Making Halloween Dough Ornaments!

I made these dough ornaments several years back for one of our first Christmas Trees! (Before the Children!) I remembered how cute they were and that they are still around ~ Hard as ROCKS and as of yet, unharmed in any way! All I did was use a simple recipe and at the time some Christmas Cookie Cutters. I got to thinking that I had some Halloween Cookie Cutters, and that Creston would probably really like to make these with me! I was right!! ((I'll list the recipe below!))


Dough Ornaments

2 Cups Flour (I used all purpose)
2 Cups Salt (I didn't have enough table salt, so I used pickeling salt!)
1 Cup Water
a pencil or pen...something to poke a hole in the ornament with (to hang it by)
paints to decorate the ornaments with, string to hang them with, glitter, ect.


1. Get your recipe and all of your ingredients together!
2. Mix the flour, salt, and water to make the dough.

3. Knead it for about 10 minutes.

4. Roll out the dough...

...and cut it with the cookie cutters.

5. Put the cookies on a cookie sheet and bake them at 225 degrees for about 2-3 hours (flip them every 30 minutes so they bake evenly. Poke the holes in the cookies BEFORE baking!

6. When they are done, let them cool completely before decorating. Then......DECORATE THEM!!!

These cookies will last forever!!!!! The salt preserves them. The ones that I made several years ago have held up and haven't molded or turned any funky colors!!!

Hope that you enjoyed this "cooking" lesson!!!

There will be more to come soon!!!

Halloween Activity!

I decided that this year, when we go to the few houses that we go to Trick-or-Treating, that we would in return for the candy, give a "Thank You" card to our friends! I had thought about making candy treat bags to give BACK to those giving our kids candy, but that seemed realllllly redundant, so I opted for the craft instead! I was able to do this with BOTH Mackie and Creston! I took each one of them into the dining room seperately and allowed them to stick their foam stickies onto the pre-printed Thank you card. Then we added the stickers, the hanger and the bow on the front!!! They were really very cute!

I was really tickeled watching Mackie do this as he was all about "I do it my sewf!!!!" I would "start" to peel off the sticker just enough so he could get it off the rest of the way....he was a BIG boy!!

Creston also thought that this was GREAT! He was able to peel the stickies off all by himself without mommy helping him!

He was very pleased with himself!!!

Now, I'll have to think up something just as cute to make for next year! :o)

Catching up...

As with our Family Blog, I often get a little behind in the postings of our daily lives. This is also happening here! So sorry! I know several of you like to follow along with our progress, so hopefully I will start "filling in" posts for the past few weeks. October is always a busy month for us, especially when we make Molasses. We were sidetracked for a couple of weeks while getting that all ready. Then, on the 20th, Mark's best friend passed away unexpectedly, so we really haven't felt like doing much of anything for the past week or so. We are finding more and more that life can and will throw so many unexpected things our way. So often, things don't seem fair, but life must go on...our loved ones would want that for us...they wouldn't want us sitting around being sad for days on end, so back to some sense of "normalcy" we must go.

Hopefully, as I mentioned, I will be able to fill in the blanks and do some "blog-bursts" in the next few days. Hope that you all are having a GREAT week. Halloween is on it's way! I finished the boys costumes yesterday! I'll post pictures soon!!!

9/26/09-10/2/09 Update!

*ASU Ballgame!

*Eli's 2nd Birthday Party!

*Hunting for Wooly Worms!

This week, we started things off with a WET Football game! Creston liked it, though! It was really nice to spend some one on one time with just him, me, and Daddy. :o) (Mackie got some quality Nana & Paw-Paw time too!) I got to show Creston the band and the pre-game and half-time shows!!! Mark got to explain to him about the actual game! We almost got through the third quarter, and HAD to leave! I was freezing!!!

We got to go to our good friends little boys birthday party! Creston got to play with all the other little boys and girls there and even played a little "football" with some of them! (I'm finding that Creston and Mackie both get quite a bit of interaction without being enrolled in a pre-school...this is something that is often discussed as being a drawback to home-schooling, but anymore, kids have PLENTY of opportunities to get involved with other children!)

The Wooley Worm Festival is coming up! The little fuzzy worms are EVERYWHERE!!! Hopefully there will be some to "catch" closer to the Festival weekend! If you take them to the school, the wooley worm people will buy the lives ones from you for $1.00 a piece!!! They boys found one and had a good time watching it crawl all over their frisbee! Then they dropped it in the grass and it was lost forever!!! I couldn't get them to let it crawl on them though...we'll have to work on that one!

It was a good week! We didn't do a lot of "book" learning, but we did do a lot of outdoor stuff and got to play with some good friends! YAY!

09/21/09-09/25/09 Update!

This week has been a fun one! As I already posted, Creston decided to spell his name to me in the grocery store and then he got all creative and read his favorite book to his Daddy! He's such a sweet little guy with a BIG imagination! It amazes both his Daddy and me just what he can come up with! He will think up all of these stories and he will start telling them and will add as he goes! His stories could last for days if we didn't tell him to "continue" it later! Hate to stop him, and hope that it doesn't damage his creative tendencies, but it hasn't seemed to yet!

We're taking Creston to an Appalachian State University Football game tomorrow! That will be something! Hope that the weather holds out for us!

Creston "Read" Mommy & Daddy a book!

O.k.....once again, I'm posting, but this was also really neat!! Last night, Daddy read the book "The Fire Engine Book" to Creston & Mackie. After Mackie went to bed, Creston climbed into bed with Daddy and decided that he would "read" the book to Daddy!

Mark starting pecking on the bedroom wall to get my attention so I would come from the living room into the bedroom...after getting in the bedroom, Mark said sit down and let Creston read his book to you! I sat down, and he promptly started reading. Now................he does NOT know how to read yet, BUT....he was hitting the nail pretty much on the head while "reading" to us! He said "Clang-Clang" & "Crank-Crank" where the book said it and he pretty much told us word for word what was on the pages. Now....this book has REALLY good pictures, but to be able to remember almost word for word the story blew my mind! We haven't read it to him enough for him to have memorized it, but maybe he's got Mark's brain after all!! (Hopefully!) Mark can remember ANYTHING about ANYTHING for ever and ever! Oh!!! If he does have a good memory like that, just think of the possibilities! A Parent can dream!!

Anyway.....I'm just documenting these really neat achievements that we are excited about!!! :o)

(Again, just bragging a little bit!!) :o) If you know me, then you know that I usually do NOT brag about much of anything unless I'm just really super-excited about it!!!

YAYAYAYAYAY!!!

Creston SPELLED his name!!!

I know that I posted that I would only be doing a "weekly roundup" of everything accomplished during the week, but this was too good not to have a post of it's own!!!

Yesterday, in the grocery store, I was pushing Creston through the store in the little Fire Truck shopping Cart (Mackie stayed at home with Nana while I took Creston with me to the dentist). We stopped in the Frozen food section for a minute and Creston popped his head up and said "A-R-E-S-T-O-N" smiled and looked completely pleased with himself! I fumbeled in my mind as to what he had spelled and realized that he was 1 letter away from his own name! I said "OH!!! If you change that A to a C, then you'll be spelling CRESTON!!!" He stopped and then looked at me again and said "C-R-E-S-T-O-N!!!!" He really WAS was tickeled then! I clapped and said "YAYAYAYAY!!!!!" There was another lady in the aisle and she just smiled at us. She didn't know what he had just done!

He later spelled his name for NANA, and then after Daddy got off work, he spelled it for him too!!! We are all so excited!!! :o)

Here's a picture to mark the occasion!!!

Good Job, Little Man!!! We're so proud of you!!! (and yes......I am bragging......just a little!!)