!
Let dry.
Now you have a pretty rainbow to go with your sun!

Education At Home

As a parent raising three daughters, education is very important to me. I believe it is important to extend our children's education at home, and not only rely on their teachers to teach them. Plus it gives you and your child that extra bonding time.

Right now we I am working on writing, counting, colors, you name it with our middle child who will be four next month. Of course her attention span is not long by any means, so we sit down for about 10 minutes to work on her writing here and there through out our days. We add learning into our daily activities to make it fun. I have found out if it's fun at their age, their more willing to learn and comprehend it. 

Here are some money saving tips for learning at home that I figured out by the time we had our second daughter,

• The dollar store has practice writing books for toddlers. You don't have to buy the 6$-15$ ones at the big stores. 
• You can buy flash cards at the dollar store as well, or even make your own. There are also FREE flashcard apps for cell phones.
• The Internet has some great learning websites you can do with your child.
• Crafts that help their motor skills that involve our everyday home items are always fun. 
• Reading is very important. Thrift stores have books for great prices. We just bought some 1ST stage reading one for our oldest who is now reading.
• I also use learning apps on our phone and itouch. 

On an ending note here is a craft that is great for fine motor skills for the young ones. All you need is thick paper, Elmer's glue, and mini marshmallows. First draw a snow man on the paper and have your child follow the lines with the glue and sticking the marshmallows on the line. That's all there is to it. Easy and simple.

                                                               Have a blessed day!

Popsicle Christmas Tree Craft

This past week one of the crafts me and my daughters did was the, Popsicle Christmas tree. It is a nice little keepsake to keep for years as they grow older. I found it was very easy for ages 3 years and older. They really enjoyed making the Christmas tree and I enjoyed the bonding time. Once they were complete, we placed them on our real Christmas tree as decorations.

The Popsicle CChristmas Tree

Supplies you will need.

*Popsicle sticks

                      *Elmer's glue or hot glue gun.

(I used my hot glue gun to assemble the tree. I did not allow my daughters to use the hot glue gun.)

*Green and brown paint

*Paint brush

*Fuzzy pom poms, glitter, anything you choose to decorate your tree.

*Scissors

Instruction's

*Cut the popsicle sticks to size.

*Color the popsicle sticks green and the trunk of the tree brown. Let them dry.

*Once they are dry glue the stick onto to main popsicle stick also known as the trunk of the tree. Let it sit for a min to make sure the glue has settled.

*Now decorate your tree! We used fuzzy pom poms for ours. 

This is a simple and quick craft that doesn't make a big mess. Have a blessed night.

The Positive Jar

Do you have a strong willed child? This idea just might work for you and your kids. This past week one of my crafts was our “positive jar”. I have to admit, it is working fabulous. I have researched other “jars” that parent's use. I tweaked our jar to what fits our daughters the best.

    First we came up with the name together. I gave them two options and my oldest added another. We choose to go with the name; positive jar. We couldn't decide if we wanted to fill the jar up with gems or rainbow poms. Therefore we choose to use the gems and rainbow poms. The gems are for good behavior. For example,  picking up their toys without me repeating myself and etc. The rainbow poms are used for what are called, warm fuzzes. In other words, acts of kindness. I didn't want the positive jar just to be about behaving well and having good listening ears; I wanted it to also help with them getting along. For instance, if I see them playing nicely together with no fighting, I will sneak a warm fuzzy into their jar. Or if I hear them say something kind to one another. You get my drift? From there I came up with some rules for our daughters positive jar.

The positive jar rules.

1.)Teamwork. I only made one jar on purpose. Therefore they have to fill the jar up with teamwork.

2.)The jar can only by filled by good behavior, and warm fuzzes.

3.)I do NOT take them back out for repercussion

4.)Once the positive jar is full, they get a reward. 

Please excuse my non artistic paint writing. Wrong brush, oops!

    

Gingerbread Man Crayons

I am not the type of mom who likes to waste things. I like to find a way to reuse them if I can. Ithink of it as saving money, recycling, and being crafty. For instance, my girls love to color. They have a box full of crayons. Every so often we go through the box and pull out all the broken crayons. In all reality who uses the broken pieces? I know my girls don't because they always seem to be sitting at the bottom of the box. Therefore we made a simple craft out of the broken crayons. I'm sure many of you already know, and may do this already. We melt our broken pieces into new crayons. They love them when they are finished.

Melting crayons. 

1.) Peel off the paper on all of the crayons. 

Sometimes we mix colors or make plain colors. 

2.) Make sure you are using a silicone baking mold.

3.) Put the pieces into the molds. You may have to break them even smaller. 

4.) Place your oven at 350 degrees. Once it's warmed up place your mold in the oven.

5.) It usually only takes a couple minutes to melt. So keep an close eye on them.

6.) Once the crayons are completely melted, place them in the freezer till they hard.

7.) Now you may pop them out and you have new crayons. 

My daughters love when their crayons are finished. They are excited as if they are brand new, and I didn't have to waste the broken pieces by throwing them away. Plus I saved money by not having to  buying new crayons. 

Pine Cone Craft

This past week sure has been a little on the crazy side around here. I came down with the dreaded flu bug that's going around. It's not fair when moms get sick. Finally here is our pine cone craft me and my daughters did! We made bird feeders out of our pine cones. We choose this because not all the birds have flown south yet. Enjoy.

The Pine Cone Bird Feeder

Make sure you help your child with this craft.

What you will need.

1. Pine cone

2. Peanut butter

3. Bird feed

4. Spreading knife

5. String or yarn

6. Scissors (to cut string or yarn)

Instructions

1. Find a spot and tie on your string or yarn. I use my left over yarn scraps. 

2. Spread on the peanut butter with your child.

3. Roll the covered pine cone in the bird feed till it's all covered. 

3. Now you have a homemade bird feeder, and hang it outside where the squirrels can't get to it.

The Pumpkin Jar Craft

With Halloween around the corner and our love for crafting, we decided to make lighted pumpkin jars this past weekend. The girls had so much fun. Dad was even home to join in on the fun. Here is how we did it!

My girls pumpkin jars.

The girls hard at work painting. 

The Pumpkin Jar

Tools you will need

• Mason jar; any jar would really work.
• Paint brush
• Orange paint
• Glue 
• Black construction paper
• scissors 
• glow sticks, light, or tea candle

Instructions

1. You may need to prime your mason jars before painting them orange. I did not and they started to chip!
2. Paint your jar orange and let it dry! You may paint the top a green or brown to resemble the stem. My girls did not want to. 
3. Once it's dry cut out your face with the black construction paper for your pumpkin jar. 
4. Glue your face onto your orange jar.
5. Let it sit for a couple minutes to make sure the glue is dry.
6. Once it's dark put in the glow stick, light or candle to see it glow! We used glow stick from target's dollar section! They were in a pack of two for 1.00 dollar! The glow stick last for one whole night.

Enjoy!!

Birthday Parties!

Parties are one of my favorite things to do! I love all the fun in planning them! So when it co,mes to our kids birthdays, I like to go a little all out. No, not celebrity style! Although I totally wish I could!! I do choose wisely, like for their first Birthday I like to go big. For example, Helen's first birthday part back in august. This time I wanted to see how much less I could spend compared to the pass birthdays!!  I found so many ideas on the wonderful Internet, and had to choose which to go with. Oh so hard!! I came up with the theme,  Outdoor Vintage! A couple months ahead I started picking up odds and ends at thrifts stores.

Everything In this picture was 2.00 or less!!

I spray painted the jars. And used a pie pan and a candle holder for her cake stand. Spray paint does
wonders! We used the basket on a table with note cards and a pen; For people to write an encouragement for her to open later years. I painted wood lattice that I literally found a dragged out of the woods behind our house. I saved my empty wine bottles and painted those. I used one of our sheets for a table cloth instead of buying one and throwing it away! Oh, and by the way; the dollar tree has great serving trays!! One thing I learned is don't be afraid to ask close friends or family to bring something small, or to borrow supplies!