Christmas Craft & Candy

Santa pretzels were a huge hit at my house! My four year old loved to make them with me and they were super easy!!! This is a really good one for kids to do! I LOVE Pinterest for this reason!!! All you need are pretzels (we used mini ones), almond bark, colored sugar, and marshmallows or white chocolate chips. You can heat up the bark in the microwave and dip just half the pretzel in, then coat with sugar and put your marshmallow or chip on for the ball on the hat. I couldn't find a larger container of just red, so we used the multi-pack with green, yellow, and blue and adapted them to be stocking hats...they turned out great! We made enough to eat and send to my brother overseas in the military.

 We made handprint tree Christmas cards for my brother and his buddies to send with his care package.

This wreath is for my fridge....little handprints are just precious!

A Goat and Two Chickens

  With Thanksgiving approaching, I have really been trying to think of ways that I can convey being thankful and helping others to my four year old. I feel like God has put it on my heart to find ways to do missions with my children. It's obviously not very feasible with a four year old and baby in tow to serve at a soup kitchen or travel great distances to serve. I've racked my brain and finally come to the conclusion that for now, we can do something that may not involve face to face contact with those we are helping but will be meaningful and help teach my little ones about giving.

So, this year during the holidays, we are starting two projects. Our first one is A GOAT AND TWO CHICKENS ($100) through World Vision.

We are going to make a jar with this picture on it and a little meter we can color in until we save the $100 together. Now, I won't be putting in all of it...Cooper has chores he does and he earns money for them (now most of them are only a quarter), but he can put some or all of his money in our jar and I will put in money as well and match his too. I haven't tried this before so we will see how quickly we can do it. I would love to do this one by Christmas and continue giving projects throughout the year!

For our second project we plan to make cards for troops. My brother is in the Navy and he says it's great to get things in the mail, especially when you are not stateside. This is something fun we can do that is not expensive but that may mean a lot to those who receive them.

I pray that we can be a blessing to people we don't even know this holiday season and that we will experience the joy of giving like never before! Happy Thanksgiving!