New years Eve superstitions/traditions

Have I told you That ever since I was really little my mom raised us with New Years expectations that if they were not completed brought on superstitious dilemmas?

Well yes! That's how its been and of course being raised like that I still follow them myself. I don't think Ive ever shared them with anyone probably because they would stare at me like what? But as I'm doing them I thought I would finally share with someone.

Curious about what I mean?

OK here it goes:

• If you want your home in 2013 to be clean and prosperous you must start off the year with a clean house. So of course I clean like crazy to make sure the house will be clean. That includes laundry, dishes etc. So yep a lot of work!

• You must all be clean and bathed before the New Year starts or for the rest of the year your condemning yourself to being filthy! So we all pick out times to take a bath before midnight so we ring in the year fresh and clean

• You must have a job before the New year starts or else you will be plagued with bad luck in the job department. Well that's a tough one for me because I'm a stay at home mom!

• You have to be with your loved ones when the clock strikes midnight because if there not with you the year that's starting you will be distanced by life. Sounds scary doesn't it? So were all together as we watch the fireworks inside or outside but we all hug each other at midnight to ring in a  new year.

Those are the main ones my family does and that I have continued. I thought about this as I read the Latina December2012/January2013 issue where on the last page of the magazine it shows a picture of a bowl of grapes that says that before midnight there's a tradition of eating 12 grapes in the last 12 seconds of the year. Its a race to see who will have good Luck for the next 12 months. So I thought of our traditions and how weird they must sound to others because this sure sounded weird to me. But guess what? I'm going to try it! It doesn't hurt to try something new and I could sure use some good luck in the New year.

How about you? What are you doing tonight to ring in the new Year? Any superstitions or traditions your family does? Share them with me or try some of mine.

Happy New Year! 

My 2012 Journey

So I was sitting here thinking how A new year is about to begin and how to me its a clean slate. I get to start all over again and make the new year the best year possible. But before the New Year starts I was reflecting on my 2012. What happened, what I did, how its gone for me. So here is My 2012:

January: Start of 2012, My sisters 21st birthday (new Years baby), 2 special little girls birthday, my first hair cut in over 3 years! Yep! Wow! But I really felt like I had no time for it

February: Tax season craze! The people in costumes were always stalking us on the bus. We went to Seaworld opening day. We fed the dolphins! We turned all our family members into Bacon. Leap year (always great to get an extra day) and celebrated Valentines day!

March: Spring Break! See munchkin leaping off the floor playing with water, St.Patricks Day! (lots of green)

April: We had a great Easter! Check out my Easter basket cupcakes I made. I also made my own cascarones and rice krispies eggs! Sadly most of the month I had a horrible Bad ear ache that closed my ear and made it sound like a muffled hum mixed with ringing and pain and endless Dr appts! I spent so much time with my ear against a pillow.

May: Aquatica at Seaworld had its grand opening and of course we had to be there to check it out! Mothers day,  SOL (Seeds Of Learning) classes ended and we had a party at the San Antonio Childrens Museum to celebrate a good year (Thankyou to the museum for this amazing free kids program)

June: First official day of summer (Although in Texas it feels like Summer most of the time) so we had a lot of fun in the Sun!

July: We saw the fireworks at Seaworld 4th of July. Sadly I stepped on a nail when I was walking outside in my neighborhood and had to get a shot and antibiotics. It made me stay in alot the rest of the month so I could heal.  

August: Went to The San Antonio children's museum Free day with Sid the science kid (KLRN kids sponsor), My dads bday, We went to the Witte Museum to see the Darwin Exhibit which was amazing! (Thankyou Maker Mama for the Giveaway) and I officially started blogging (whoo-hoo)!

September: We started going to Play and Learn this fall, We went to the Witte again! We celebrated Grandparents day, started our alphabet journey. We went to Seaworlds Howl-0-Scream

October: We went to National Night out and Munchkin even got to take a picture with Mayor Castro! We went to Howl-O-Scream again, We went to Chalk it up for the first time and loved it. We got lucky to go free to the Botanical gardens and we saw the dinosaurs! We had fun at Treat street and Coffins on parade on the Riverwalk. Had a spooky Halloween! Most important of all we celebrated my munchkins 4th bday!

November: We went to Dia de los Muertos events and the Diwali festival of Lights. We went to Seaworlds Christmas Celebration, celebrated my birthday and my brothers. Had fun at The San Antonio Childrens museum. Got in the holiday spirit when we went to see Santa on the Riverwalk.

December: We went to the Zoo to see Santa deliver presents to the animals, We went to the San Antonio Museum of Art for a special book launch, Survived the end of the world again, and had a Beautiful Christmas! Now getting ready for a New Year!

I want to say Thankyou to my family for always being there for me. Thankyou to Colleen Pence for your kindness and for introducing me to such a beautiful group of Bloggers that have only made me grow. Thankyou to the readers who visit the blog. Thankyou To Play and Learn for all the fun and learning.Thankyou Seaworld for the amazing year with the Fun cards I won during the Flat Jack contest. They let us go to Seaworld all this year and it was awesome!

How was your year? Think back on this year and all the Happiness and tears you shared with loved ones and How this 2013 is sure to be an amazing new adventure too! Thank you 2012 for all the memories but I cant wait to make my mark in 2013! Hope you are all here to follow along in our journey and share it with us. Happy New Year guys!

Love Always

-Alvina

Not your typical Gingerbread house (Cardboard Box fun)

This week while getting ready for Christmas munchkin kept asking to make a gingerbread house. Well he doesn't like gingerbread or much of any candy really (except chocolate) and I didn't want to make one and then have it be wasted so I decided to think of a way to have him get his house without the waste. That's when I saw what we had at home to use and it came out great!

Materials:

• 2 Cardboard boxes (I used pull up boxes)
• glue/glue stick (glue stick works best)
• heavy duty tape
• multi colored paper
• scissors
• ruler
• Christmas coloring books
• plain white paper
• colors/markers/color pencils

Instructions:

1. Take your boxes and cut them at every major crease
2. Look at all your pieces of cardboard and imagine the size you want to achieve for your house. I personally wanted it big and didn't want to have to measure too much so I kept the sizes pretty as is long wise.
3. I then measured the main piece that would become my front of house with a ruler long wise so as to find the center point. Then I decided how tall I wanted it so i could make my border for the roof edges.  I used the center point to make the lines for cutting the triangular shape out evenly. Then cut it out according to the lines.
4.  I then got the 2nd piece of cardboard and traced the first front piece onto that piece, cut it out and that became the back of the house.
5. For the 2 sides of the house I measured the height of the corner before the roof starts on the front piece and made the 2 side pieces into rectangles to match the houses height.
6. I then used the heavy duty masking tape to tape  all 4 pieces together on the inside. I then traced along the edges of the bottom floor of the house on to a piece of cardboard  and cut it out and taped it onto the rest of the structure making it the floor base.
7. I measured with a ruler the length across from the back of the house to the front of the house where the gap for a roof was and cut a rectangle to to cover the left and then another to cover the right and made sure that when held together they closed up as a roof evenly. Then it was taped in place.
8. The rest of this is now mainly aesthetic. my box looked pretty good because I kept the cardboard pieces design on the inside of the structure as well as most of the tape. You can decorate it as you wish with various Christmas odds and ends that you may have had as leftovers from wrapping and decorating.
9. I used colored paper to make roof shingles that I saw here in a cute pattern. I cut them out and me and munchkin put them on the roof with a glue stick. I then used a solid color to cover the tip of the house so as to hide the cardboard.
10. For all 4 sides of the house I used white paper trimmed to size to cover the cardboard and give it a more clean look (glue stick works best).
11. Finally I made details such as windows and doors.
12. The last and the funnest part you can do with kids of any age is coloring! Grab some Christmas coloring books and color fun stuff. I found various coloring pages of candies, presents and Christmas trees and more to color with my munchkin. I then cut them out and glued some on as scenery's around the house. I then kept some just for the use of fun! I put a piece of not so sticky double sided tape on the back of Santa and other Christmas items such as gingerbread men so that he could just put them on and off of the house on various scenes. It was too cute and he loved it!

Keep in mind that you can make your house into any theme you want. One for Easter with a bunny and eggs to hide all over or a haunted house for Halloween. *future craft idea*

Happy Crafting & Happy Holidays from my family to yours!

My inspiration came from Say Yes To Hoboken. 

Merry Christmas 2012

How was your Christmas? I know its a little late but I was sick and still am. So now I'm just catching up. I hope all of you had a great Christmas!

I fixed all of munchkins presents under the tree and got ready for him to wake up. That night I had read him The night before Christmas and Dinosaur vs. Santa (cute story about a young dinosaur getting ready for Christmas) before bed and told him that while he slept Santa would come and leave him presents under the tree.  So he fell asleep happy and excited. In the morning I waited for him to wake up anxious beyond compare. When he did I asked him if he thought Santa had come and he was excited and told me "lets go see!" So off we went to check the Christmas tree and there were presents and he was so happy saying Santa came! Santa came! Then of course he went on a Toy craze opening spree which was fun to watch. We had yummy food then watched Christmas movies all day! It was food, fun and family!

Hope you guys had a beautiful Christmas! Happy holidays from my family to yours!

Christmas Tree Handprints & Lights

We needed some Christmas cheer in this house so I looked at different Christmas crafts we could do and found these fun and easy crafts.

Christmas Tree Handprints:

Materials:

• Green paint
• paper that you can tape together to make a big sheet (depending on your handprint size and how many levels you want to go)
• accessories like stickers of ornaments and gifts
• markers/color pencils to make details and ornaments
• Glitter for the Star and ornaments

Directions:

1. You glue together sheets of paper (depending on the size of your munchkins tree you want to make)
2. You color your munchkins hand green!
3. Then pick a starting spot and start making your tree layers with handprints (put them as close to each other as you want the green to go depending on your look)
4. You can now make the tree your own! Make a string of lights, ornaments, presents at the bottom, even a background like stockings. Ask your child to draw his family beside it or make it fun with Santa! Let your childs creativity run wild!

We hanged up munchkins Handprint tree on the door next to our Christmas Tree so its in a festive place. It makes me smile when I walk by it. You could even get a frame from Goodwill and make it into a keepsake!

We then made a simple and cute string of lights with fingerprints

Materials:

• Paper
• small amounts of different colors of paint
• A pen or a marker

Directions:

1. On your Piece of paper make a string with a pen or marker where you are going to attach the lights to. You can give it twists and turns or even tangles to make it fun and original
2.  Then take your munchkins fingers and start making some lights in various patterns or just one color
3. With a pen or marker attach the lights to the string with details or just leave it as is along the string.
4. You can display them as is or get a frame from Goodwill and keep it as a keepsake. I saw one person even used it as gift wrapping paper to add a more personal touch to the gift.

Here are my munchkins string of lights (we made so many of them)

I got the idea for the Christmas tree handprints on pinterest here and the string of lights I saw here.

Hope you have fun spreading the Holiday cheer! Happy Holidays!

Colortime Crafts Giveaway!

I had lots of fun reviewing Colortime Crafts with my munchkin a couple of days ago(Check out my review here) and now am glad to tell you that one lucky reader will get the chance to Win there own Colortime Craft to try out at home!

If you don't want to wait to see if you've won you can always order some crafts right now from there website. I have a great coupon you can use when shopping that will give you 15% off retail purchases: Use coupon code 15for30C when you check out at colortime.com. Coupon must be entered at the time of purchase. Offer not valid on sale items and may not be combined with other offers or discounts. (Offer expires on May 17, 2013)

 

 

Also right now they are offering Free Shipping on orders over $60. In the continental US. Only for retail, web-based orders, placed on our website. Not to be combined with any other offers and discounts. To get the free shipping, use code FRSH11W.

Plus if you Like ColorTime crafts on Facebook they are doing a weekly fan giveaway. Each week Colortime Crafts and Markers will randomly draw 3 lucky FANS who will receive a special craft package, which includes a Colortime color-your-own "Recycle Tote Bag" and three special permanent Colortime FABRIC MARKERS. Thats awesome and just for being a fan!

Now for the Giveaway here for my readers:
Please enter with rafflecopter. One lucky winner will receive the Recycle Tote bag Craft with 3 permanent fabric markers. US only! Winner will have 24 hrs to email me back to claim prize. Giveaway ends 12/28 Happy Holidays and Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Disclosure: I was given a Colortime Craft to review. All opinions are my own. Your experience may vary. Colortime Crafts is responsible for shipment of prize.

Having fun with a Colortime Craft

This week we got a great opportunity to try Out a Colortime craft by making a unique pillowcase and we had a good time making one. Munchkin gets excited anytime he sees something big in the mail. So when he saw me opening the package and taking out some big chunky markers he was all gimme me! I told him what we were making and he already wanted the pillowcase plain as it was.

When I told him he could draw and color on it he looked at me like Huh? I think its because you get your kids use to the rules of markers go on paper and then now your telling them to run wild on this pillowcase so they hesitate a bit. Well it was only a little bit but then that changed and we colored on it and even drew on it(I didn't want it white). It only came with 3 permanent markers but we made it work by mixing them and we ended up with 5 different colors. Then after munchkin was done I worked on the back alone. We have been working on his alphabet so I wrote out the alphabet and some number and shapes on the back as a final touch. I love it! He can be showing me his letters on his comfy pillow.

As soon as it was done he wanted to play with it. First he said it was big enough to be a blanket so off he went to put it on. Then I put it on a pillow so he changed his mind and put it on the bed to get comfy on. The colors dry quickly so you don't have to worry that they will get on everything.

I think this would be a great project for kids to do for a sleepover! I'm already imagining munchkins first sleepover with friends. They can decorate there pillows and have there friends sign them so that it becomes a keepsake of such a fun night. But there are alot of other fun projects you can do with themes for boys/girls. Check them out and plan your next sleepover!

Disclosure: I was given a ColorTime craft to try out. All opinions are my own and may vary from yours.

Arte Kids Book launch at San Antonio Museum Of Art

This past week we were invited to The San Antonio Museum of Art for Arte Kids Book launch and had a blast! The museum had this special event to celebrate there New books that showcase art pieces from the museum. They are beautiful books that are not only kid friendly but also bilingual! I love how they integrate art and shapes and colors in a format that appeals to kids. At the event they had activities that were inspired from pages of the books. Here are the fun activities we did with our kiddos:

Square, Frank Stella

Red, Sergio Hernandez



Sun, Metepec, Mexico

We then had a Reading of the Books

Then a Museum tour that led us to the actual works of Art that are in the books



We had lots of fun with the activities and tour. We even had yummy treats that resembled pictures from the books thanks to Lily's Cookies. They are Beautiful!

The whole event was lots of fun for the kids and a treat for the parents. I am looking forward to visiting the museum more often now that starting in January they are going to have new kid centered activities (more details to come).

Don't forget that The San Antonio Museum of Art is Free for all ages on Tuesdays from 4 to 9 pm. So take advantage and stop on by with your kids and enjoy some art. Be sure to pick up copies of the new Kids books for the children in your lives. They will make great Christmas gifts for your little artist!

Play and Learn December

This past Wednesday we went to the first Play and learn of December at the Central library. We have been going there now for a couple of months and love it! This week the theme was The 5 senses. We didn't have such a great time this week because my munchkin had gotten his wellness check up and shots done the afternoon before. The areas where he got the shots were irritated and sore (I was the same way with shots when I was little) so he was fussy and cranky and just extra irritated himself. But we got through the class and he is feeling alot better now.

So here's a very limited view of Play and Learn this week:

You had a tail sticking out of the box that you could see and touch so that you could guess what was inside. There were various boxes to try out

Here's what was inside the various boxes

Make your shaker!







This was huge! It had various things on the fingers to touch& feel differences on

Feeling the different textures

Various containers with different smells

Tastes, different flavors

I like the various forms they represented the senses. They are simple and could be done at home which I love! Munchkin loved playing with the boxes the most.

Here are our other Play and Learn visits at Central Library:

Visit #1 Welcome!
Visit #2 Body parts, bones themed
Visit #3 Animal themed
Visit #4 Music themed
Visit #5 Halloween themed
Visit #6 Home themed
Visit #7 Dinosaur Day!
Visit #8 Building