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​For What to Read Wednesday this week I have a different kind of post for you, a roundup of my favorite children’s Christmas/Winter themed books. 

Some I love for the stories and some for the illustrations and some for both! Since there are 24 you can read one a day before Christmas in December!

These are listed in no particular order, just 24 that I love!

1. Pick a Pine Tree- I love the illustrations in this book and how it captures the magic of picking the perfect tree for
     Christmas!
2. The Polar Express- Classic 
3. The Night Before Christmas Pop-up- I kind of collect different versions of Clement C Moore’s classic poem but this pop-
​     up version is on of my favorites! It’s really beautiful, intricate, and interactive. 
4. How the Grinch Stole Christmas- honestly I’m not a huge Dr Seuss fan but I still love this classic. 
5. Olive the Other Reindeer- really cute!
6. Little Critters: Merry Christmas Mom and Dad

7. Merry Christmas Daniel Tiger- A life-the-flap board book! My kids love it. 
8. The Christmas Miracle of Johnathan Toomey- a quite touching story. 
9. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever- the classic chapter book has been adapted into a picture book for younger audiences!!
10. The Legand of Old Befana- I love Tomie dePaulo books. I especially enjoy this Italian Christmas Story brought to life with
​       his unique and beautiful illustrations. 
11. Who is Coming to Our House- a nativity story from the animals perspective. 
12. ‘Tis The Season: A Classic Illustrated Christmas Treasury- a collection of poems, excerpts, and songs about Christmas
      accompanied by beautiful illustrations. 

13. I Believe in Santa Claus- a wonderful book that explains the symbols of Christmas and how they relate to Christ.
14. Loud Winter’s Nap- A tortoise who hates winter is just trying to take a nap, but his noisy neighbors are keeping him
      awake!
15. Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer- The classic tale written in 1939 by Robert L May about a reindeer with a shiny red
      nose who turns out to be the unlikey helper of Santa!
16. Little Golden Book The Christmas Story
17. The Gingerbread Man- Not technically Winter or Christmas except that's when we traditionally eat gingerbread.
18. The Legend of Saint Nicolas- A great way to introduce where the legend of Santa comes from and teach kindness and
      service as virtues.

19. Room for a Little One: A Christmas Tale- Another Nativity story from the perspective of the animals in the stable
20. Merry Christmas Amelia Bedelia- who doesn’t love mixed up Amelia Bedelia
21. The Nutcracker: An Enchanted Pop-up Adaptation 
22. One Mitten- A girl is finding uses for her one mitten as she looks for its mate.
23. The Snowy Day- I love the illustrations in the book. So beautiful!
24. A World of Cookies for Santa- follow Santa around the world and see what treats are left out for him. Includes
      recipes! A great way to learn about different Christmas traditions around the world. 

​
​There you have it, 24 Christmas books I love to share with my children.  Have you read any of these? Did you find any new ones you’d like to share with your family? Let us know in the comments!

**This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. ​  But, all opinions expressed are my own.    ​​

      Lindsey and I were talking about Thanksgiving plans for this year and it got me to thinking about a special project to show my family and friends how thankful I am for them.  I decided it would be nice to do a little gift on each place setting this year.  I thought about hand lettering something at first, but that would take a lot of time with questionable results.  Then, I remembered the set of stamps that I purchased from the Target One Spot a couple of years ago.  I hadn't used it yet, but now I knew I had the perfect project to use them for. 

If you can't find these stamps at Target this year, there are of course a lot of others that you can find and use. For example...

     I had some little wooden circles left over from our Christmas in July projects.  I chose 3 colors of acrylic paint that I felt would coordinate with my dishes and tablecloths and painted the circles. Then, I used a black stamp pad to stamp the design on the light colored circles and white on the dark colored circles.  I love how they came out.  Even the spots where the ink is a little missing add to the rustic look. 

I decided to use jute as the hanger on these little ornaments.  I cut about a 6" length of jute and glued the ends with a glue gun to the front of the ornament.  Then, I tied a bow with another length of jute and glued that over the ends.  This way, there are no unfinished ends on the front or the back. 

      Now, on Thanksgiving, I want to slip them in a napkin on each place setting.  I want to use cream colored napkins, but I didn't have any.  I could only find white! So, I purchased some fabric and made my own.  

      A couple of years ago I had to purchase a new sewing machine.  I got a Singer Brilliance (that is a refurb version)  and I have loved using the special decorative stitches that it has programmed into it.  Here is the newest version, called Sew Mate.  These are nice machines at a reasonable price. 
      These napkins were simple to sew.  I just folded over the edges twice and used a decorative stitch to make them special. 

     Once the napkins are sewn and pressed, you are ready to fold them! Here is a gallery of pictures to show you how to do it. 

       If you know me at all, you know that I love dishes!  So, I am using two different dishes to try out a place setting to use these special projects on.  Which one do you like best?  

     If you don't want to wash napkins later, you could always use nicer paper napkins.  But, I am so happy with how these came out.  Here is a close-up of the decorative stitching. 

​Look what I found! 

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Hey everyone! I hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween! It was a very busy week for us last week, which made it difficult to post. This year our little one was more into Halloween. We let her choose her costume, and she decorated her own pumpkin. We went to two Trunk Or Treats where she got very good at saying, "Trick or Treat!" and "Thank you!" and also, very good at asking us for candy.

I've never really been into Halloween, but it is a lot more fun when you have a little kid who gets excited to paint her "pumpin" and be "a bu'erfly for Ha'oween!" She was a super cute butterfly as well!

This last Saturday we also participated in a Walk to End Alzheimer's. Both PH and I have been personally affected by this terrible illness. I watched my grandmother deteriorate for years and years (and there were many years before my time as well). PH's father passed away this last May due to complications from Alzheimer's. This walk was really important to us. Our little one loved holding her purple flowers! If you want to donate to the cause, here is a link.

 Anyway, with all of these goings on, finding time to make dinner can be really difficult. Additionally, with the greater influx of candy and treats at this time of year, finding time to make a HEALTHY meal is so important! This is why I love sheet pan meals! We have shared with you other sheet pan meals in the past. Sheet pan meals are really the most convenient way to pack in the most in a small amount of time.

I think sheet pan meals call for less clean up as well. One pan, throw all the ingredients on. Season on the pan. Way less mess!

Well, this sheet pan meal is even more convenient because I cheated. Remember that whole lack of time thing? Well, nearly everything on this sheet pan was prepackaged. My daughter loves meatballs so I had bought a bag of them. I also found this bag of pre-sliced sweet potatoes. We had a big frozen bag of "California" veggies. (I don't really know why they're called that, but whatever). The only thing I had to chop up was the onion.

I love the variety of vegetables you can toss onto a sheet pan so you end up with a very colorful meal! Plus, vegetables taste better roasted or grilled. Drizzle everything in olive oil. Sprinkle on some salt, pepper, rosemary, and sage and pop it in the oven!

You can't go wrong! We gobbled down this tasty sweet potato and meatball sheet pan meal, and I know your family will love it too!

1/4 bag Caulipower Sweet PotaTOASTs
2 servings frozen meatballs
2 servings frozen vegetables of your choice (I used broccoli, cauliflower, and carrot)
1/4 purple onion, chopped
1 TBSP Olive Oil
salt
pepper
rosemary
sage
garlic
(Use these seasonings at your own discretion)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Spread meatballs, sweet potatoes, and vegetables over pan.
3. Drizzle with olive oil
4. Season with all the seasonings distributed evenly.
​5. Bake for 15 minutes.

​Voila! Your sweet potato and meatball sheet pan meal is ready to eat!

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    I have been entranced by the idea of charcuterie boards for some time now.  I see them all over the place on different blogs and I've really wanted to try my hand at doing one.  The ones that are mostly shown online are meat and cheese boards, which really look delicious.  Holly, from Spend With Pennies teaches how to make one very inexpensively with ingredients purchased from Walmart.  I think you could go even less expensive with some ingredients from Dollar Tree as well. 

     When Lindsey decided to host a Pie Party this year, I knew that I had to try a pie version of the charcuterie board.  I found a couple of ideas that I loved: 

• The Reluctant Entertainer did this amazing Fall Mini Pie Dessert Board.  
• Jenny Cookies did this adorableLumberjack Dessert Table. 

     We thought that it would be a great idea to give away mini pies for people to take home after feasting on pie at the party.  So, I decided to make a Pie Party Charcuterie Board to hold the give-away pies!  The Reluctant Entertainer purchased her pies, which is an option.  But, since we know that our homemade pies taste better than purchased ones, and since people especially requested pecan and apple pies, those are the pies I made. 

    I loved the idea of tying plaid around the pies! They look so cute! I had some coordinating plaid flannel prints that I cut into strips to use. Here is how I put everything together: 

    I loved that the Reluctant Entertainer used maple leaf cookies from Trader Joe's, I just didn't have time to go pick any up. But, I loved the Knott's Berry Farm raspberry cookies that I found at the 99 cent store! I mean, you just need to use your imagination and see how things will fit into your board.  
     I think that you could easily make hand pies to work on a tray like this as well.  If you need recipes and ideas for pies, check out our book, For the Love of Pie, available in our Etsy shop. 

    The fun thing about this board is it will fit into so many situations.  I was afraid that using the plaid would make it look to much like a Christmas Board.  It could have with a few more touches, but as it was, it fit well into the Pie/Fall theme of the party.  So, if you are thinking of doing something like this for the holidays, which I think would be awesome, you might want to look at an idea like this one on Whipperberry!  I may have to try that method next! 
     These charcuterie boards remind me a little bit of Sheet Pan Meals, like these that I talked about a couple of weeks ago.  I guess I'm all about the communal eating lately! The Pie Charcuterie Tray was a big success.  If you don't have a large microwave platter hanging around, I'll post some options below! If you have other ideas for presenting charcuterie, drop me a line in the comments!