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Day & Night Cookies

When Big J was three, I started doing some preschool at home with him, and we started off each day with a Bible story, beginning at the beginning!

One particular day, we were talking about how God created day and night and focused on the colors black and white.

He needed something to keep him occupied and he loved baking with me {still does occasionally}, so we came up with this fun little recipe!

We took my mom’s classic chocolate chip cookie recipe and mixed it up a little to make “Day and Night Cookies.” I threw in a little bit of this and that I found in the cupboard. We were both quite pleased with the yummy results!

Day Night Cookies Oven

The “mix-in” proportions can be changed to suit your tastes – more Heath in my case! Raisins could also make a great “night” option.

Big J had fun finding the black and white pieces as he ate the cookies. And looking back over this recipe, I think I’m ready to pop another batch in the oven!

Day Night Cookies

Day and Night Cookies

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup shortening
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 1/3 cup flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cup mix-ins – here is my preference:
  • *1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • *1/4 cup white chocolate chips
  • *1/2 cup toffee baking bits (such as Heath)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream sugars and shortening together.

Add eggs and vanilla.

Mix in the rest of the ingredients, adding your preferred mix-ins last.

Drop by spoonful on to a cookie sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes until a light golden brown.

 

What would you throw into your version of “Day and Night Cookies?” 

Hide and Seek Devotional {Giveaway!}

I have a lot of moms ask me about doing devotional time with preschool age children…

They won’t sit still.

They need variety.

Just sitting down to read a story doesn’t work every day.

How do I keep them interested?!?!

I’ve found a great resource to solve those preschool devotion-time problems!

The Hide and Seek Devotional includes 52 devotionals to help your child hide the Word in his heart and seek the Lord in his life – and it’s all laid out in a fun format for the parent and child!

The book goes through the alphabet twice – uppercase letters first, then lowercase letters – using Scripture, Bible stories, colorful illustrations, and even songs to fully engage your child in Bible time!

Prayers and activities add even more depth and engagement with your young ones!

And each devotional includes a memory verse, just perfect for little ones to tuck away in their hearts {and check off in the back of the book}!

To top it all off, when you buy the book, you also get a free audio download including songs to help with Scripture memorization! It’s the complete package!

With 52 lessons, the Hide and Seek Devotional would be a wonderful book to work through weekly over the course of a year. And it’s not just for preschoolers – early elementary age children will love this as well!

If you want to take a look in the book for yourself, just click here!

And after you check it out, come back over here to enter to win your own copy!

Just tell me in the comments how your children learn best – music, pictures, stories, hands-on activities?

For optional extra entries, you can share this post on Facebook and Twitter – just leave a separate comment telling me where you shared!

This giveaway will end Friday, August 31st at 9:00 p.m. CST! One winner will be chosen at random and notified by email!

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*I received this devotional to review because I am a Tommy Mommy. All opinions are 100% my own!

**This post contains affiliate links.

God Is Good To Me {And YOU!}: A Video and Giveaway!

We’ve had a lot going on in our lives right now {in case you couldn’t tell by the crickets chirping here at the blog}!

Almost all of it has been wonderful, awesome stuff, but crazy schedules and many changes also come with a lot of stress.

Several times a day I need to step back {or go into the peace of the bathroom}, take a deep breath, and remind myself of one important thing…

God is SO good to me.

And now, thanks to the lovely and spunky Yancy, the kids and I have an amazing song running through our heads to remind us of that very truth!

Check out this special Yancy Blog Tour video just for all of you…

{Did you catch the sparkly piano in there?! So awesome!}

The kids have been dancing around to this and having so much fun! We loved Yancy’s first preschool CD & DVD, Little Praise Party: My Best Friend, so we are pumped about this latest album!

There is nothing better than music based on the Word of God that is fun for ALL of us to listen to {and by that I mean not annoying to adults}!

There is much fun to be had at Yancy’s website, including music and DVDs for kids of every age. I loved her album for older kids/teens called Stars, Guitars, and Megaphone Dreams - great energizing music!

Now, YOU have a chance to win a CD/DVD combo pack of Little Praise Party: Happy Day Everyday!

Leave a comment before midnight tonight telling me one way God has been to good to you lately! One winner will be chosen at random and notified by email!

And don’t miss out on the wonderful videos at the other stops on the Yancy Blog Tour:

Monday April 30
Impress Your Kids

Tuesday May 1
Mama Hall

Wednesday May 2
God Centered Mom

Thursday May 3
Homeschool Creations

Friday May 4
ModSquad

Saturday May 5
When You Rise

Sunday May 6
4tunate

Monday May 7
Inspired To Action

Tuesday May 8
Home With the Boys

Wednesday May 9
1+1+1=1

Thursday May 10
Muthering Heights

Friday May 11
MOB Society

Saturday May 12
I Can Teach My Child

Little J’s Christmas Program

There are not many things cuter than a preschool Christmas program.

Our preschool really knows how to do it – short and super sweet!

These adorable kiddos were on stage for about fifteen minutes, and if you have preschoolers, you know that is the PERFECT length of time before potty breaks and Kleenex and other such things are needed.

Well, I guess one child needed a Kleenex during that time and another one wanted her mommy to put her headband back on, but otherwise there were very few interruptions!

Little J loves preschool and his teacher, but he gets very solemn and shy when I’m dropping him off. See the look on his face?

Crazy at home, solemn in public – that’s our Little J! His teacher says that shyness wears off pretty fast once class gets going, but that look on his face just cracks me up!

He did all of the actions throughout the program – SO adorable! He did not sing a single word until the last song, Silent Night, but that was more than enough to make this Christmas-loving, former music teacher mama grin from ear-to-ear.

Besides, I know the boy can sing from his belting of “FA LA LA LA LA” from the backseat of the van :)

And at least he wasn’t picking his nose or lifting up his shirt – nothing to end up on America’s Funniest Home Videos! We were very proud of how focused he was despite the twirling and waving and so on surrounding him!

And he looked so stinkin’ handsome in his Sunday best…

Love these guys! And even when all dressed up, they’re so goofy together…

Those grins get me every time.

Since it was his special night, Little J got to pick somewhere to eat for dinner, so we all enjoyed some Applebee’s to wrap up the night!

Christmas programs – just another reason to love this time of year!

Have you been to any Christmas programs this year? Any funny stories?

Friday Fun: Alphabet Caps

This is such a simple idea, but I never thought of until my friend Megan mentioned doing it with her kiddos!

I’m trying to stock up on things for Little J to play with while Big J and I do school, or even activities we can do together at varying levels, and this is the perfect thing!

We started by collecting plastic bottle caps from milk, water bottles, juice, etc. We had some lovely friends and family who collected as well, which grows your stash quickly!

I believe we collected over 100! That gives you 3-4 sets of the entire alphabet, plus extras to work with!

A few tips:

*Make uppercase and lowercase letters. I tried to keep it pretty even, but now I’m wishing I had more lowercase to spell out words correctly!

*Make extra lowercase vowels – you will often run out!

*Leave some blank so you can write on them when others get lost or you need ANOTHER D or P or B!

*Let your kiddos play with them on their own before directing any activities. I was surprised by how much Little J enjoyed just sorting through them and saying the letters!

Then find or make up activities to do – letter sorting, forming the full alphabet, uppercase and lowercase matching, spelling and much more!

Put them in a bag or container, label it and add to your activity shelf!

Learning letters can be fun and this costs little to no time or money for you! Win win!

Thanks again for the idea Megan {also a fellow homeschool newbie this fall}!

Have a happy and blessed weekend!

The Graduate

Wednesday night, he took a big step…

and graduated from preschool!

There were adorable songs being sung and this mama was so grateful for a preschool that teaches a love for the Lord right alongside letters, numbers and manners.

I definitely teared up as they sang “Thy Word.” Oh my heart.

And then they got their diplomas…

Of course, my pic of him actually GETTING his diploma didn’t turn out, but you can just barely see it in his hands there!

Big J and his buddy E were not in the same class, but they have been friends since birth and her parents are some of our closest friends. So fun to share the day with them!

And he was blessed to have TWO amazing teachers this year…

Mrs. K was his teacher from the beginning of the year and he loved her right away! She did a wonderful job encouraging and teaching him -he grew so much right away!

She left at the end of January to have that precious baby boy in the picture and now gets to be a stay-at-home mom! I am so happy for her!

Mrs. W came when Mrs. K went on maternity leave and Big J adored her as well. Changing teachers mid-year can be really rough. but not in this case!

Mrs. W was so sweet and encouraged Big J in his blossoming reading skills. We were so thrilled to have another sweet teacher to finish out the year!

Big J will miss his wonderful preschool, but he is ready to start kindergarten right now! We are so excited for Little J to be a part of the same preschool next year!

Happy graduation Big J! We are so proud of you!

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In other news, this is what we’re up to with the little guy today…

Big brother picked out a bunch of stickers to try to encourage him…

A good effort, but not working so far…9:10 a.m. – one accident and no potty in the chair.

We shall overcome.

Happy weekend to all of you!

Saturday Seeds: Psalm 34:10

Resources mentioned:

Music from Seeds Family Worship, Vol. 1 – Seeds of Courage. Listen online for free here!

Get 20% off your Seeds order or pre-order their sixth album, Seeds of Character, now!

Saturday Seeds: Jeremiah 33:3

Resources mentioned:

Music from Seeds Family Worship, Vol. 1 – Seeds of Courage. Listen online for free here!

Free printables from Bible Story PrintablesJeremiah 33:3

Music, Music Everywhere!

We’re all about music here today…

First of all, I get to announce the winner of the Seeds Family Worship Seeds of Character pre-order and Christmas card! The winner, as chosen by random.org, is…

Laura from Frugal Friends!

Congrats Laura! Please e-mail me at erin {at} homewiththeboys {dot} net to claim your prize as soon as possible!

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And secondly, we enjoyed some absolutely angelic music earlier this week as Big J had his preschool Christmas program, The Angels Celebrate Jesus’ Birthday!

Look at this handsome man all ready to go…

And Little J had to join in the dressing up fun…

I die from the cuteness between these two.

The children wore angel wings for the program and sang their precious little hearts out – songs I have been hearing nonstop throughout the house for the last several weeks but still sounded just as sweet as the first time! (You can catch a little clip of Big J practicing a song on our Facebook page. SO precious.)

We are so blessed to have Big J attend a wonderful Christian preschool with such caring, godly teachers. He loves his teacher so much and so do we!

Growing up so fast. Ugh. Where is the pause button?!

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Being a music teacher for several years, I just love a good Christmas program! Have any funny stories from ones you’ve attended?

The Spirit of This Tree

This post.

This post by the brilliant Amanda (Oh Amanda, Impress Your Kids) over at the MOB Society last week inspired the project-loving teacher in me to pick up a roll of craft paper and get to to work on this…

Our “Helping Hands & Thankful Tree.”

We traced tiny hands, brainstormed ways to help others and put ourselves in the “thanks” AND “giving” mood.

Hands go up on the tree as our ideas are fleshed out. More ways to give are always around us.

We track our blessings on the calendar – thanks to be shared a week from Thursday around a food-filled table.

We strive to make this – the spirit of thanksgiving – a part of our every day, not just November.

holy experience

And I continue to count my way slowly to one thousand gifts…

41. Early morning time with Him.

42. Warm, over-sized sweatshirts.

43. Ruffles. Beautiful ruffles.

44. Diet Sioux City Sasparilla in bottles – delightful.

45. Unexpected surprises from the hubby.

46. The joy of working with my hands.

47. Girls’ night.

48. Friends who call, text, email just to say hi.

49. Party mix – my FAVORITE fall food.

50. Watching nature’s decor change with the seasons at the hand of the Master Artist.

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How do you and your family get – and stay – in the spirit of thanksgiving?

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You are always welcome at Home with the Boys – please join us on the journey!