Feliz Navidad- Graham Cracker Houses

We are not huge fans of gingerbread over here so we decided to make our "gingerbread houses" out of graham crackers. They are also much easier for little guys to help with.

First the kids laid out the pieces to icing and decorate with candy.

We laid the pieces out to dry for a little while and then we constructed the walls and roof using massive amounts of icing to hold it together.

Diego and his cousin and very proud of their houses.

Mateo didn't get to help building them because we purposefully waited until he was napping to make them. Luckily his big brother and cousin were nice enough to share.
Feliz Navidad

Playing with Our Food- Sugar Cookies

Last week we planned to do some corn activities but my poor sick boys really weren't in the mood. If you still want to do some great ideas for "Corn" and other activities, please visit

Crafts by Amanda.

She has TONS of great ideas. Here is one that she sent me. (Thank you!)

I was able to talk D in to making some cookies, however. I am pretty sure that cookies make everyone feel better. I am sure that you are thinking that we made traditional Christmas sugar cookies. Nope. My husband, the bargain-hunter, found this AWESOME robot cookie cutter from Sonoma-Williams for 1/2 price. D is a HUGE robot fan so this was perfect for my little guy. It is divided into three pieces so that you can change (rotate) the head, torso, and legs to make different robots.

We had a TON of fun making these. We are going to make some more for party favors for D's fourth birthday later this month.

If you make some cookies (sugar or otherwise) and post about them, feel free to link them up.

Playing with Our Food- Pumpkins and Gourds

Don't forget to go here to register to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card.

Did you do anything fun with pumpkins or gourds that you would like to share? Doesn't have to be a new post, an old post will do. Feel free to linkup below. :)

On one of the beautiful days that we had last week, I decided to let the boys paint outside. I had let the boys pick out a small pumpkin and a gourd weeks ago when we bought our Halloween pumpkins. They were getting soft so I put them to work. First, I cut them in half so the boys could see the seeds.

Then the boys dipped them in the paint and well, you can see the rest below. M hardly ever gets to paint since D and I do it while he is taking a nap so this was a HUGE treat for him.

Playing with Our Food- Leftover Halloween Candy

We had a TON of fun doing activities this week with our leftover Halloween candy.

1. We sorted Smarties by color.

2. We made Candy Art.

3. We made a Cell Phone using Smarties.

4. We found out which candy floats.

Today we played a simple game by tossing the candy into a pumpkin bucket. (I still haven't put away all of our Halloween decorations:)

I found some other blogs with great ideas of what to do with leftover Halloween candy. Check them out.

Silly Eagle Books

Walking by the Way here and here.

Unplug Your Kids

In researching ideas of what to do with our leftover Halloween candy, I came across TONS of fun crafts, activities, and science projects to do using food. Since D had so much fun with all of the candy projects, I have decided that we need to spend more time playing with our food. Every Tuesday I am going to post a craft, activity, or science project that we did the week before with a different type of food. For my own planning, organizational, and shopping purposes, I am going to pick a theme for each week. Feel free to join in with the same theme or just let me know what you did during the week to play with your food. :)

November 10th- Leftover Halloween Candy

November 17th- Gourds and/or pumpkins

November 24th- Corn

December 1st- Sugar cookies

December 8th- Candy Canes or any Christmas candy

December 15th- Gingerbread

December 22th- Christmas Break

December 29th- Anything goes

Would you like to participate in Playing with your Food? Feel free to link up a post that you did using your leftover Halloween candy or any other fun food-related post. It can be a new post or an old post.

Playing with Our Food/ Jugando con Nuestra Comida

In researching ideas of what to do with our leftover Halloween candy, I came across TONS of fun crafts, activities, and science projects to do using food. Since D had so much fun with all of the candy projects, I have decided that we need to spend more time playing with our food. Every Tuesday I am going to post a craft, activity, or science project that we did the week before with a different type of food. For my own planning, organizational, and shopping purposes, I am going to pick a theme for each week. Feel free to join in with the same theme or just let me know what you did during the week to play with your food. :)

November 10th- Leftover Halloween Candy

November 17th- Gourds and/or pumpkins

November 24th- Corn

December 1st- Sugar cookies

December 8th- Candy Canes or any Christmas candy

December 15th- Gingerbread

December 22th- Christmas Break

December 29th- Anything goes

Candy Activity #4- Does it Float?

I have to thank Tati fromWanna Jugar Withmigo and Elise from Inspiration Surrounds, Creativity Abounds for directing me to www.candyexperiments.com. There are a TON of fun science experiments to try at this site. This day we decided to see what types of candy float. I whipped up this simple chart so that we could record the results of our experiment. D can identify the words "sí" and "no" so I had him make an "X" on the appropriate box to indicate if the candy floated or not.

D LOVED this experiment. Interestingly enough, only the Whoppers floated. Click here to find out why.

Candy Activity #3- Smartie Cell Phone

I have to credit my son's pre-K teacher for this idea. First, I cut out the large blue rectangle for the phone and a small square for the screen. Next, I wrote the numbers on phone to make the buttons.

Finally, I wrote the numbers from 1-9 on the Smarties and had D match them up and glue them to the paper.

AFTER I took the pictures (for obvious reasons) I wrote our phone number on phone and D practiced it by pushing the "buttons."

Q de Quesadilla

Since D already knows his letters, we do not do as many letter projects as we used to. He really seems to enjoy them though, so I am going to try to do them more often. Today's letter was Q. In Spanish, like in English, there are not many letters that start with the letter Q. The first word that came to my mind was "queso." A little more thought and no idea of what to make for lunch brought on today's "Q de Quesadilla." Since it is the same word in English, give it a try. It was so simple and muy deliciosa!

First we warmed up the tortillas and cheese on the "comal." (My husband would pass out if I warmed the tortillas in the microwave like I, um, used to do.)

Next I cut out the shape of a "Q" and served to my hungry kiddos.

Spanish Vocabulary:
tortilla- tortilla
queso- cheese
comal- cast iron grilling pan
delicioso-delicious

Candy Activity #2- Candy Art

Our second post Halloween candy project was candy art. We made an "oruga"/caterpillar maded out of hard round candy, a "flor"/flower made out of a Twizzler and bubble gym, a "cara"/face out of Starbursts and Twizzlers, and "aviones"/ airplances made out of Airheads and Twizzlers. These were very fun to make and D only snuck a couple of pieces of candy during out art project. ;)

Candy Activity #1- Sorting Smarties

On Sunday I asked for help with ideas of what to do with all of the Halloween candy that we amassed this year. I have had several great ideas sent to me. This idea came from The Land of Pleasant Living. Danita suggested that we used some of the candy for a sorting activity. You could use Skittles, M &M's, or, in our case, Smarties. The first time we played I put one Smartie of each color in each muffin tin. D then sorted through the Smarties to put them in the correct tin. After he caught on, he was able to do the whole thing by himself. More Post Halloween Candy Activities coming this week.