Applesauce Cinnamon Ornaments

This Christmas is going to be very different for us.  Normally we have a 7.5 ft+ Christmas tree, I have a huge Christmas village that I LOVE to put up, we are also usually the house that goes way overboard on the outside decorations and lights.  You know the house that everyone drives by.  But this year we aren't doing any of that.  This year is the year for simplicity.

Most of you know we are living in a tiny, temporary home.  To have a 7.5 ft tree would take up my entire living room.  Now, like I told Chris, if we didn't have a 6 year old running around playing, I wouldn't care.  :)  On top of the small living conditions, all of our Christmas decorations are in storage.  When we were moving stuff into storage we loaded all the Holiday decorations to the very back of our storage units.  We thought our stuff would only be there for a month.  Surprise, surprise!

So, because it has been raining and cold and I am just too darn lazy to go dig through storage, we are making our own ornaments!  We are also getting a tiny little tree.  Maybe 4ft?  Maybe smaller.    Normally this would just bug me!  I don't know why.  I guess I am pretty set in the way things are done.  I am not one who tolerates change well.  But for some reason I am kind of excited about this.  Who knows what this will mean for future Christmas'!

All that to say (hey, i'm Italian, I can't help but tell the ENTIRE story before getting to my point!), today we made Applesauce Cinnamon Ornaments.  The smell alone is enough to put me in a great mood!  Chris, Maggie and I teamed up and had a good time!  I made the dough, they rolled and cut.  Then we decorated with some glitter.  The ones that didn't get all glittered up will get painted.

All I did was take equal parts of cinnamon and applesauce, mixed together very well.  Made sure it wasn't too gooey-just a nice dough consistency.  Rolled out on a piece of wax paper.  Used cookie cutters to cut shapes, added glitter and baked at 170 for 1 hour on a cookie sheet.  Then took ornaments off the cookie sheet and put on cookie rack, baked another 1 1/2 hours.  Tie strings on them and then hang!  Super easy!

It was a nice family activity.  Everyone loves getting their hands gooey in dough and sprinkling glitter.  The Christmas music was going in the background, kitchen window shades open with a promise of snow!  Looking forward to hanging on our tree and having a "semi-homemade" Christmas!

Merry Christmas to All!

I hope you all have a very blessed Christmas!

Magic Reindeer Food

It's been ages since I have posted anything. Maybe its the weather, maybe I've just been lazy. I don't know. I do know I keep thinking I should blog, but just haven't had the "umph" to do it. So here I sit, in front of my computer getting out this bad blogger funk I have been in!

Today is a lovely rainy day. I love these days. We have a fire going, roast in the oven and Maggie and I are sipping peppermint tea with a candy cane. It's been a good day!

We got up this morning and thought it would be fun to make some Reindeer Food. Maggie wanted to make some for her friends down the street, Heather and Shawn. So we put their bags together and while they were gone we snuck up and put it on their doorstep. Maggie is excited for them to find it.

The idea of Reindeer Food is to sprinkle it on your front lawn on Christmas Eve before going to bed. It helps the reindeer find their to your house so Santa can leave packages!

Here she is getting ready to walk down to their house


And leaving the scene of the crime.....


If you would like to make your own Reindeer Food it's SUPER easy! This is how you do it:

1/2 c oatmeal
1/4 c red or green sugar crystals
handful of birdseed (we used chicken feed)

If you need to make colored sugar crystals, just put your sugar in a bowl and a drop or two of red or green food coloring. Mix together.

I put mine in a plastic sandwich bag. You could put it in anything you like. Whatever is easy for little hands.

I found the cute little labels on The Idea Room.

The poem on the back says:

"Sprinkle on the lawn at night
the moon will make it sparkle bright
as santa's reindeer fly and roam
this will guide them to your home"

I stapled the picture and poem to the top of my baggie and our project was done. I was going to get "fancy" with a red ribbon and a bell, but couldn't find my ribbon. hhhmmmppphhhh


**Since this will be sprinkles outside your home, please remember to keep it bird/wildlife friendly. As much fun as it would be to put glitter in it, it would hurt our little outdoor friends.

Now go make some Magical Reindeer Food!