The Ferstle Family of Four: 'Tis the season for Pinterest!

I confess. I have a slight obsession with Pinterest. To the point where I'm staying up later than I should on weeknights, pinning to my heart's content on my Kindle.

It's a catch-22. As relaxing as it is to lay down for the first time all day and silently daydream about all the fun crafts I can do with my kids or recipes I can make, it also gets my adrenalin pumping. Because as I pin all of these ideas and recipes, I start instantly planning all the ingredients or things needed to make them and suddenly I'm excited to go to Michaels, Target, or Kroger. I'm not only pinning, I'm now making my shopping list, my crafting list, my meal plans for the following week, and my lesson plans at work.

But, this is my favorite time of year on Pinterest. All the festive holiday pins with delicious Christmas trees made out of fruit or pizza or even a cheese ball. The Elf on the Shelf ideas that someone is creative enough to think of and I'm sly enough to borrow (okay, steal).

One of the ideas I saw this year for Thanksgiving was to take the usual turkey hand prints for kids and put them on a table runner. I love this idea! The pin I used suggested using the same runner year after year and adding your kids' hand prints. Perfect! Since I'm not big into sewing, I didn't have any fabric to use as a runner other than burlap. So, burlap it was! Unfortunately, with burlap I can't easily write their names and year, but I'll figure something out. For now...I love the way it looks on our dining room table!

Considering Thanksgiving is a mere two days away and our Elf will be "arriving" shortly after, I got on the ball this year and found this adorable mailbox from the dollar store. Yes, it was $1. I've been telling Sean that his elf will be arriving in the mail any day this week so he's been checking both yesterday and today. Little does he know, he'll arrive on Friday in this mailbox!

I plan to do our pancake breakfast, similar to last year. Although instead of reindeer pancakes, I'm going to do snowmen with mini marshmallows and bacon for the scarf. He'll love it!

Another Christmas pin I've had for 2 years now is the felt Christmas tree for toddlers. I'm not worried about Sean touching ornaments on our big tree this year, but Evan is going to be a nightmare. So, I'm hoping this felt tree will let him feel like he can take the ornaments off and decorate the tree any way his heart desires. The felt was about $8 from Michael's and it took me two nights of cutting pieces and taping it up to the wall. I can't wait for the boys to see tomorrow when they wake up!

Since Sean is able to count well into his 20's, I saw this Santa countdown pin where your child glues a cotton ball on creating Santa's beard. I guess it's technically counting "up" to the big day. Either way, it combines counting and fine motor skills of gluing. An easy printable worksheet that I colored in and glued on construction paper.

Speaking of preschool activities, my jaw dropped when I saw the pin for "Silver Bells". Essentially, Hershey Kisses with dots on the bottom that have uppercase and lowercase letters. The child has to make matches. This is perfect for Sean considering chocolate is his motivation to do anything. For every 5 matches, he gets a piece of chocolate. And given his attention span, he gets one piece of chocolate and he's ready to move on to something else.

Last, but not least in our preschool activities, is the crocodile "Cascade" tub. I turned a Cascade dishwashing gel container into a crocodile giving him eyes and a nose. I'm going to fill the bin with flashcards. Sometimes it will be letters, other times numbers. Eventually, phonics flashcards and sight words. There's a cute saying that I saw on the pin that encourages Sean to pull a flashcard from the tub. I think I'm going to give this one as a Christmas gift this year. He's big into games, so I know this will be a hit.

It's been fun spending some one-on-one time with Sean doing these preschool games and activities I've found on Pinterest. Considering I have the "mommy guilt" about being away from him and Evan five days a week, it's rewarding to dedicate 15 minutes a night to working on some of these skills with him. And in just a short time, he's already learned to write his name (for the most part)!