Tag: Mama’s Kitchen

Delicious Homemade Treats to Gift This Holiday

Published on 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?

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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):

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Embracing New Family Traditions in Homeschooling

Published on 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.

Free Printable Shopping Guide – Makes Christmas Shopping So Much Easier!
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Routines for the win!

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

Our routines keep us organized and reduce the amount of stress we have daily… Why not give it a try?

Make sure to start small and don’t try to overhaul your whole schedule at once… just a little at a time and don’t be afraid to make changes as needed to make it work for you. Even if something seems a little unconventional it might just be the right solution for you.

Here are some great places to start:

Getting Routines Started 101

Morning Routines

Kids’ Morning Routine 

Afternoon Routines

Evening Routines

Weekly Routines

Monthly Routines

Yearly Routines

Weekly Routines

Free Printable Shopping Guide – Makes Christmas Shopping So Much Easier!

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

If you haven’t printed this out then you should do it NOW! Take a few minutes to fill it out and then snap a picture of it so you will have it on hand for shopping trips or those times when you find a great deal but aren’t sure if something will fit someone or not… not to mention that it saves a TON of time if you have friends or family asking what sizes everyone is wearing now… it’s FREE so grab it now!

Free Printable Shopping Guide – Makes Christmas Shopping So Much Easier!

Eating from the Garden: Butternut Squash Medley

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog9 Comments

Hey guys! It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve sat down to write a post and so much has happened… the most exciting thing is that I’m a GRANDMA! I was able to spend a bit of time with the new parents and I got quite a few snuggles in with the little one before I had to come home. Mr. Awesome and the kids did a great job holding down the fort although the goats did get out and they ate my blackberry bushes. When I asked my husband about it he looked to where I was pointing and said ‘What blackberries?’… they have had quite a hard pruning but I’m hoping they’ll come back better than ever.

We’ve been busy before and after this little ‘vacation’ trying to get our winter gardens in place… the chickens had eaten some of our plants and then someone forgot to water them for a few days so we had a little bit of triage to do and we did have to replace s few things. While planting we are also harvesting what we can from what plants are remaining. I know we really enjoyed the Rosella greens last year so we definitely wanted to give them a go again. I also wanted to try to use some sweet potato leaves as a spinach alternative. I had read something the other day about how it wasn’t always hard to grow different foods but we need to learn to eat what we grow… I really want everything we put our time and energy into to provide us with something whether it’s just nice to look at, to smell, or to eat.

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