Nativities Around Our Town

Around here we’re attempting to get past a week of illness in our home. It’s not easing up fast! In the meantime, I thought I’d post about a few things I’ve missed. I realize the blog has been dormant for too long!

This year I made sure to take pictures of the nativity scenes in our town, Bombarral. I have wanted to do this for years, so  here are the four we found outside our home. Here in Portugal, nativity scenes are called Presipios.

On the way out of town is a gigantic Mary and Joseph with baby Jesus. I tried to give some perspective by getting the windows and doors of the quinta in the background. It is awesome to see at night lighted up!

A little further out of Bombarral close to Carvalhal, there is a nativity set up at an old church.

Back in town there is a neat silhouette nativity set up at a concrete beam making plant that can be seen from the highway. So nice!

And up by the church in Bombarral, a life size version complete with date palms this year {and our two cuties}!

I did not get any good photos of the working nativity scene at the Colombo mall in Lisbon. If you’re in town it’s not to be missed. There’s way more than just the manger scene. It’s a whole village of moving figures doing their work. And the cow at the manger is chewing hay and things like that!

One of the presipios in our home is made up of vintage pieces I’ve found at the flea market, some dressed in traditional regional Portuguese garb. I love how the Portuguese add all kinds of people to come worship baby Jesus!

Happy New Years to you!

Yarn Balls and Ornaments Wreath

Last year I decided I didn’t want to use all the ball ornaments on my tree this year. I also wanted a new wreath, but those are not plentiful here in Portugal. So I decided to use what I had apart from buying some yarn from our dollar store. There are many examples of yarn ball wreaths online, but I got my idea of mixing the ornaments and yarn balls from The Pleated Poppy blog.

I covered all the ornaments that I didn’t want to show with yarn. I used some craft glue to attach the yarn to the ornament, then tucked in the end when I had finished wrapping it with yarn.

You can see part of the Styrofoam stand I made above to spray paint some of the ornaments pink.

Once everything was ready, I used the ornament hanging parts to wire them onto the wreath {necessary with the wind we can get here}. A couple of the tops of the ornaments kept coming out when I was putting them on. I think they lost they’re stay-in ability once the neck of the ornament was covered. So I used some hot glue to keep those tops secure. So far we haven’t seen the need to have hot-glued any others!

We are pleased with the fun color on our door and to have this project off my to-do list from last year!

Hearts Are Out

This year I found myself a little more motivated to get out the Valentine’s décor. Sometimes it’s felt challenging when it’s not really celebrated here {or only minimally especially in comparison to the US}.

The old egg incubator in the entry gets a new do. It’s snug next to the coat rack overflowing this time of year! {And I’ve not learned the art of keeping me out of the photo when there’s a mirror!}

I love reminiscing when I pull these things out: the vintage embroidered centerpiece—a sweet gift, the amazing wreath—from a missionary who was selling everything before going overseas, vintage cards I’ve collected or ones my mom used at a church event.

I updated my little tree this year with a coat of brown paint. It had been white since the days of my oldest’s baby shower. More vintage-esque Valentines I used to decorate my room with in high school—ha! Cake plate and bottle from the flea market here; doily—flea market…Paris!

We had some dinner guests last week that brought this lovely house plant. I thought it’s leaves and color were appropriate for the month. I haven’t taken the time to repot it yet.

I did add this most truth-filled Valentine!

My latest creation {or use of my Silhouette machine} is an etched glass hurricane candle holder. Had the candle holder for years but was never really inspired to use it. Loving it now! I took photos of the process so hopefully a step-by-step blog post is to come.

Our mighty mantle got some minor updates. {I love this how I caught the fire in this photo but night time shots can be the pits—unnatural light, flash…}

This little candle used to be a part of the ribbon foursome I made {the ones on the cake plate, but they wouldn’t all fit there}. It has a new spot in my vintage Portuguese measuring boxes. I didn’t need to add holes for the tiny heart “pennant” banner to hang from, there are so many! Fun to put some bakers’ twine to good use too holding some hearts from an old necklace.

No photos of my coffee table, but there’s a tray with a candle and some great Valentine’s reading for the kiddos. Have you ever read the history of St. Valentine? We have this kid friendly version in the stack:

Well, enjoy all the chocolates, candy and cards America! We’ll be one of few here making something of this day, and that’s ok.

Thanksgiving 2011

Before I’m way past Thanksgiving, I thought I better share about how it went, even if it’s just me for to check next year when I’m recalling what worked or didn’t!

Food wise {for what I made for this meal}:

• For the turkey, I used Pioneer Woman’s Favorite Turkey Brine again since Butterball’s are not an option here. I think it helps a fresh turkey {the butcher made sure I knew it had been killed the morning I picked it up!}.
• I made Make Ahead Gravy again from Southern Living. I was a little sad to not put all the good drippings from the turkey to use after I’d already made the other though—but having it already made is so nice!
• My green bean casserole was much better than last year’s because I boiled the frozen green beans before adding them to the casserole to bake. I didn’t have that problem in America with canned green beans {difficult to find here}.
• I need to use jello mixes from the same country! One from Germany and one from the US did not make for a solidified jello salad. Funny my kids and husband still ate it though!
• Keep an eye on the rolls to not let them get TOO brown!
• Pureeing frozen pumpkin with a little condensed milk helped it get to the right consistency faster. It worked fine in All Recipe’s Perfect Pumpkin Pie instead of canned pumpkin.

Last year’s napkin holders were still in good shape, and I liked how they looked with my “new” table runner and napkins turned placemats from the flea market.

I also found some cheap copper-like cups for small bouquets at the flea market. I decided to let our town florist make the bouquets since it didn’t cost me any more than the price of the flowers. I was OK with them after I pulled out all the greenery I wasn’t fond of. So next year I think I’d choose to cut and arrange the flowers myself.

So thankful for my friends making wonderful treats in addition to the traditional dessert fare! The best EVER sugar cookies—pretty too!

The cupcakes were not only tasty but helped make our kids’ table Mayflower boats! Later we let the kids ice the cupcakes.

The printables came from Shindig Parties To Go. I only made the ships and napkin rings, but they offered much more to make in the free download.

The kids had a great time icing the cupcakes and doing some coloring and crafts after our meal.

Everything turned out great—truly thankful for a wonderful time!

 

Fourth of July Firsts

Yes, the holiday is past, but I wanted to share some fun things I tried this year. I’ll start with a top personal accomplishment, a paper wreath for my front door!

I was inspired by Corner House’s awesome paper wreath. It is beautiful—you have to go see it! She has great instructions too.

Anyway, I had a small wreath to spare that I thought would not take too many scalloped circle cones. Ha! This was a labor of love OR more like an opportunity to persevere! Don’t let me scare you on this—I think it is the perfect project to work on as you’re talking on the phone or watching a show. Just know it may not get done overnight! Having a large scalloped paper puncher is a huge help.

A quirky thing about this 4th of July wreath is that the book pages are from a vintage Portuguese book! You could say that’s not OK on a piece of Americana, but we’ll just settle that we are blending cultures here! {or using what I can get my hands on!}

Speaking of blending cultures, I decided to go a little more low-key on 4th décor this year since we were having Portuguese and British guests {ie: the other side of the placemats made by my mother-in-law are covered in US flags}. Of course we had a few laughs about how we’d been freed from them! But they were great sports, even wearing red, white and blue!

We are only able to get our hands on sparklers in Portugal, so pretty-ing them up made it feel a bit more special. The free printables are from Thig and Twistle.

My other big attempt for this holiday was homemade hamburger buns. Not to complain, but the options for good hamburger buns here are very slim, so much that I’d gotten to where I really didn’t want to make hamburgers! This was a last attempt to keep one of my husband’s favorite foods in our normal repertoire. I think they turned out well—a recipe request from a guest makes you think others like them too! Oh how necessity{?} breeds resourcefulness!

Sharing this at Turning the Table Thursday and

At the End of the Rainbow Rice

This St. Patrick’s Day, I was a little less motivated to go all out compared to last year. We did watch a video about this day on BrainPOP—we especially enjoyed looking at pictures of the Chicago River being changed to green afterward. Then we did a symmetrical shamrock painting since the girls had been learning about halves and quarters this week. I’d hoped to get to our rainbow rice dig for magnets {since rainbows go with this holiday a bit}, but we’ll get to magnets tomorrow as we finish up our week of the Letter M.  I’m also tucking away a great teaching tool on the Trinity using 3 leafed shamrocks from 2Teaching Mommies.

Rainbow rice is sensory bin filler I first saw on Pink and Green Mama.  Hers is beautiful as are others like Rockabye Butterfly’s below for St. Patrick’s Day. If you are not familiar with sensory bins, check out Counting Coconuts and 1+1+1=1 to get a better idea. After being inspired by an article that sensory bins were not too babyish for my age of girls, rice seemed like an easy to make option and is readily available in Portugal .

I used the directions from Pink and Green Mama. I loved that she used Purell, and we had a plethora of that! It was a great opportunity for the girls to practice measuring out one cup of rice at a time for each bag to be colored. I think we ended up making several cups of each color.

Shaking up the rice with 5 squirts of Purell and 5 drops of food coloring per instructions. I guess we had to add much more because of how much we made?

Then we laid the rice out in trays to dry. This led to some artistic landscaping rather than a nice ROYGBIV, but that’s ok.

And mixed together in the bin waiting for some fun treasures to hide within! The Polly Pockets in our house have found a great new way to go swimming!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you!

Happy New Year’s Planning

Happy New Year from Portugal!

Now that all the smoke has cleared from the holidays (pun intended!), I am excited about my new planner and hopefully--system! I loved my desk calendar from the Target dollar bins last year, but I’ve not found anything like that in Portugal. Most of the calendars I’ve seen here are hard bound weekly planners—very nice looking  but not so practical seeming. I’ve been eyeing some “binders” for a homemade calendar at an etsy shop called Crown Bindery. She has beautiful binders of all sizes and practical printables. I decided to give a try at making my own.

I took my favorite scrapbook paper out of my limited stash here, cut it to fit the laminating sheets I have and put them through our laminator. I used different pages front and back if the page was not double sided. I used our 3 hole punch and jump rings (from Staples here) so I can easily add more pages rather than using a binding machine.  There’s room for A LOT of pages! Currently I have one divider to separate my monthly and weekly calendars. I may add another to put other lists in the back.

For my calendars, I downloaded the 2 page monthly calendar and 2 page weekly calendars from Clean Mama’s etsy store. I think I’d like to try making my own next year, but this is a project I decided to wait on for now. She has amazing sets of organizational printables and some free ones on her blog, Clean Mama. 

Another blog I enjoy, Life as Mom, also sells a thorough set of printables in an e-book called Organizing Life as Mom. Looking at these and others have given me ideas for ways I can plan, like making future gift lists or things to remember for future holidays (before I forget!).  I’d also recommend a couple “guides” to help you plan and set goals for the new year that have been helpful to me:

Setting Reachable Goals by Simple Mom

Tell Your Time: How To Manage Your Schedule So You Can Live Fulfilled by Amy Andrews

Blessings on you and yours in this new year, and may all your planning be efficient and effective!

Sharing this at

Christmas Fun School

I have been motivated by all the Christmas ideas for curriculum, crafting and fun that I’ve seen online this year that I have tried to put many of them into the schedule! Here is a rundown of some of the photographed fun we’ve had the last two weeks:

 

We made the Christmas Tree Sun Catcher from Itsy Bitsy Learners. I loved the simplicity of no glue! Contact paper, sequins, and tissue paper circles instead! They look great on the window—just didn’t get that picture taken yet.

The girls enjoyed playing the “S is for Santa” game with a Portuguese version of M&M’s and dice. I like to use pages like these for their Do-A-Dot Paints too. There are tons of great Christmas learning printables at Making Learning Fun.

I read somewhere about a Christmas ornament count (let me know if it was you!), but we didn’t have Christmas stickers. So I decided to cut out a tree and have the girls add ornaments with their Do-A-Dot Paints. I encouraged them to make each ornament distinct so they could count them later. Next we graphed how many of each color. The next day they practiced writing their numbers next to each row.

Please don’t miss all the great Christmas curriculum at 1+1+1=1! She has lessons plans--a great compilation of ideas from many great blogs and sites I frequent. Here my 4.5 year old has written the first letters of these names (after tracing the letters on the back side). She was doing great until she got to S for Star!

Putting the alphabet ornaments in order has been great practice for her too. I am reluctant to print and laminate a new “theme” of alphabet every week normally, so this was nice to have a theme we can use for 4 weeks! There’s much more in 1+1+1=1’s Christmas Tot Pack and Nativity Preschool Pack—you have to see!

We came up with a fun new way to practice our sight words (those we’re learning with 1+1+1=1 RRSP curriculum).  With us doing Christmas fun this month, we’re including Christmas songs in our start time every day. The girls have been holding the various sight words (on a popsicle stick) that may be in the song. When we get to that word, the girls hold up that sight word. They LOVE it and laugh a lot, and I think they are learning the words the best this way!

I’ll be checking out Homeschool Creation’s Gingerbread Baby unit and Confessions of a Homeschooler’s Christmas unit next, along with other creative and resourceful moms at