Christmas Countdowns at WiddlyTinks.com

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'Twas the Night Before Christmas

So I saw that another site was doing something about madlibs right now, and it inspired me to find some madlibs to do with the kids this Christmas.  Well I stumbled across this online madlib site, and enjoyed filling in all the nouns/verbs ect....  Then I laughed as I read the results (apparently I'm an elephant ~ read below)

I'd encourage you to all go and make your own "special" 'Twas the Night Before Christmas @ Crazy Tales  They also have many other madlibs to choose from like Green Eggs and Ham...ect.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

'Twas the hour before Christmas, and all through the nest,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a chicken.
The socks were hung by the couch with care,
In hopes that St. Michael soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their chairs,
While visions of sugar-cookies danced in their teeth.
And aunt in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the piano to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
danced open the shutters, and clapped up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave the luster of mid-year to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear?
But a smooth food processor, and eight tiny elephants.

With a little old driver, so lively and dry,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Michael.
More rapid than monkeys his elephants they came,
And he whistled, and juggled, and called them by name;

"Now, Dasher! Now, Melodie! Now, Screwdriver and Vixen!
On, Lady! On Dog! On, Hat and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! To the top of the calculator!
Now convulse away! Convulse away! Convulse away all!"

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the couch St. Michael came with a bound.

His eyes -- how they twisted! His dimples, how damp!
His ears were like books, his arm like a roast!
He spoke not a word but went straight to his work,
And filled all the socks, then turned with a jerk.

And laying his neck aside of his foot,
And giving a nod, up the couch he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a honk,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,
"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good hour!"
-- "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," corrupted and abridged.

mmm...cookies...

 Well it's that time of the year, when I make sure that my oven is working properly :-)

(I got the snowman fridge idea off pinterest)

I love to bake so Christmas gives me an excuse to do more of it :-)

These cookies are from last weeks family decorating....we enjoyed the laughter and excitement that went along with icing each of these cookies.

Yummy ~ but what you don't see in this picture is my other table, the one that we decorated on :-)

~ Jesus is the reason for the season ~

~ melodiejoy ~

Contemplating Laundry

So I was doing laundry today...and was thinking oh my what a massive pile of laundry, it seems like I spend an eternity in here...then I did some quick math and realized why...

Photo Credit (no this is not my laundry)

49 shirts, 42 pants, 8 dresses, 130 socks/ect... 16 pieces of PJ’s, 4 swim suits, 20 towels, 10 bedding sheets, 8 pillow cases, and 40+ dishcloths/rags/facecloths/tablecloths/ect PER WEEK  J 

No wonder I feel like I’m always in the laundry room...makes me want to paint the laundry room pink...just because it would make me smile J

Thinking Pink

~ Melodiejoy ~

ps:  I'm going to set up the tree with the kids today :-)

Christmas Countdown

Well It's officially here...the chocolate advent calendars were started this morning, with much glee from each of the children.  

That's right Christmas is coming!  That time of the year where we are to focus on the Birth of Christ!

So what are we doing to prepare for Christmas this year?

Well probably many of the same things you too are doing...baking, cleaning, shopping, wrapping, decorating, practising music... etc..

Specifically on today's list of things to do....is clean up the kids toys and rooms.  This is a requirement every year prior to any Christmas decorations coming out, which really motivates the kids to do it properly.

So what do we do exactly?

Well we dump yes dump out literally every toy bin in our home, into one massive messy pile.  (note, there are no pictures of this project...eek...it would be a freaky picture)   Then we sort, toys back  into the bins that they originally belonged in.  More importantly we set up two other bins that must be full by the time we are done, 1 bin for toys to give away, and 1 bin for toys that need to be trashed.

I love this time because:

A) it makes things organized (which is something I thrive on) 
B) it teaches the kids to not be materialistic 
C) it teaches the kids to think of others before themselves


What are you doing to prepare for Christmas this year?

~ Thinking about where to place the Christmas tree this year ~

~ Melodiejoy ~

A Couple of Dwarf Quotes from this Week.

Sleepy: "Mom, when I'm a teenager you are going to be really old"

Me: "Thanks for that reminder"

and

Sleepy: "Mom school is really easy if you actually try!"

~ Joyfully enjoying laughter while dwarf training ~

~ melodiejoy ~

Shoes Shoes and more Shoes....

So one of the things about having lots of kids, is you need to purchase lots of shoes.

It's not just enough anymore to purchase 1 pair of runners for kids...you need multiple...you know for indoor and outdoor activities, sports ect.....

Because we don't feel like spending a fortune on shoes I found these runners for $3.33 last week for one of the girls, and I'm sure that they would be fine like this...

but I decided to try something different....recently I've noticed that other bloggers are redecorating shoes like this

or this

I didn't want to start off with too big of a project...So I pulled the shoelaces off and dyed them Purple, (my first attempt with boiled food colouring and vinegar turned them fuchsia....so I boiled more water and added some acrylic paint...this worked wonderfully!)

 They took like forever to dry....so I got out my blow dryer and speed up the process :-)

Then I painted a simple design on the side of the runners using a paintbrush.  Because this is my first shoe painting, I didn't want to attempt anything really detailed :-)

While lacing them up I thought "hmm, they could use another colour"  so I added a couple of cute buttons

And tada Indoor Runners!

 ~Joyfully planning on painting/redecorating another pair of shoes...in more detail ~

~ melodiejoy ~

Master Mix for Bakers

I must share with you a recipe that I stumbled across years ago. It's a recipe that I have baked well over 100 times. (I'm not joking ~ I normally make a batch up for Sunday breakfasts)

This recipe has simplified my life more times that I can count!!

Are you ready????

Introducing:

A-B-C Muffin Master Mix

Click on the link above to go to the  recipe

I know it has about the most boring name ever...but trust me you need to give this a shot.

First you will need a massive bowl (I don't have 1 big enough so I use 2 large baking bowls and divided the ingredients evenly between them)

Then you mix up enough dry ingredients to make 10 dozen muffins.....yep  that's right 10 dozen!!!  

You will then divide them up and store them in your kitchen by mixes that will make 2 dozen at a time - the same size as those packaged muffin mixes you can pay a small fortune for at the store ~ I'm sure I've saved a lot of $ making these over the years!

Here's where it gets exciting...you can just add the basic wet ingredients (eggs, vanilla, water, and oil) and make ABC Muffins (which are a favourite to one of the youth in our church)

~OR~

you can add different ingredients to the dry mix (the recipe includes all these too!!!!) to make any of the following kinds of muffins:

1. Apple Muffins
2. Applesauce Muffins
3. Apricot Muffins
4. Banana Muffins
5. Blueberry Muffins
6. Bran Molasses Muffins
7. Butterscotch Muffins
8. Carrot Muffins
9. Cashew Muffins
10. Cherry Muffins
11. Chocolate Chip Fudge Muffins
12. Coconut Muffins
13. Cranberry Orange Muffins
14. Currant Muffins
15. Date Muffins
16. Eggnog Muffins
17. Fig Muffins
18. Fruit Muffins
19. Garden Fresh Muffins
20. Gingerbread Muffins
21. Granola Muffins
22. Grapenuts Muffins
23. Hazelnut Muffins
24. Incredible Cream Cheese Muffins
25. Jam Muffins
26. Kisses and Hugs Muffins
27. Lemon Muffins
28. Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
29. Mandarin Muffins
30. Maple Muffins
31. Marmalade Muffins
32. Mincemeat Muffins
33. Oatmeal Muffins
34. Orange Muffins
35. Peach Muffins
36. Peanutty Muffins
37. Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
38. Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins
39. Pear Muffins
40. Pecan Muffins
41. Pineapple Carrot Raisin Muffins
42. Pineapple Macadamia Muffins
43. Plum Muffins
44. Prune Muffins
45. Pumpkin Muffins
46. Rum Raisin Muffins
47. Sesame Seed Muffins
48. Sour Cream Muffins
49. Squash Muffins
50. Strawberry Muffins
51. Sweet Potato Muffins
52. Tropical Treat Muffins
53. Vanilla Muffins
54. Walnut Muffins
55. Wheat Germ Muffins
56. Yogurt Muffins
57. Zucchini Muffins

~OR~

If you have made these as many times as I have you can just add random muffin ingredients that you find in your kitchen, and mix it all up for tasty muffins!!!!

The recipe also includes 2 different toppings you can put on the top of your muffins or you can just leave the tops plain (which is what I normally do)

These muffins have never failed in our home!  I have not tried all the variant recipes above...but I have tried most of them, and they have all been GREAT!

a 2 dozen batch of any flavour of these go very quickly with the 6 of us (that's only 4 a piece)

A-B-C Muffin Master Mix

~ joyfully sharing a family favourite recipe ~

~ melodiejoy ~

Toddlers Room to Guest Room

Well when our boy was younger this was his room...with the bright blue walls that he really loved!

Eventually he moved into a different room in the house...and this one took on the transformation from blue to yellow.  I'm sorry these pictures do not give justice to the sunshine yellow of the room...for some reason I can't get the photo's to turn out even close????

 

 

 

Of course we still need a bed frame...and some other things like ~ making a white swag for above the clock (that I will lower on the wall)...and adding other white elements to the room...but this is what it looks like for now.

~ Sunhine in my soul ~

~ melodiejoy ~

Attic Treasures ~ An Old Picture Frame

I found this in our attic... I’m sure that it was a stunning picture frame in its time.  

But sadly it was neglected in the attic...where it lost many of its details, and became warped from water damage.

None the less there was something about this frame that I liked.

So here’s what I’ve done with it so far:

I just love all the detail work...even though much of it is missing, I still love it :-)

I actually don’t mind it this way...It’s been hanging like this for awhile now, without anything inside of it.  However, I recently received a bedding set from a friend which they are not using anymore, and I’m thinking I’m going to put some of that fabric inside of it???  When I do I’ll post a picture for you.

Here's a sneak peek at a project I'll be doing in the near future...

I picked these end-tables up for $15.00(set) this week, and have plans for them...stay tuned

~joyfully enjoying blogging again ~
~ melodiejoy ~

Attic Treasures

When we first purchased our home 4 years ago, we were amazed at some of the antique treasures we discovered in the attic...some were too destroyed due to a leaking roof or rodent consumption to even keep.... but those that were salvageable I excitedly collected, for future use.  

Here is the first item I repurposed... I decided that I would start with something simple J

It’s a solid iron grate... originally used for ~ well frankly I have no idea J

But none the less the shape and size attracted me. 

There is two cracks on the top of the iron, but because it’s iron, they do not separate even with force...so I decided that I wouldn't bother repairing them, if anything they would leave character J

The first thing I needed to do was remove all the rust, and built up stuff off of the front and sides of the grate (the back I just removed the rust, I wasn't as concerned about the roughness)  I did this by vigorous hand sanding, and washing.

Once I got it smoother, I spray painted it with left over spray paint from a previous project.  It only took 2 coats (front and back)

Till this point I still wasn’t 100% sure what I wanted to do with the final product, and after it all dried, I looked at it and thought “Wow that would look grate (hehe get the pun) on my bedroom wall.”  So I turned it over and glued some strips of foam to back of it, because I didn’t want it to scratch up my freshly painted walls.

 And then I hung it from 2 nails.  And here it hangs, as a cheery piece on my wall!

~From ugly to stunning, with some sparkling paint~

 ~ melodiejoy ~

Master Dressers

Last year we finally moved into our new master bedroom after a couple l-o-n-g years of renovation. 

We decided on doing something bold with the paint ~ purple ~ and so far we have not regretted this decision. 

However to get everything to match in the room, I needed to change our dark brown dressers to a crisp white.

So here’s the before photos:

I loved the shape, and details of these dressers when we first got them second hand, but the wood was knicked up and scraped in many places (especially the top of the ladies dresser)  So I knew that eventually they would need to be refinished.

• So first I sanded everything down...thankfully the scrapes were mostly fixed just with basic sanding, others I filled in and sanded smooth J

• Then I primed them white

• Painted them ~ with 3 coats of the same white used on the trim in the room.

I learned on this project that even though all that detail on the dresser drawers and the mirror is beautiful, all those tiny crevices took time and patience to coat in paint without completely filling them in. ~ sorry about the lamp pole in this picture... I needed more light for all the detailed work ~

• I also took all the handles and spray painted them a brushed pewter ~ sorry I didn’t take any pictures of that ~ but I must say that spray painting old hardware was really easy, and resulted in an amazing product once complete.

Then the final product ~ please note that this room was not complete at the time of these photo’s and things like the red sheet over the window, and no wall paper boarder a top of the striped wall was all temporary.  I still have to figure out what to do with the creamy coloured air-conditioner???

So tada

~Joyfully renovating a 99 year old home~

~melodiejoy~
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Thanksgiving 2011

Yesterday the prep for Thanksgiving dinner began!!!!

 ~ well by prep I mean I took some stuff out of the freezer to thaw for a few days ~

mmmm ~ this will taste soooo good once it's all cooked

Best part is I got this turkey for free with the purchase of my groceries a few weeks ago!!!

Menu Plan for Monday Thanksgiving Dinner is: Of Course all home-made

• Turkey
• Stuffing (2 different kinds)
• Mashed Potatoes
• Veggies (I'm thinking corn and peas)
• Sweet Potato Casserole
• Jam for on the stuffing
• Gravy 
• Pumpkin Pies
• Strawberry-Rhubarb Pies
• Coconut Cream Pie
• Lemon Meringue Pie
• Punch - Coffee & Tea to drink

 ~ Joyfully thanking the Lord for His amazing blessings this year ~ 

~ melodiejoy~

Friends are to be Cherished

This was one of my friends on facebooks status today:

I think one of my friends should make brownies and come and have coffee with me this afternoon. 

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE ;-)

After laughing loudly ~ I took the obvious HINT

And mixed up my SECRET brownie recipe called

 Melodie's Brownies 

Baked them in the oven

(please note this is a Pampered Chef pan ~ it is not dirty ~ it just discolours over time as it's "seasoned")

And went for Coffee with my dear friend 

Joyfully Enjoying Friendship ~ Melodiejoy

Attempting Blog Giveaways

A few weeks ago I re-entered the blogging world... I had stopped for about a year due to a privacy concern.  But I decided I missed the fun of blogging, and deleted everything from before and started over. 

With this new start, I decided that I would try entering a blog giveaway for the very first time.  I was sceptical about winning... I mean there are a lot more people out there blogging than me, and really what are the chances that I would win anything????  But I decided to enter my first give away...and then I realized that it’s kind of fun entering a giveaway for something that you want!!!  Perhaps I'm just easily amused...but I genuinely found it exciting!!  So I ended up entered 3 different ones...

• Go! Baby Giveaway ~ Hosted by littlebiggirlstudio
• Chip Wade Video and Dremel Giveaway ~ Hosted by myrepurposedlife
• Modern Fabric Studio sponsor welcome and giveaway ~ Hosted by littlebiggirlstudio

 So I checked the first giveaway still sceptical...and of course I didn’t win, but still I smiled, the reality was that a lucky blogger had actually won something, and that is soooo cool!!!!

Last night I checked on another entry that I had tried for, and there was no post about it...because I’m new at this thing...it took me awhile to realize that bloggers often put a new post about the winners, and that it’s not actually on the post about the originally giveaway. lol... I know I’m new at this J

So this morning, after teaching the kids their Bible class, I thought I’d check again for a post about that give away ~ This time, I went to the home page of the blogger, (see I'm learning) and sure enough a post about the winner, with the true random number generator...I read #38 and thought well I’m sure that isn’t me.   You should have seen my reaction when I scrolled down and read “melodiejoy”  she even posted a picture and link to my blog!!!!   How sweet is that!!!  The kids were all looking at me like I lost my mind J  And I skipped...yes literally skipped over to my husband’s office to let him know!!!

Oh my goodness I won a Dremel!!!!

I must blog later and let you all know my plans for this toy ~ oops I mean tool J But for now I must go back to teaching some adorable children!!

Thank-you My Repurposed Life and Dremel!!!!

Love 

~ one excited blogger ~ 
~melodiejoy~

Cooking for 6

Yesterday while at the Grocery Store, a kind gentleman walked up to me, and asked me if I intended on filling both of the super sized shopping carts, that two of my girls and I were pushing J  I smiled and stated that yes indeed I will fill them both.  He was shocked!  We then chatted for awhile about grocery related things... and at one point he commented on how feeding 2 kids must be expensive.  He was shocked again when I stated that those were only half of my kids J  It was then my turn to be shocked when we realized that he and his wife spend the same amount on groceries every 2 weeks that we do! 

Wow, I guess that I never really realized how watching for sales, coupon clipping, and buying “yellow” boxed items made!!!  I mean I knew we were saving money....but feeding 6 for the same as feeding 2 ~ amazing!!!!   Praise the Lord because groceries is still one of our biggest bills each month ~ I should add as well that we have company over for meals at least once a week, so our groceries also covers the cost of feeding another family 2 or 3 times during the 2 week grocery time.

I love saving money!!
~melodiejoy~

A Mothers Ponderings

Why is it that I have to wash my windows every month? 
(Actually I they could be done more often, but I don’t really have the time)

~ Oh yeah ~ it’s those 40 tiny fingers drawing smiley faces (and other doodles) on my windows, and there is also those practically daily times when they are squishing their noses to the glass watching for company to arrive, and then there’s the occasional lip marks ~ ewww ~ yeah so I’m really not sure why those are there ~ did I say ewww~

On our way into our home last night after church I looked up at a window, sighed and stated, “I guess I have to wash the windows again.”  To which one of my daughters (Sneezy) replied “Oh, but Mom the smiley face is so pretty!” ~ I looked at her and said “No, no actually smiley faces on glass are not pretty” ~ It seemed to be a revelation to her, she just had not ever considered that doodling is reserved for paper J

So today, after Homeschool is complete ~ guess what I’m doing ~ That’s right washing windows

~smile~ It may be lots of extra work
~ but those adorable kiddo’s are sooooo worth it!
~melodiejoy~

From the Mouth of a Child

Mom to Sleepy ~ “What’s the yellow part of an egg called?”

Sleepy ~“yogurt”

~Joyfully Dwarf Training ~

~melodiejoy~

Homeschooling

This year I began my fifth year of homeschooling, 

We’ve completed 4 weeks already this year, and once again it’s been a tremendous blessing to all of us.

For the first time ever I’ve mixed up my homeschool materials.

Till this point I had only been using solely BJU Press materials ~ which have been great!
Although, we decided to try a new program for 2 subjects this year for our Grade 3, and 4 students.

After weeks of searching, we decided on SOS by AOP, and so far have been greatly impressed.  I’ve been amazed at how   straightforward these two subjects (History & Science) have been for me to supervise and teach ~ I’ve had to ask myself “why didn’t I think of using a computer based homeschool method before?” 

One of my favourite times of year has become “homeschool set up time” during this crazily busy time; I thrive on the excitement of the upcoming year!   I love researching what to purchase and planning each subject out.  Once the materials arrive in the mail from CBD ~ I quickly open the boxes, and flip through new materials (mmm ~ there is nothing quite like the smell of new books).   I then spend days, and days (sometimes weeks), organizing, hole punching, color coordinating, printing, scheduling, programming ect... and then of course cleaning up the mess of it all ~although we always find “dots” from hole punching for months later in the living room (kinda like Christmas pine needles) that seem to show up at random times despite meticulous cleaning. 
Here’s a quick look at our classroom set up this year.  These pictures were taken the day before classes actually began ~ so over the course of the last month, a few smaller things have been “reorganized” for convince of teaching, and learning.

This year’s additions included:

• Computer lab ~ where all 4 kids have their own accounts and privacy settings.  Adding a 6^th desk to the room, made things fit bit tighter, but so far it has worked great!
• Children’s mailboxes ~ here they can leave assignments to be marked, their agendas, and notes to and from me.
• 2 scrapbook paper decorated clip boards ($2.00 from the dollar store) above each of their desks, 1 to hold Math Visual Packets, and 1 for Phonic/English Visual Packets
• Library Return system ~ behind the child’s computer (a 4 slot wire rack ~ $2.00 from the dollar store)~ here the children each have a slot to return books, when the slots are full, I update their reading logs
• Agendas ~ this year I decided to purchase ($2.00 each @ dollar store), and organize agendas for the children ~ each day I’ve pre-filled out for them each subject, and lesson plan number/name that they need to complete that day.  I find these have helped the kids get excited about completing each subject...they are constantly asking each other “how many assignments do you have left?”
• 2 Medical wall charts ~ I found these at our local dollar store for $1.25 each

This is the view looking out from my desk:  Note I labeled the scented markers ~ I found last year that such a simple thing adds pleasure to the marking of school assignments :-)

This is beside my desk ~ please ignore the chalkboard art that my son did :-)  And the sticky notes on the chalk board ~ were my summer to-do-list.

So here is where I spend from 8:30-1:00 everyday (The older kids then compete their workbooks that don't require teachers instruction till about 3:00)

Joyfully Serving the Lord ~ Melodiejoy