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Heartwarming Christmas Picture Books for Children
These heartwarming Christmas pictures books are bound to bring holiday magic and Christmas cheer into your home.
Backwoods MamaWinter
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How To Make a Wet Felted Mason Jar Lantern
A few years ago I shared a tutorial on How to Make a Wet Felted Lantern For Winter Solstice. This project has always been a favourite in our home. This year we wanted to try the same technique on mason jars to create a lantern with sturdier sides. The result: A...
How to Make Birdseed Ornaments for Wild Birds
Every winter my kids and I make cookie cutter birdseed ornaments to hang on a special tree for our feathered friends. It's one of our favourite winter traditions. We also make extras to give as gifts to teachers, friends and family to celebrate the Winter Solstice and...
5 Reasons Kids Should Play Outside in the Winter
Winter has arrived and transformed the outdoor world into a magical place of snow, ice and twinkling stars. As the world outside becomes covered in fluffy snow and frosty ice, a deep quiet descends, but that hush, it seems, is more than the calming silence of snow....
7 Winter Carnival Activities for Kids
Winter Carnival finds its roots in Mardi Gras, a Christian day of feasting before the somber season of Lent. Over time this single day of celebration has stretched into days and in some places weeks. In northern climates,...
Stop Hating Winter: Unleash Your Inner Yeti with 5 Essentials Steps
1. Change Your Mindset. As soon as the temperature dips below freezing, there's a flood of snarky comments and memes online. "I hate winter", "I wasn't made for winter", "I don't do winter" and even "die die winter!" (picture: toppled snowman riddled with knives)....
Three Holiday Ornaments that Kids Can Make Using Oranges
Handmade ornaments are the most treasured holiday decorations in our home. Each one is a miniature time capsule that we dig up every December, reminding us of special moments in our lives. There are lots of ideas for making handmade...
Keeping Kids Warm in the Winter with Base Layers
Getting outside during the winter months can be a struggle with children. There's the initial challenge of convincing everyone that it'll be fun. Then there's the act of wrestling on everyone's winter gear while listening to the...
How to Make a Wet Felted Lantern For Winter Solstice
This post was last updated November 2021. A few years ago I invited a group of families into my home to make wet felted lanterns for Winter Solstice. I covered my living room floor in a large blue tarp and set out a few bins of hot soapy water. It was chaotic and...
7+ Wonderful Ways to Celebrate Winter Solstice with Kids
The Winter Solstice marks the shortest day and longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, signaling the official start of winter. It’s a time when the rhythm of nature invites us to pause, reflect, and celebrate the gradual return of the sun. This guide...
6 Tips for Winter Hiking with Kids
Winter is a time for sledding, skating, skiing and snowshoeing! But what about hiking? Hiking might not be the first activity that comes to mind when deciding which winter activity to do with your kids, but it's actually a lot of fun to do in the winter. So from our...
Winter Solstice
We brought in our Christmas tree on the shortest day of the year. It is standing in the living room emanating a pleasant scent of fir. Tomorrow it will be dressed in lights and ribbons and it will shine and twinkle. It seems right to be bringing in this symbol of...
Welcoming Winter
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. Hanging birdseed ornaments.My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse...
St. Lucia Buns (Without Saffron)
These St. Lucia buns are not authentically Swedish. For one I have no Swedish ancestry, but more importantly they don't contain saffron. It's not because I don't like saffron. I do! Saffron is fantastic in risotto and paella. To my surprise I even had just...
Dawn on the Feast of St. Nicholas
It was dawn. Teddy woke up to nurse and wasn't settling back to sleep. I suspected that he was getting sick. There is a cold making the rounds in our home. Even I woke up with a sore throat and stuffy nose this morning. I picked up Teddy and we tiptoed into the...
The Spirit of Advent
Advent has begun in our home. The Jesse tree is up and, unlike last year, I managed to make a wreath for our four Advent candles. Our children have noticed the changes around our home and have responded with curiosity and excitement. It makes me smile when I see my...