made from scratch – Page 16 – Pollywog's Place Blog

Household Routines File Set Up: OVERVIEW

Published on December 21, 2024May 12, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog1 Comment

It’s that time of the year when we start thinking about resolutions for the New Year and many times they involve getting things to run a little smoother.

I’m going to share with you a file system that we had set up a couple of years ago and we still refer back to it every now and then or when things seem to have gotten a little off track.

We had a similar system set up many years ago and it really helped me get my house in order. We felt like we were always running behind and never getting caught up but our routine system helped us get and stay more organized.

I recently heard that routines have been proven to help you be more productive and less stressed as they lessen the number of decisions you have to make on a daily basis… it definitely helps us!

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Special Holiday Meals: Creating a Meaningful Bethlehem Dinner Tradition

Published on December 19, 2024October 5, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog3 Comments

Hi friends!

I’ve really been trying to spend more time this year on incorporating new traditions into our lives that will help us bring more focus back to GOD and to JESUS, especially during this time of year. I haven’t been great about posting all of the things we’ve been doing but I do try to give an overview of what we’ve been up to. One thing we want to try this year is a ‘Bethlehem Dinner’. I have also found similar meals labeled ‘Shepherd’s Night’.

Holy Days vs Holidays

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Delicious Homemade Treats to Gift This Holiday

Published on December 17, 2024December 10, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog1 Comment

Do you have a limited budget? Or maybe you want to give gifts, but you aren’t sure what to give?

We love gifting foods for Christmas as everyone loves food… some are special treats that we only make this time of year so that makes them extra nice to give. We made several treats for our 2024 Polar Express Party and many of them were made as gifts to take home and enjoy… they are always a HIT!

Here are some of our favorite gifts to give (and receive):

Fudge – so many varieties
Chocolate candies – flavors for everyone!
Chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks
Christmas Breads
Homemade cookies (some of these recipes could be adapted to a ‘gift in a jar’ type recipe.)
Hot cocoa mix (you can find several cute ways to gift it on Pinterest)
Sourdough Bread
Sourdough Boules (the varieties are endless but our recipe has some of our favorite variations)
Sourdough Stars and Knots (you can use any type of filling you desire… we love using Nutella, Rosella jam, or Chocolate)
Sourdough cinnamon rolls… so good!
Smoky Walnuts

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Advent Celebrations: DIY BINGO Game and Crafts

Published on December 5, 2024December 17, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

Hey everybody!

I pray you all are doing well, I’ve not been on the blog in a bit as I have scheduled quite a few posts already as we are trying to focus on the Advent Season here. As we prepare for Christmas we are also doing some preparations for St. Nicholas Day and for our annual Polar Express Party… so much fun!

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Embracing New Family Traditions in Homeschooling

Published on November 14, 2024November 18, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

Thanksgiving is in a couple of weeks and that means Advent starts soon after… where oh where does time go?

If you’ve been around my blog for long then you probably know that I try to do Advent studies with our Homeschool in place of our regular homeschool activities… this year is no different. I really want my family to be able to FOCUS on the REAL REASON BEHIND THE SEASON… not just the HOLLYWOOD VERSION. This gives us time to enjoy our family and helps to eliminate some of the stress from trying to get it all done.

We’ve been making some gradual changes in our home that may or not be for you. We have cut back on the number of gifts that we give and we try to be more intentional on the gifts we give. Often we will purchase ‘experience’ gifts that we can enjoy together as a family.

Free Printables for Holiday Shopping plus some tips for buying for special needs kiddos!

We also have different activities that we do every year like our POLAR EXPRESS PARTY which gives the kids a chance to show off some of the skills we’ve been working on using real-life activities. Below are some of the books that I recently ordered for our Advent Activities… some of these may actually end up incorporated into our Polar Express Party but not sure exactly how yet. We have some links to FREE materials further down in the post.