The Season of Giving...Post one

Here in the Benson Household we like to teach our children lessons in humanity...

One of the most important lessons we try to teach them is kindness <3

Now Our kids are on the younger end. So we try to keep it simple.

We give to toys for tots and the Salvation army donation stations.

We have volunteered with the older ones at different places.

But for me it is important that they understand the holidays are supposed to be the season of 

GIVING...not receiving.

So in light of trying to teach them this we wanted them to give things to their classmates,

and teachers.

Nothing crazy mind you just something small and kind. 

I let Mack look at pintrest first and he chose hot coco snowmen...

So that's what we made today :) 

So without further wait here is our pintrest project of the day

HOT CHOCOLATE SNOWMEN

 Items you will need 

Cleaned baby food jars with the labels and glue removed

Hot Chocolate mix

Marshmallows

Candie's if you want them

Hot glue gun

Black Spray paint 

Ribbon 

Black paint

Orange Permanent marker

I bought these from costco so they are pretty good size, 

I used about 2 of these to make 22 of them...

but I also let my four year old fill them up so a lot of it went on the table lol

 Good brand marshmallows of course I would suggest at least 2 possibly three bags of these

First you want to spray paint the lids of the baby food jars black

A couple tips

Don't do this outside when the weather isn't great lol

You are going to want to give them two coats so let the first dry until it's tacky and then spray the second coat

Make sure you cover the sides

And do this at least 24hrs in advance 

(I didn't and it was a pain in the but..whoops)

Also try to use all the same brand baby food jars...

I used two different kinds and once you spray the lids you can't tell which is which and they have slightly different sized lids..pain in the butt

Now Assembly style works well in our house so I put Mack on filling up the bottom jars with

hot coco :)

Another tip I would also paint the faces and buttons on the jars 24hours in advance before filling them up

Again learning curve... I didn't and it was a pain lol

 And Emmit was in Charge of filling up the marshmallows

(don't worry both boys had their hands washed before starting)

 (Gracie tried to join the party but mommy made messy face get down and go play with A)

 He had so very much fun doing this

 Use Black paint to paint and face and buttons on your snowmen 

(on the pintrest ones I saw they used actual buttons but I was afraid of the 

kids pulling them off and putting them in their mouths since they are preschoolers)

and the orange permanent marker to make the nose

When you are assembling them you need to put the bottom lids on then hot glue the top jar to the bottom lids after they are on the bottom jars

Another tip- gluing in the center of the bottom lid doesn't work you need to glue around the edges

Put the top lids on

Now you want to let those dry

and last but not least you want to add the snowman's scarf

I just used one peace as a measurement and cut them all out

I then put on dab of hot glue on the back of the bottom lid and one on each side of it

I wrapped the ribbon around and then put a dab of glue on the top of one piece of ribbon 

in the front of the snowmen and then press the other side of ribbon down on it

and TADA :) Hot coco snowmen 

 Aren't these cute :)

 I mean look at that face ;)

 We decided his teachers didn't need snowmen 

And made them cute little ornaments with Mack's finger prints on them instead :) 

 These were a big hit with his teachers

 So sweet :)

 Love the finished product 

 Merry Christmas 2014

(I saved the containers from the CoCo mix and have a fun project in mind for those to So stay tuned for that project as well)