Genealogy Fan Chart

The past few months I have come down with a severe case of Genealogyitis-----I love it! Here is an exciting link to check out! You can create a fan chart of your family tree by simply logging on to New Family Search.

What a great idea!

Genealogy Fan Chart

Christmas Fun 2011

Since the Holiday season is underway, I thought I would share are a few of the activities and good finds I have come across. These are simple and affordable, so enjoy!

Storytime Advent:
Anni LOVES books, and so for our "advent" this year I wanted to incorporate the reading of Christmas books. I have been collecting Christmas books all year from the thrift store. I am going to wrap each one individually and have them in a box under the tree to open one each night. This will also help with her urge to open presents early.


Snowman Fun! At the Real Canadian Superstore right now they have "Snowmen Kits" for $9. The kit includes a nice big felt hat, scarf and all the accessories for a decked out snowman! This is going to be fun, and I am pretty sure $9 is cheaper than I could have made it for.




Gingerbread "Boys" or "Girls"--the cheater's version. My husband grew up with the tradition of making gingerbread boys each year. As I have kept up the tradition the last few years I have found the only downside is making the actual dough! Talk about putting your mixer to the test! This stuff is thick. When I saw that Pilsbury had come out with a tube of gingerbread dough for a couple dollars, I decided that was well worth it! I also found this at Superstore.


Costco.ca! I have loved online shopping for gifts this year. Costco.ca is one of my favourite and most trusted sites. They have a real range of items for every budget. For example, my dad is so hard to shop for so I was excited to find him this WWII puzzle! He is a history buff and loves puzzles! Yeah for Costco.ca!

5.Nativity Window Stick-Ons -- I didn't know what to call these things, but you know what I'm talking about. Anni has been having fun playing with these on the window. They came on a sheet at Wal-Mart for $0.99.

Birthday Fun!

Birthdays are such a great time to focus on those special people we love! This year for Anni's birthday she requested a "My Little Pony" party. I wanted to keep it simple as I am realizing that a lot of times doing all the extra "fluff" just isn't worth the energy at this point in my life with two little kids to take care of. I did want to keep the party focused on Anni and the things we love about her.
When you have all adults come for the party it's easy to talk about things that aren't fun for the kids, so I made up a little "Anni Trivia" game, which also doubled as the centerpiece. This kept us talking about Anni and kept her engaged and at the center of the party.
I had made up questions and discussed them with Anni earlier in the day to make sure she knew what she wanted her answers to be. It turned out well and Anni loved having people talk about things she is interested in!
A few examples of questions are:
-What is Anni's favourite book?
-What does Anni love for a bedtime snack?
-Where was Anni born?


The party cups.....Anni helped me pick out stickers to apply to clear plastic cups.


For food we went with a homemade McDonalds night. Anni loves hamburgers from McD's so I made our favourite slowcooker hamburgers (which make things nice and easy!)
Here's the recipe:

1 lb. Hamburger shaped into patties (or use premade patties)
1 cup ketchup
1 tbsp brown sugar
6 tbsp onion (diced)
3/4 c. water
3 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp mustard
1 tsp worchestershire sauce
1/2 cup bbq sauce
1/2 cup salsa (the secret ingredient for a really nice flavour!) You can even use less ketchup or bbq sauce when adding the salsa if you would like.

Brown the hamburger patties on frying pan. Place in slow cooker. Mix up the ingredients for the sauce and pour over the hamburgers. Cook on low for 6ish hours.
Serve on buns with all the fixins!

We served the burgers with homemade fries with the seasoning found here, as well as a veggie platter. Simple but yummy!


Here is a couple of the gifts Anni received. Tess whipped up both of these and I thought they were so cute!

A personalized pie with beans inside:


The apron:

Halloween Wreath

If you are looking for a cheap and easy Halloween wreath to throw together in a matter of minutes, here ya' go......I used a wreath I already had, garbage bags cut into 1.5 inch wide strips and tied into bows. The spooky wood word is from the dollar store and was 3 bucks!
Enjoy!




- Tess

Something Spooky!

Here is a little craft my daughter Anni and I have been working on. She is pretty into Halloween as her birthday is only a few days off from it. She has been having fun making our house "spooky" the last few days.

For this project I used some framed pictures/paintings from........you guessed it, Value Village. Anni helped me paint over the old picture with craft paint. We gave it a few coats and then once dry we cut out some scrapbook paper we had and using Mod Podge we attached it to the frame. We covered the entire frame in the Mod Podge to protect it and seal it.




We then headed over to my crafty sister-in-law's house and used her Cricut to cut out some silhouettes that I found online. I used vinyl as I thought it would hold up well. ps---I learned that "dingbats" are what you call these images online that you can use on cutters like Cricuts or Silhouettes.


I picked up some black ribbon from Michaels and doubled up with a thick grosgrain and a sparkly ribbon, tied them in bows and attached to the back of the frames with a glue gun.




And there you have it! They were fun and Anni thinks they are sure "spooky"!

September Stew

Are you like me and have a freezer with lots of stew meat that is calling to be used? Well, I found this recipe on Pintrest and really enjoyed it! I made a few adjustments to work with what I had time for (the crockpot, not the oven). It comes from the great little blog Life As A Lofthouse.

Oven Baked Stew (which I turned into a crockpot recipe)
6 servings


1 (1 oz) package of Dry Onion Soup mix
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Paprika
1 pound lean Beef Stew Meat (cut up into bite sized pieces)
2-3 medium Potatoes, peeled and diced into 1 inch pieces
3 large Carrots, peeled and diced
1/2 an Onion, chopped
1 can Cream of Celery Soup
1/2 cup Ketchup

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large plastic bag, combine the dry onion soup mix, salt and paprika. Add in meat and shake the bag to coat meat with the seasonings. Place into a lightly greased 9x13 baking dish.

Top meat evenly with diced potatoes, carrots and onion.

Mix the cream of celery soup and ketchup in a small bowl. Pour all over the meat and vegetables. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 2 hours.

(My directions differ here. I was using frozen stew meat so I defrosted it, then browned it in the frying pan and while doing so I sprinkled the paprika, onion soup mix and salt on it. After the meat was browned, I put it in the crock pot on low with the carrots, chopped onion, cream of celery, ketchup and potatoes. I cooked it on low for about 7 hours. It was yummy!)

Hutch Redo

I picked up a wood hutch off Kijiji a few months ago (actually my husband carried it down an apartment building staircase by himself.....what a good man). It was a steal for $40. I loved the shutters and was excited to try out my new paint gun and air compressor.
With the help of my knowledgeable sister-in-law, we sanded, painted and transformed this piece. I decided to leave the top wood and just restained it to a darker stain.
Unfortunately the top half of the hutch doesn't fit in the spot I have for it in my house, but I am really happy with how it turned out!

BEFORE:


AFTER:




I lucked out and was able to sell the hutch I had for enough to cover the price of the new one, as well as all the paint and supplies for refinishing.
I think I may be addicted to painting and refinishing furniture! I have already purchased a wood desk to redo, but that may have to wait until the spring.