We are Official

I finally feel official!  Our license came in the mail on Friday.  It is dated October 10/28/12-10/28/16 so that means we have been on the roster and/or in the system since 10/28.  I guess this is a bit more of a waiting game than I anticipated.  I thought we would get a placement quickly.  I need to remember that nothing ever goes the way I thought it would.

Our Friday Family movie night continues.  I had given the kids invitations along with their golden Polar Express ticket.  In the wake of the horrific events in CT on Friday I wanted to make things extra special.  I called Rich and asked him to clear the kids our of the family room and tell them they couldn't come in.  I asked him to hang some extra Christmas lights and make the night extra special.  I stopped to get the pizza on the way home, I had planned a few Christmas games and a sweet Christmas treat.  It was a very fun night and I love making these great memories.  The Christmas games were quick and easy as was the treat.  I would love to share so that you may organize a fun event for your family as well.

Christmas games
Fill a tray with random Christmas items.  Stocking, candy cane, pinecone, chocolate chip, candy, ornament, snowflake, santa and some regular items...a watch, a spoon, a red pen, etc.  Give your family 30 seconds to see the tray and remember all the items that they can.  Then remove the tray and give them pen & paper and tell them to write all they can remember.  We also did a word scramble like this one...http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/quizzes/wordscrambles/christmas.html.

Christmas Treat
Before we ate we lined a bar pan or cookie sheet with gram crackers, melted 1 cup of butter and one cup of brown sugar in a pan and brought to a boil.  We then poured the mixture over the gram crackers and baked in the oven for 8 minutes.  We let that cool while we watched part of our movie.  We then melted two large Hershey bars in a glass bowel in the microwave and poured that over the cooled gram crackers.  We played a game and set that in the fridge to cool.  We watched more of the movie then returned to play the other game and eat our delicious snack.  Very easy and a very inexpensive night.  Tis the season for making memories.