Be Making Gingerbread Playdough

A few years ago a friend gave us gingerbread playdough for Christmas. I must admit that we still have this playdough in our stash. It was a great gift. I absolutely love the smell of gingerbread and playing with the playdough makes the aroma spread around the room.

This year JC and I decided that we were going to make gingerbread playdough. I must admit, as an imperfect teacher and a mother, I have never made playdough. Shocking, I know.

I put all the dry ingredients into the pot. I was shocked again as I didn’t know you cooked playdough. We added in the water and the oil and began to stir. Playdough goes from this liquidy sticky dough into this chunky messy mixture and ends up being this beautiful smooth playdough. Who knew!

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Enjoy! Here is the recipe we used:

Ingredients

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup salt
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. ground cloves
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cup water
1 tsp orange extract {optional}
Instructions

In a medium saucepan whisk together dry ingredients. Next mix in the water, oil, and orange extract and stir until a thick batter is formed. Cook the mixture over low/medium heat until a thick dough forms. Turn out onto parchment paper and knead until smooth. Makes about 2 cups of dough.

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I bought some Christmas takeout containers as well as some gingerbread men cookie cutters and viola gifts for the boys friends are done.

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Happy 2nd day of Advent. Christmas is coming. Enjoy each day.

Be Writing Letters to Santa

December 1st, 2013

Advent had begun. Yeah! We are counting the days until we celebrate Jesus’ birthday.

We put the candles in our advent wreath. We will light one this first week, two the second week, three the third and all four on the week before Christmas. We will light all five on Christmas Day symbolizing Jesus’ light coming into the world.

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We have our first door of our advent calendar open, the ornament is on the tree and chocolate covered blueberries are digesting in the boys bellies. We waited til after breakfast and we tried to choose something mildly nutritious for the calendar. Do chocolate covered blueberries qualify?

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We started our letters to Santa and we hope to put them in the mailbox tomorrow. We read this book by the Berenstain Bears to see how sister and brother bear write their letters:

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The boys worked hard with Grandma and Sexy Neck. We will see what the letters to Santa end up saying.

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Happy Advent Everyone!

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