Tots and Me... Growing Up Together

Friday, December 28, 2012

Lovin' the Weekend Blog Hops: December 28-30, 2012

Welcome to Lovin' The Weekend Blog Hops with your co-hosts:

Karen from Tots and Me, Maria from Adventures of the Mommy Homemaker and Rena from An Ordinary Housewife.

Thank you to every one who has stopped by, whether this is your first visit or you have been a faithful ongoing participant!

This is our last blog hop for 2012! Hope you are having a great holiday season.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

We would love for you to stop by each of the co-hosts and follow us, then feel free to add your links to any or all of the following linkies.

We also randomly choose a Featured host each week from the Lovin' The Readers linky. This week we are featuring Jo at The Momma Blogger.

Here's what she has to say:

"My name is Jo Ricker and I am The Momma Blogger. I am a very busy, yet involved Momma of 5 children, ranging in age of 10 months to 11 years. I have been married for 11 years. I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, blogging, hosting giveaways, and trying new things. I have been blogging for about 5 years but it wasn't always on The Momma Blogger. I used to have another blog, which did quite well but after a family tragedy I lost the flare for blogging until last year when I was telling a friend about my old blogging and how I should get back into it and here I am. I like to blog because I like trying new things and sharing my knowledge with others. On my blog you will find just about anything, from coupons to reviews and from recipes to giveaways. If there is every anything you would like to see on The Momma Blogger, feel free to drop me a line and we will see what can be done."

Don't forget to link up to the Lovin' the Readers Hop if you would like a chance to be a Featured host next week. Please comment with a way to contact you, especially if there is not an obvious way mentioned on your blog. We would love to include a little write up about you and your blog in the next week's Lovin' The Weekend Blog Hop post, including a link to your blog. And you will get to include the linky codes on your blog. Sound fun? We're looking forward to getting to know our readers better.

Here's how this blog hop works. We would appreciate it if you would follow Tots and Me, Adventures of a Mommy Homemaker and An Ordinary Housewife then please head on over to our Featured Host and follow as well. If you no longer have GFC please follow in some other way. After that there are three different linkies you can link to. Whichever one you choose to link to, please grab that button and share it on your blog (the codes are on Tot's and Me's sidebar). We'd love it if you could tweet or in some other way share about this blog hop, the more people who know about it, the more potential visitors and new followers of your blog. We'd love to meet some new friends this weekend.

Some people are more interested in just increasing their numbers, while others really want people who appreciate their blog and want to keep up with their posts. So, there are two separate linkies. The third linky is for you to link up your giveaways.

If you are interested in increasing the number of followers to your blog via GFC, Linky Followers, email, Twitter, Facebook or Google+ link up here. We will follow you back if you follow us (just note which one you are linking to):

If you are interested in gaining followers to your blog who will read and comment and truly find an interest in your blog, link up here:

If you have family friendly giveaways to link up, here's your spot. Please make sure to include an end date for your giveaway.

We are so glad you stopped by. Please leave a comment if you link up and we will be sure to stop by and follow back.

Don't forget to check out my "Blog Hops" page for other great weekend blog hops!!

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen #33: Birthday Cake for Jesus

Time for Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen

(A weekly linky where you can share your special time in the kitchen, such a great place for learning. You can also link up Kid-Friendly Recipes)

The linky is at the bottom.

This week the girls and I made a Birthday Cake for Baby Jesus. This is a Christmas tradition I would love to keep. I planned on having it Christmas Eve after dinner, before our Candle Light service at church. As we ran out of time we ended up eating it with our snacky lunch on Christmas Day. I think it worked out great.

We just made a simple white cake using a mix as I wanted it to represent Jesus' purity and holiness.

Pouring in the mix.

Adding the water.

Hannah helped add the oil then I added the egg whites. That was something new I showed the girls, how to separate egg whites from the yolks.

They all took a turn mixing.

Got the pans ready and Miss Hannah thought she would touch.

After the cake was done I used my Magic Bullet to grind up mini candy canes. I used 13-15 but didn't need near that many, maybe 8 would suffice, I am not sure.

I used it to sprinkle over the first layer of white frosting.

Then I added the second layer, frosted it and added mini candy cane decorations. I used one candy cane for the "J" in Jesus name.

We used the candy canes because one other tradition I wanted to start was to read the book The Candymaker's Gift and focus a bit on candy canes. They received one in their stocking too. You can find out more about why I decided to do this in my Legend of the Candy Cane 25 Days of Christmas Blogshare post.

Do you have your children help you in the kitchen? What lessons do they learn? Do you have any kid friendly recipes to share?

I'd love to see your posts, whether you have done something this week or some time in the past. Just link up below. This is a weekly linky.

I am linking up to:

And here is my Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen linky

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Wordless Wednesday: December 26, 2012 (w/linky)- Christmas (Baby Harold's First Christmas)

We started out our holiday with a visit from the grandparents.

The children gave them their presents. A couple of jar gifts (a dessert and a meal in a jar).

And their It's No Puzzle Picture Frame.

Then we went to our Candle Christmas Eve Service.

It had started snowing a little while earlier.

After the kids were in bed it was wrapping presents time. I always wait til Christmas Eve, not sure why.

Daddy putting together Baby Harold's Rocktivity Walk 'N Roll Rider.

More presents still need wrapped. We didn't get to bed until 5am.

All ready for Christmas morning.

The bags on the left hold the children's gifts to each other.

One of our Christmas morning traditions is that the girls can't come downstairs until everyone is ready. I hadn't expected them to get dressed, but Tabitha and Amelia did.

Stockings first.

They were so happy to open the simple things, like the crayons and paints.

Modeling the slippers from grandma.

Baby Harold was so thrilled with the Elmo from sissy Krystal that we needed to use it to get him interested in other presents.

Gave him some Gerber puffs in his stocking (as there was no way he was getting chocolate). I gave him some for breakfast.

He absolutely loves the Shake and Roll Racer.

When he rolls the ball on the top it makes some great car sounds and starts rolling. He could also make it start up by shaking the rattle, but he prefers this way. His first remote control car, hehehe.