Mandarin Mondays: Newly Add Fortune (The Chinglish Files)

DIY Payday Bars (Caramel Peanut Clusters)

If you like some crunchy or salty with your sweet these caramel peanut clusters are for you. They are a nice twist on some of the more traditional holiday candies.

Homemade Payday Bars (Caramel Peanut Clusters) Recipe

• Soft carmels
• Salted peanuts

1. Take a 1 inch caramel and knead it slightly (with clean fingers of course) until soft.
2. Roll in salted peanuts. Press peanuts in firmly.
3. Wrap individually in plastic wrap or parchment paper.
4. Store in an airtight container. Freeze for longer storage (if you can keep them that long)

Want more crunchy caramel goodness?

No Corn Syrup Caramel Corn

Mandarin Mondays: Future Cola (The Chinglish Files)

DIY Chocolate Caramel Walnut Turtles

The only thing better than chocolate or caramel separately is chocolate and caramel together. These decadent turtles combine chewy caramel, rich chocolate, and salty walnuts.

These special chocolates are great for holiday parties or gift giving.

Homemade Turtle Recipe

• Soft caramel candies (Homemade are awesome, but store bought should work too) (one for each turtle you want to make)
• Walnut halves or quarters (5-6 for each turtle you want to make)
• Chocolate to melt and spread over the top

1. Take a 1 inch caramel and knead it slightly (with clean fingers of course) until soft.
2. Place 4 pieces of walnuts for legs, 1 for the head, and 1 small piece for a tail if desired.
3. Place on a plate or cookie sheet, caramel side up. Allow to harden slightly.
4. Melt chocolate and spread a small amount over the top of the caramel.
5. Allow to harden before stacking or serving.
6. Store in an airtight container. Freeze for longer storage (if you can keep them that long).

Want even more chocolatey, caramel goodness?

Dark Chocolate Cake with Caramel Sauce

Turtle Ice Cream

Homeschooling for the Holidays

Today I'm delighted to be guest posting over at Free Homeschool Deals.


From the post:

Homeschooling for the Holidays

Homeschoolers have a lot of freedom when it comes to how much school and what subjects they will cover during the busy holiday season. My boys are still young, and their workload light, so we'll be continuing our normal routine and working in fun Christmas projects.

Whether you "officially" take the entire month off, do "Christmas School," or just incorporate a few holiday activities here and there, these 5 ideas can help your family keep learning and have fun during the holidays.


Read the full post here.

Christmas Holiday Preschool Activity: "Painting" Sugar Cookies

A great Christmas baking activity to involve kids in is not just baking sugar cookies, but "painting" them with icing afterwords. Most kids love to cut out sugar cookies and paint on the icing and they make a great holiday treat for your family or to share with friends. Kids love to be actively involved in preparing for important things and like to help cook and make gifts.

Last year we did this with my 4 1.2 year old and 3 year old and they had a great time.

Do be sure to let the sugar cookies cool completely before icing and the icing harden completely before stacking or serving for best presentation.

Homemade Roll Out Sugar Cookie Recipe

• 3 3/4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup butter or margarine softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• Milk (if the dough is too dry)

1. Cream together butter and sugar.
2. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
3. Add dry ingredients, incorporating flour about 1 cup at a time.
4. If the dough is too dry add milk one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached.
5. Chill in the refrigerator a couple of hours or overnight. I did find that with all real butter though I had to let the dough soften up a bit after chilling it overnight.
6. Roll small sections of dough at a time to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters and place on an ungreased baking sheet.
7. Bake at 400F for 6-8 minutes, until edges just begin to brown.

Powdered Sugar Icing Recipe

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2-3 Tbsp milk
• Food coloring if desired

1. Place powdered sugar is a small mixing bowl and add milk a Tbsp at a time until a nice consistency. Stir until smooth. Add food coloring if desired.
2. Drizzle or paint cooled cookies a solid color with a food safe brush. Sprinkle with sugar or sprinkles if desired.
3. Allow to harden at least 1 hour before stacking or serving.

The stars and snowballs turned out pretty good.

Don't their Christmas trees look festive with sprinkle ornaments?

Painting sugar cookies can be fun for adults too!

Mandarin Mondays: African Elcphant (The Chinglish Files)

Giving Thanks for Good Gifts

This week I am going along with our Thanksgiving book, The Thanks Giving Tree: Seeing Blessings Everywhere, and taking a moment to share things that I personally am thankful for.

1. I'm thankful for my parents working so hard to teach us their values growing up.
2. I am thankful for my mom taking the time to show me how to sew, even though she no longer enjoyed it, both mending and sewing new things have saved us lots of money throughout the years.
3. I am thankful for my father teaching me how to fix things, use tools, and build things. These basic skills have been used more, and in more ways, than I could have ever imagined.
4. I am thankful for my Grandpa showing me how to waste not want not, use it up and wear it out, and how to save wrapping paper for later use. I might not have appreciated this attitude quite as much as a kid, but seeing potential instead of waste has helped us imensely.
5. I'm thankful for my Grandma showing me how to bake bread, crochet, and hang up clothes on the clothesline. I think of her whenever I do these tasks.
6. I'm Thankful for my Grandma showing me to proper way to make chocolate covered butter-cream candy, play word games, and laugh my way through life. Sometimes chocolate, fun, and laughter are all you need.
7. I'm thankful that I can help teach these skills to my own children, passing down knowledge to the next generation.
8. I'm thankful for my husband demonstrating unwavering trust time and time again, and helping me to grow my own ability to be sure of what we hope for and certain of those things we do not see. And for his patience whenever he teaches me anything technology related.
9. I am thankful for my children teaching me to stop, enjoy the moment, enjoy the journey, and look at the big wide world with wonder again.
10. I'm thankful to live in an age where I can look up how to do something on the internet.

And I'm thankful for an understanding family think my humble attempts at anything is great and who eat whatever I cook (even if that time I made pizza in a wok or made Piglet out of an old sweater wasn't actually the greatest in the world).

DIY Family Times Newspaper Keepsake Gift

The day after Thanksgiving is the perfect times to start making a Family Times newspaper (that is if you haven't already) to give as as Christmas gift. The stories and perhaps antics that happened on Thanksgiving are fresh in your mind and perhaps you talked about many other events of the year yesterday as well.

My husband and I have been making Family Times newspapers for several years now. It started as a present he and his sibling gave to their parents one year, but a few years later after we married we picked the idea up again and made it as a couple. My brother now helps us write a version for my side of the family as well.

Basically we try to give little snippets of what is happening in the lives of everyone in the family that year. And we try to interject some humor as well.

Now we try to record good ideas for "news stories" throughout the year so we don't forget, but I also try to consult with siblings close to the end of the year to see if they have anything new going on with them or something we missed along the way.

We use a simple free office program (Open Office) to format it and convert it to a PDF for easy digital sharing. And so it won't explode after we get it just how we want it, as it has been known to do on occasion.

This is a gift that is basically free to make, except it does require a good deal of time. But it is so much fun to look back on all of the years editions that we have, that it makes it totally worth it. And I think our families like it at least a little bit too.

Giving Thanks When Life Seems Unfair

This week I am going along with our Thanksgiving book, The Thanks Giving Tree: Seeing Blessings Everywhere, and taking a moment to share things that I personally am thankful for.

It can be easy for me to feel like my life is extra hard sometimes, to feel like life isn't fair. Nobody ever guaranteed that life would be "fair." But in reality many things in my life are actually way more than fair, in my favor.

1. I get to see my husband a lot, way more than many wives.
2. I get to spend lots of time with my kids, way more than many people.
3. We have wonderful extended family, whom we are much closer to than many other people, despite our geographical distance.
4. We have electricity and running water that rarely go out, a much higher standard of living than many of the world's people.
5. We have lots of nutritious food, and actually can buy lots more fruit and vegetables for much less money here.
6. We have more technology than almost anyone in history.
7. We have more methods of communication than almost anyone in history.
8. We have more ways to preserve memories than almost anyone in history.
9. We have a whole new home Above to look forward too.
10. We have more Hope and Peace.