Project Linus- No Sew Fleece Blankets

This is one of two no sew fleece blankets that I made for Project Linus.  I have never made these before and found it to be so easy.  Project Linus is an organization that takes homemade blankets like this no sew fleece blanket and gives them as gifts to seriously ill and traumatized children, ages 0-18.  The Mom's Club I belong to decided to do this as are charitable project this year.  One night several of us moms got together and we sat around and talked for several hours while working on making these blankets.  All the blankets made are being donated to our local chapter of Project Linus to help children in our local area.  If you would like more information about Project Linus please go to   Project Linus.  They have more information about their organization, local chapters in areas all across the United States, and the many different kinds of homemade blankets they will take.  I have to say I really enjoyed doing this and plan on continuing to contribute to this wonderful organization with more blankets over time.

Crochet

At the beginning of the year I decided I wanted to learn how to crochet some time this year.  Well after watching a few YouTube videos I did it.  I made a washcloth first, which I now can't find anywhere in my house so I don't have a picture of it.  Then I decided I would make a scarf for my daughter, M.  M picked out the color from the selection of yarn I had and over 3 days I made her a scarf.  Here is M modeling her new scarf that I crocheted her.

Now I am working on a scarf for me, and then going to try to make a hat.  Will let you know how it goes.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Nachos

I made this wonderful dessert for one of my Mom's Club events and it was delicious!  Strawberries and chocolate are one of my favorites so I devoured this.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Nachos

Ingredients:  flour tortillas
                   butter
                   cinnamon
                   sugar
                   strawberries
                   chocolate chips to be melted

Directions:  Place flour tortillas on a baking pan, and brush with melted butter on the top side of tortilla.  Then sprinkle each buttered tortilla with sugar and cinnamon. (Honestly, the more sugar and cinnamon the better I thought they turned out.)  Cook at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.  Let them cool, and then top with strawberries.  Melt chocolate chips in microwave and drizzle over the top.

Missing

Sorry I haven't made any posts in several days.  I have been dealing with a medical issue and both of my children got a really bad cold.  There are lots of posts that I plan on posting but just need to find a little more time to download pictures and not be so sleep deprived that I mess everything up like I have been doing.  I hope to be able to get some of our Valentine activities posted on Friday, and then I have several new recipes that I have tried that I want to post about too.

Conversation Heart Sorting

For Day 2 of the Valentine Countdown the activity was conversation heart sorting using a graph.  The kids loved sorting their candy by color.  M quickly figured out how the graph worked after I showed her how to use it, and A just enjoyed putting the conversation hearts in each box according to color. Here are both of the kids working on their conversation graphs which are from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Every day since then the kids get out the graphs when I give them a handful of the conversation hearts to snack on.  They love to figure out how many of each color they have and which of them has the most of each color.  Love that they are using math skills while enjoying a quick snack.

Valentine Countdown

Here is our Countdown to Valentine board.  Each day we get to open the container with the days date on it and see what special activity we get to do to for Valentine's.  It was very easy and simple to make.  I had a large piece of cardboard that I glued pieces of red construction paper on to cover it.  Then I got heart containers in the $1 section at Target.  Each heart I wrote a number from 1 to 14 with permanent marker.  I used Velcro to stick them to the board.  One piece of Velcro is stuck to the board and the other piece that attaches is stuck to the back of the heart containers.  Here is a pick to see what I am talking about.

The kids and I then used markers and stickers to decorate the board.  I then cut a piece of white computer paper into 14 strips.  On each strip I wrote a special activity we could do to help us count down till Valentine's Day.  Some of the things I wrote were make a special Valentine treat, read a Valentine's book, make cards for grandparents, sort and then eat conversation hearts, and many more.  The kids are really enjoying opening each day a new heart and seeing what the special activity is for the day.

Valentine Heart Painting

Our first Valentine craft was to paint with plastic heart containers I found in the dollar section at Target.  I gave each kid one heart container which they took apart.  Then I gave them pink and red paint to dip each heart in and then print on paper.  There are many other things you could use to do this project like a heart cookie cutter, heart sponge, or even take an empty toilet paper roll and bend it into a heart.  Here is a picture of our project.