Monday, December 19, 2011

Kids Meal Holder for the Car

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So, I’ve seen a few times on Pinterest, a kids meal holder someone built out of a plastic caddy. Clever idea, but I thought – I should really post what I do in the car. I never seem to get around to it, though.

Today I dragged my kids around town on errands and we finally stopped at McDonald’s and I thought – I’m just going to take a quick picture or two with my phone.

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So, here is my easy (and free!) car tray for kids:

*Get the milk, poke a hole in the lid with your car key, push the straw through. (My kids destroy fast food drink cups. They pull out the straw, pull off the plastic lid. It is a major mess every time. Get the milk.)

*Ask for a drink carrier (or two or three, one for each child). Squeeze ketchup (or other dipping sauce – my kids are all about the ketchup) into the middle. You’ve got four other spaces you can put stuff in– this one has apples, french fries, chicken nuggets, and milk.

*The best part is, when they are finished, you can throw the whole thing away!!  I keep thinking I should ask if I can get a whole stack of these to keep in my car.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

December Visiting Teaching Message

The December visiting teaching message can be found here.

Christmas Tags

I’ve finished handouts for my ward:

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If you want to make your own Christmas tag, download the file here and then:

1. Print the jpegs as 4 x 6 pictures at Costco or your favorite photo processing place.

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2. Glue to a 4 x 6 piece of white cardstock to reinforce the photo.

3. Cut the photo in half to give you two 2 x 3 tags from each photo.

4. Then, punch a hole at the top (insert an eyelet if you’d like), insert ribbon, and add to a plate of cookies or a gift for your visiting teachees.

Christmas Card

I also made a Christmas card with the message. I was originally going to do these for my ward, but then thought of doing a tag.

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1. Print the document available in Word or PDF. The document is black and white, but does need to be double-sided. I printed mine on a piece of fancy cardstock called Green Heather.

2. Cut 2.5 inches off the bottom of the page. (You will be left with a 6 inch by 11 inch piece of paper.

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3. Score the document 4 inches from the left edge and 3 inches from the right edge.

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4. Fold the card.

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5. Glue the 4 x 6 card front to the front of the card. You can download the photo front here.

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6. Mail or deliver your finished card to your visiting teachees.

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Christmas Snowball

For my visiting teachees, I will be doing the Christmas snowball that Inkablinka posted. Go to her site to find a free printable and directions. I did change it up a little bit, so I thought I’d post my changes.

For the center of the snowball, Inkablinka used a box with candies inside. I didn’t have any small boxes on hand, but I did have balloons:

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It’s hard to tell scale in this picture, but I just barely blew the balloon up.

Also, I couldn’t find the gift-wrapped chocolates she used, but I did find some Hershey’s miniatures that were wrapped like presents. Then I printed up a sheet of labels to stick on the back of each one:

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Inkablinka included a marking pencil but commented she wished she’d found something smaller. I found these scripture highlighters at Deseret Book for $2.39 a piece. They are shorter than the marking pencils.

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Another idea I had to go with studying the scriptures daily was scripture ribbons. You could make your own (directions here).

For strengthening families and homes, Inkablinka used a Hershey’s candy bar for a foundation. I found some Ghiradelli’s chocolates on sale and used those.

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For the yeast (represents magnifying callings), I found individual packets – they came in a 3 pack, I cut them apart and I found them in the baking section at Walmart.

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For seeds (like faith), I used these dark chocolate pomegranate seeds from Costco. Love these!

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I still need to make my white-chocolate covered pretzels (prayer) and my world ornaments (I found some old maps at DI), and then I will post a fully assembled picture.

Thanks to Inkablinka for such a great visiting teaching idea! Be sure to go get her free printable and directions here.