Our 2009 Grammie and Poppa Snowman Camp

"WELCOME TO OUR GRAMMIE AND POPPA SNOWMAN CAMP"

All our grandchildren showed up in the afternoon. Sleeping bags, warm clothes and pillows filled the front room. Lots of happiness was going on for sure. We have 6 grandsons and 3 granddaughters. The boys talk more and louder then the girls hands down.

They laugh and keep the party going.

Before they got to the farm, I had the table and house all decorated with snowmen. My friend Mary blessed me some years back with lots of snowman gifts. Everything you could think of, she gave. I have collected snowmen over the years and have received some from my kids and honey. I decorated real simple with evergreen branches. I also sprinkled pretend snow on the branches and snowmen. It looked like a winter wonderland.

Everyone got situated with their stuff in designated spots and then it was time for supper.

Our evening meal was spaghetti, corn and herb bread. Mr. Phil bought me new snowman dishes (plates, salad plates, bowls and mugs) for the snowman party. Thank you honey! The kids loved them. We put the food on the plate and told them they had to eat it to see what design was on the plate. My momma always did that when my siblings and I were little. The children seem to enjoy it when I do it for them. As the kids ate we listened to what had been going on in their life. That is probably one of our favorite parts of the party.

Games and treats!

After our meal we had some games, puzzles, popcorn and hot cocoa. I found so many games for only $1.00 each at WalMart, Dollar Store and Target. There was lots of laughing and conversation between the cousins as they played together.

It was getting late and time to get the crew ready for bed. Ha! We had kids under the dining room table and girls with Grammie. Poppa had all the boys. YES! That was a sight. Before bed though Poppa read the CHRISTmas story. It never gets to old. One message that stuck out and the children memorized was “nothing is impossible with God”. Now when you break that down. Nothing means there is not one thing that God cannot accomplish. It was a sweet time for Poppa and myself to listen to sweetness from our grandchildren lips. They are learning to love our God. We trust as they watch us love God they will also. As I get older I realize what a huge responsibility that is on our shoulders as our grandchildren’s watch and listen to their Grammie and Poppa. I was not raised in a Christian home. They loved me, they just didn't know the Lord personally. When Mr. Phil got saved, we started going to a Bible teaching church that was on fire! We went everytime the doors opened. We loved our new church family and we started to grow. Our little family was young and we were so hungry to know how the Lord wanted us to live. I am so thankful that we can teach our grandchildren now.

The girls went to sleep first and it took the boys about 2 hours to finally get calmed down. Poppa took good care of that. smile.

The morning came soon. They all enjoyed pancakes for breakfast. Really easy to make snowmen pancakes with the gel decorating tubes. I used black and orange. The kids loved them. After the children ate their breakfast they went outside to play with their forts. The day was warm and they had a total blast. They drug stuff from everywhere on this farm to make their forts their own. The girl made their fort into little houses. It was so cute to watch them all. I was in the house getting the house ready for the party. I am giving you some of the instructions to some of the things I made. I will also link you to some other blogs that other bloggers told me about. I hope you can use some of these ideas if you ever have a Snowman Party.

SNOWMAN CANDY HOLDER INSTRUCTIONS

Needs: toilet paper tube, black and rust marker, white tissue paper, red ribbon

string and small candy

1. Toilet paper tube

2 Cut tissue paper about 1 1/2" bigger on each end and enough to cover the tube tight.

3. Tuck tissue into one end of the tube (this will be the bottom).

4. Twist the top and tie ribbon and make a bow

5. Open the bottom end up again and stuff the tube with candy.

6. Draw two little eyes, nose and mouth.

SNOWMAN INSULATED WATER BOTTLE HOLDER

This is not my pattern. I just came up with making it into a snowman. I have permission from Kathy the designer of the water bottle holder to put it up on my blog. You will have to go to her wonderful website to get the pattern, for this insulated water bottle holder. Look around while you are there, she has adorable things to look at. Pink Chalks Studio water bottle carrier I used cream flannel for my water bottle and some snowman fabric for the lining. It was some fabric I designed so our grandchildren can have something of Grammies. If you can't find the flannel cream fabric, I can sell you some.

1. Trace nose to paper backed fusible webbing. Iron paper to rust fabric. Cut the nose out. Set aside. Click here for placement and pattern for Snowman Face Pattern

2. Iron paper backed fusible webbing to black fabric

3. Use a 1/4" paper punch and punch out 7 circles. I was so excited when I tried this and it worked! I wasn't sure how I was going to cut those little circles out with them being so little.

4. Cut a pice of cardboard 1/2" by 4"long. Lay a 5" red piece red yarn on the bottom edge of the cardboard.

5. Wrap yarn around 30 times. Keep the 5" yarn piece from getting in the way.

6. Tie the 5" yarn tight around the yarn in a double knot. Cut the yarn away from the cardboard on the other end of the cardboard to make a pompom. This is soo easy to do. Shape the pompom by cutting all the stray ends. Make it into a little ball. Set aside.

7. Take the paper off the back of the nose and eyes and mouth. Look at picture for a reference on placement. Iron in place.

8. Measure any kind of ribbon for the strap and sew to each side of the water bottle holder.

9. Glue pompoms to each side using a glue gun. It is finished. Now I like to put my water bottles in the freezer for about a half hour. Then put them into the Snowman Water Bottle Holders. With the insulation in the inside it kept the grandkids water very nice and cold for a long time.

The spoon was found on an adorable blog called Homespun at Heart. Scroll down to January 19th, 2007, when you get onto Monica's blog I love her heart, it is precious. You will have fun at her blog site. My friend Sharon at A Merry Heart Journal told me about Monica's snowman party. Thank you Sharon. Monica gave me permission also to put this up. I used a black and orange permanent marker to put the faces on the spoon, but I just read that it is not safe. oops! You can find EASY WRITER food decorating pens here:

http://www.sugarcraft.com/catalog/coloring/pens.htm. You can also find them at the store. Monica uses edible food markers. They come of when the child eats with the spoon. Thank you Monica! So appreciate your help here.

For dessert I made little strawberry shortcakes in little mason jars. I made angel food cake using all my chicken eggs. I cubed up the angel food cake and layered with strawberries/sugar and whipped fresh cream, using powdered sugar instead of sugar when you whip it. Then put a big dollop (I like that word) of whipping cream on the top. Make the cream flat with a spoon

Use the orange and black decorating gel to put on the face. Put a lid on the jar, so that when they open it up, they have a little snowman staring at them. Hehe! Surprise!!!!! A snowman looking at you!!

After we ate we had a fun time, making some crafts. The children made thank you cards to their Momma's and Daddy's for blessing them with a wonderful CHRISTmas. The highlight was the snowman race though. Do you see 2 cute little wind up snowmen in the picture above? Well, we would start at the end of the table with two children and they would race. Each child would wind up a snowman and we would say, "ready set go". We laughed and laughed at what the snowmen would do. One time they came together and went round and round in a circle. We raced till every child won a prize.

Each family took a little gift home for their parents. It was a very special time fo everyone. They are still talking about it. I love having them all in my life. God is so good to me. I am such a very grateful Grammie for all that the Lord has blessed me with.

I bought a storage tub for our snowman party. After the CHRISTmas sales I was able to picked up some things on sale for next year. I just think this tub is going to be so useful for me to keep everything organized in one place. I am amazing myself! smile

As I have been writing this post I have been thinking about some of you Grandmothers that would love to have a party, but don't live close to your grandkids. Well, I had this great idea. Why not have one already made up and send it in a box? You could get a cookie pail and fill it with goodies just like we made here and paper plates, cups and what ever. You could write out the instructions for the games, the stories to be read and what ever else you come up with. Be sure to send a love note about how much you love them. This is getting me excited. I think that you still have time beings it is still winter and all the snow is coming down all over the country. Please tell me if you do something. I would love to hear about it.

I still had ideas that I wanted to do, but just ran out of time. I may post about them at a later date, but thank you so much for coming by and seeing what we did. It was a lot of fun and I just want my grand-babies to remember their Grammie as one that loved them very much. If you all have any idea's of other parties we can do let me know. I love designing things. We have had so many different kinds of camps. I will continue to record for you when we have our Valentine Camp. Blessings!

From our Home to yours.

Linda