Clover Cupcakes~

Celebrate St. Patty's day with some fun clover cupcakes.

The clovers are made out of  Rips candy. 

Use scissors to cut heart shapes and rip a few strips into lines for the stems.

There aren't really a ton of green strips in a package, so I was only able to make about 10 cupcakes.

I cut 2 heart shapes out of each green strip.

It'll be the perfect amount for the fam:)

Advent Calendar

This lovely and wonderfully simple advent calendar comes from a great friend of mine by the name of Marla.  She got fed up with the costly advent calendars in the store with the waxy chocolates so she used and egg carton.  24 cute little slots for candy! She decorated the top with Christmas pictures and keeps it hidden on the fridge until she is reminded by the little ones to bring it down.  I think I would be snaking candy all month! What a great idea. Thanks Marla. 

Traditions

I wasn't going to put up our big tree this year. We have a very busy one year old that I was sure would just be pulling all the ornaments off and possibly pulling the tree itself over. I had resolved to put a small tree up on a table behind the couch. When I told my 7 yr old daughter of my plans she was pretty devastated. She started drawing up plans of how I could rearrange the couches to fit the tree in, but make it inaccessible to the baby. She even suggested putting it in the bathroom, or in the small corner of the loft where it would never be seen. It was then that I realized just how important traditions are to my children. Needless to say I ended up putting up the tree while she was at school. When she came home she was nearly in tears. She could not stop thanking me. As I watched them decorate the tree I was overwhelmed with love for them and I am grateful for the memories we are creating as a family. It gave me a desire to create some new traditions that they can look forward to. Last night my friend shared with me a fun thing that they do as a family. They have collected a lot of Christmas books over the years. Some about Santa and others of course about the Savior. They wrap up 24 books and open one up each day in December. The kids just love it and always look forward to opening up their book each night. You can also have a themed treat or activity along with the book you are reading. I think this is something that I'd really like to do. I only have a few Christmas books now, so it may take me a while to collect enough but I think it's worth doing.