Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone has a safe and joyful holiday!At my house Santa always leaves a new set of pajamas for all the kids on Christmas Eve. Tonight he tracked in a whole bunch of ice and mud from the North Pole too! Here's my youngest in his new jammies to sing you a song about Rudolph -enjoy!

Recipe Linky!

I am teaming up with Jennifer at Rowdy in First Grade for a Holiday Recipe Linky Party! I'm sharing my family's favorite appetizer - Crockpot Meatballs. I serve these at every Holiday meal and often during the year on "Snacky Nights" when we just make loads of appetizers and scarf them down while we watch tv :). My family really enjoys them and they are super simple to make, so there's less time in the kitchen and more time with family!

 Go check out Jennifer's blog for the rest of the recipe linky party!




Here's another recipe that I just recently tried too! We were shopping in the commissary the other day when my children started looking at all the bulk nuts. They were so excited to see the chestnuts, because of "The Christmas Song " but we had never tried them before. A quick Google of recipes found that we didn't have to have an open fire to make them so we bought a bag to try out. Here's what you have to do:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Wipe chestnuts off with a damp cloth before starting.
3. Cut an "X" in the top of the chestnut using a sharp knife or razor blade. The top is the rounded part, we want the chestnut to be able to lay flat with the "X" facing up on the pan.If you don't cut the "X" the chestnut will "pop" like a corn kernel in the oven.

My husband decided he should be the one to do the cutting - something about worrying about me losing fingers. Do not be fooled by this altruistic gesture, there's is always a catch!

 He started off using a sharp kitchen knife but wasn't satisfied so he broke out the razor blade on his Gerber.

4. Once you've scored all of the nuts, arrange them on a cookie sheet and pop them into the oven for 20-30 minutes. You'll know when they're done when they have all popped open.

Before baking:

 After baking:

 The insides of the shell are sort of furry, as one of my children put it "It looks like a hamster's trying to crawl out of the nut!"

5. As soon as the nuts are cool enough to handle, peel them quickly with your fingers - it gets harder to peel the skin off once they're cool. Be careful, they are very hot inside - "It feels like a light saber cutting off my fingers!"  was one of the comments from my boys. Serve immediately :) I have to admit that only my little ones and I really enjoyed eating these - my 10 and 12 year olds were grossed out by the texture and my husband exclaimed "Why would anyone write a song about these?!" But, that just meant that there were more for Tommy, Joshua and I to enjoy! Plus it was way cool to roast them anyways, so the experience was worth it!

Oh yeah, remember when my oh so kind husband risked his own fingers to score the nuts rather than entrusting me with the sharp knife? Ulterior motives. Yep, I foolishly told him that the chestnuts would explode if they weren't cut, so of course he cut some of the nuts very shallowly. Scared the dickens out of me when they exploded in the oven - and it made a mess!

Moral - do not trust men with sharp knives or possible explosions. Guess who's cleaning the oven?!

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Snowman Freebies!

I do a Snowman Unit in January because that's usually about when we get our first snowfall of the year. And, since this is Oklahoma and we apparently can't figure out how to deal with snow, we usually get about a week's worth of snow days in there too! (I'm from Illinois and it floors me when school is canceled for a mere 6 inches!) Luckily we switched to a school calendar that is measured in hours instead of days, so by adding on 15 minutes to each morning we don't have to worry about losing time to snow days and having to make it up in the Spring. One year, before we implemented the hour system, we had school on Saturdays for 2 weeks - ugh!

Anyways, here are some of my favorite Snowman unit read alouds:


And, here are some Snowman freebies! I started with 2 quick time games, as I really want to hit that hard when we come back from break. About 50% of my kiddos are super solid on it, then I have about 35% who are getting there and then 15% who still have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention the word "clock". I am hoping Santa waves his magic wand over them during break and they come back with their little brains ready to learn (I love seeing all those light bulbs go on in January!). I will be sharing more Snowmen and Penguin stuff soon so come back to see me :)

This first game is a Memory game, or even a matching game for in a pocket chart center.
What Time Is It

Here's an "I have..., Who has...? game for digital time to the hour and 1/2 hour. My kiddos love these types of games!
I have who has time

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