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(Note to Santa: Please remember to take the toys out of the package and make sure they work before delivering them on Christmas Eve.)


Our tree is up! Underneath the tree my son's Geotrax Christmas train makes its rounds. He received the train last year as a present from Santa. Santa must have forgotten to do a final quality check because he delivered a non-working train - a dud! Those elves need to do a better job making the toys! Luckily my son didn't seem to mind in the least and played with it manually. Oh, to be a innocent young child, glad for all gifts, even non-working ones! Even so, a few weeks later Santa had a new, working train delivered to our home. We're enjoying watching and listening to it chug around our tree this year and hope it continues to work year after year after year.


Find more of this week's Wordless Wednesday (or Wordful) posts at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Santa would certainly approve of this six-pack! With their red noses shining bright, this group of rootdeer makes everyone smile with delight. Creative and consumable gifts are the best choice for teachers, so this year I decided to have my daughter help me make a set of rootdeer for her teacher for Christmas. We added ribbon collars with bells so that the rootdeer jingle. Each set of antlers is made from one brown pipe cleaner. I first saw the idea for this Root Deer craft on naptime crafters.

My daughter wanted to put bows on the top of the bottles to make a few girls but I didn't think that girl reindeer had antlers. We found out otherwise after searching online. Both male and female reindeer grow antlers! Did you know that? Another interesting fact we learned is that male reindeer typically lose their antlers during winter but the females don't lose theirs until spring! So are Santa's reindeer female or male? Snopes.com has a good answer: Reindeer Games

If you like this gift idea, here's a great list of creative Christmas gifts to make for others: Gifts to Make in a Twinkling

What kind of gifts do you give to teachers?

Our recent Scholastic school book fair has ended successfully, and while I'm relieved that it is over, I really enjoyed learning about the book interests of the younger school kids in our area. The more popular titles at our fair included the Wimpy Kid series, the Tangled tie-in books, Barbie books, the Pinkalicious series, Toy Story 3 books, Lego Minifigure, Star Wars Clone War and Marvel comics titles. Some of the more popular picture book titles included Merry Christmas Splat, Llama Llama Misses Mama, Grumpy Cat, Snowmen All Year and Skippyjon Jones Lost In Space.

One book I watched with interest was The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future. I received a review copy prior to the bookfair and wanted to gauge popularity. While the book wasn't one of our top sellers, we did sell several copies over the course of the book fair. The book is written in a graphic novel style and written and illustrated by Dav Pilkey, the author of the Captain Underpants series. (To clarify, the books are written and illustrated under the names and from the perspective of George Beard (age 9-3/4) and Harold Hutchins (age 10), the made-up child creators of Captain Underpants.)

In order to save Caveland, two caveboys, Ook and Gluk, living in 500,001 BC, must fight the evil chief Goppernopper and his descendants from the future. Using a time machine, Goppernopper and his descendants are stealing natural resources from the caveman days to supply their evil, greedy corporation in the year 2222. The Goppernoppers' enslave Ook and Gluk along with their friend Lily the dinosaur and drag them to the future. The caveboys manage to escape, remain in the future and take kung-fu lessons for seven years from the wise Master Wong. After intensive training in both fighting and philosophy, they embark on their "heros jerney" as grown men.



At first glance, I can honestly say that I wasn't sure what to think of Ook and Gluk. Graphic novels really aren't my thing, and I'm not sure my oldest (a kindergartner) is ready for this story. The book looks and reads like something a 10-year-old boy would write, and thus it contains several intentionally misspelled words and uses words like suckas, barf, pee-brain, dumb head and diaper breath. So I sat quietly at the fair, watching and observing this one book, waiting for someone to comment. And, low and behold, one mom that I know and respect spoke up. She told me that while her oldest son, a sixth grader, loves to read, her second-grade son is just the opposite. Ook and Gluk happens to be one of her second-grader's favorite books. He thinks it is hilarious. She also said that while it might not be some

Just bought some wooden panels.  I am ready to start making new products to list in my Etsy store.

Bought Plywood small oval and square shapes to start making ornaments for Christmas.

Mixed Media mini paintings and collage originals!

Ordered glass and glaze to make pendents.

I will be putting those up for sale soon.

With Halloween only a week away, the costume scramble has begun. I just finished my daughter's Ladybug Girl costume this week. As I'm sure many of you know, Ladybug Girl (from the picture books by David Soman and Jacky Davis) wears a bright red tutu. I really didn't want to purchase a tutu, especially since some of the fancier ones cost $20+.

Thankfully, Jenni from MissTutu.com just recently contacted me about reviewing her tutu making DVD tutorial, Secrets to Tutu Making Success. Talk about perfect timing. I found the DVD extremely helpful. I'm not sure my homemade tutu would have ended up looking as good without all her helpful tips and detailed instructions on what and how much material to buy and how to assemble the tutu. Without this guide, I would have never thought to use a rotary cutter to cut the tulle and her tips on how much tulle to use saved me from having to make multiple trips to the craft store for more.

Surprisingly, these tutus are very easy to make. I made a Basic Tutu in one hour, from start to finish. Pretty good for my first attempt! With practice, I'm sure that I could easily make one in half the time. The whole tutu cost me about $7 for materials, but if I would have used coupons and shopped around, I could have easily spent much less than that. A bargain, either way.







The Secrets to Tutu Making Success DVD includes directions on how to make 15 different tutu designs, including the Basic Tutu. None of the designs require a sewing machine. Even a novice crafter can easily whip up a tutu by following this

This past week several Nutcracker performances took place in our area. On Christmas Eve our local PBS station is airing Dance in America: San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker. The Nutcracker ballet was first performed in its entirety in the United States on December 24th, 1944 by the San Francisco Ballet. This famous ballet is now an annual Christmas season tradition and productions can be seen all over the nation, in large and small venues.

As I've said before, my preschool age daughter takes beginner ballet lessons. She wears her hair in a bun, has a pink leotard and tutu and, of course, has her own special pink ballet slippers. If she continues to show an interest in ballet, someday she may be able to perform in the local Nutcracker production. However, right now she enjoys pretending to be a prima ballerina and likes to dance along with the performers on television while watching her newest favorite DVD, Prima Princessa Presents The Nutcracker.

The Prima Princessa Presents series is perfect for children ages 3 to 7. The DVDs bring ballet performances right into your home. Children can watch and dance along with the performers and they even get the chance to learn real ballet steps.

Prima Princessa's The Nutcracker DVD features actual performance segments by the San Francisco Ballet and the students at the School of American Ballet show kids a few dance steps. Best of all it provides a wonderful introduction to Tchaikovsky's famous ballet. An animated, sparkly fairy ballerina named Prima Princessa describes and provides a summary of the plot, the dances and the music in terms that young children can easily understand. She covers both Act I and Act II and children alternately watch segments of the actual ballet and instructional dance clips. Positions and steps covered include Passé, Glissade and Sauté (échappé sauté and sauté arabesque). The 40 minute movie also includes two bonus segments:
Arm Positions and Port de Bras shows the four basic arm position in classical ballet, along with visual images of flowers blooming. In the other segment, a Holiday Party set to the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" music depicts children decorating cookies, eating other yummy Christmas treats and handing out gifts.

Young children that love princesses, ballerinas, ballet or the story of the Nutcracker will especially enjoy watching the DVD. The divided segments are short enough for small attention spans. Even my toddler son enjoys watching parts of the film and trys

Having a hard time keeping up with the trends in the children's book world? One way to discover new books is to take a look at the bestselling lists. I've found several lists available online. Publication frequency varies and some of the links go directly to children's books lists while several others link to the main list and have a separate category for kid's books. My favorite resources are the Indie (Independent Bookstore weekly list) and the New York Times Children's Book List.

With Christmas approaching quickly, several holiday themed books appear on the lists: Fancy Nancy's Splendiferous Christmas, The Christmas Magic, The Christmas Sweater, The Night Before Christmas, The Spirit of Christmas, The Polar Express and more.

Remember, books make great last minute gifts! Are you giving books for the holidays? Is your favorite bestseller list missing? Please let me know and I'll make sure to add it.


Independent stores:

National Indie Bestsellers (published weekly)

The Heartland Indie Bestseller List (Midwest Region - other regions available for viewing)

Publications:

The New York Times Bestseller List (published weekly)

USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list

Publisher's Weekly Latest BestSellers of Children's Fiction Books

Online Retailers:

Powell's Bestseller List

Barnes and Noble Top 100

Borders Kids Bestsellers

Amazon Bestsellers in Children's Books

Christian Bestsellers:

Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) Christian Kids Bestsellers

CBA Children's and Young Adult Best-Seller List [pdf]

Christianbook.com Bestsellers

Looking for a unique, one-a-kind holiday gift for a child? Personalized books give children the exciting opportunity to see their name in print. As a child, I always looked at the personalized pencils and bike license plates with longing. None of the store displays ever included my name. The only item I ever found with my name on it was a hand-painted ceramic heart pin. Luckily, with the recent technological advances, any child with any name can receive special personalized items. Prices for personalized books typically range from $20-$40. Here are a few companies that offer personalized books that I've found online:

I See Me! - Create a keepsake book for a special child with one of their "My Very Own" Storybooks. The company offers My Very Own Name Personalized Storybook, My Very Own Fairy Tale Personalized Storybook, and My Very Own ABC's Personalized Board Book along with several other personalized items including personalized canvas wall art. We received a sample copy of A Christmas Bear for Me, a version so popular it is already sold out and is no longer available! The hardcover book we received is printed in full color on quality glossy paper and came encased in a special keepsake box.

Frecklebox - This past spring I won a Frecklebox contest and received a special nature "My Name Is" Hardcover Personalized Book from Frecklebox for my daughter. We liked it so much we ordered another for my son and one for my nephew as well. The child's name is magically spelled out by natural items like the stars, flowers, and birds. The repetition in the book helped my daughter memorize the letters of her name. You can flip through the pages of a sample book on the website to get a closer look. Frecklebox offers several different book choices as well as a large number of other personalized items such as puzzles, placemats, posters and coloring books.

Inscribe-it - Inscribe-it sells popular children's books titles including Little Golden Books, classics, holiday books and more, all available for personalization. Their technology allows customers to include a personal dedication and full-color photograph in the beginning of the book, making it a treasured and personalized keepsake.

Do your kids have a personalized book or do you know of any other companies that offer personalized books for children? I'd love to hear about them.

This past weekend we went shopping. Yes, we even braved two stores during Black Friday! Kohl's department store was our first stop. Kohl's ranks high on my list of favorite stores partly because it based in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Max Kohl opened his first department store in 1962 in Brookfield, Wisconsin (the Kohl family operated grocery stores before the department stores). Kohl's is now one of the largest discount department store chains in the United States, operating 1,059 stores in 49 states.

However the main reason I love Kohl's is because I can find quality merchandise at reasonable prices for everyone in the family all in one store. We shop there for clothes, shoes and for items for our home. We even registered at Kohl's before our wedding. This weekend we took advantage of the great holiday sales and purchased Christmas dress clothes for both of my children, a king-size sheet set, a rug for my kitchen, a new coat for myself, and some clothes for my husband.

Kohls.com is the perfect place to shop during the holiday season with numerous gift options available. In fact, they even have a handy Holiday Gift Guide so that customers can view popular gifts and top picks in several price ranges. I recently browsed through some of the featured items and picked a few favorites:

For kids:
Kohl's Cares for Kids® "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake" Book ($5) - this book by best-selling author Laura Numeroff is a bargain at $5. Plus 100% of the profit from Kohl's Cares for Kids products go directly to support children’s health and education initiatives. A win-win situation all around and I applaud Kohl's for supporting the nation's youth!

While this isn't on their gift guide, like I said before I always buy my kids' Holiday clothes from Kohl's. In the store they have a huge selection of gorgeous dresses and I bought a cute sweater vest outfit for my son. Kohl's also offers a surprisingly large selection of TOYS and GAMES.

For teens: