Crayon Snowflake Gift Exchange

One of the exciting things about having a school-aged child is all of the little gifts that we get to put together for his classmates. I know it sounds very Martha-Stewart but I absolutely LOVE creating little things to give away.

When I received the flyer saying that Henry's class was going to have a Christmas gift exchange in order to share in the spirit of the holiday, I was super excited. I immediately started brainstorming and together we came up with this idea: snowflake crayons!

Making snowflake crayons is really quite simple. Find a silicone mold that you really love, obviously in this case we used snowflakes.

Find some old broken crayons or buy some new - unwrap of paper completely and then put them into the mold, being sure not to overfill so it doesn't spill over. This is when you can have the most fun. Henry and I really enjoyed mixing different color combinations and seeing how they turned out. We came to find that adding a little piece of white or cream created our absolute favorite crayons because i stuck out just so much.

Bake at 250 degrees until completely melted and then remove and let them cool completely before removing them. The more intricate designs were a little harder to remove, but most of them came out pretty easily.

Paired with a small coloring page (CG, Henry's favorite of course) and a few other small trinkets and you have the perfect little gift to give away. Making 18 to share was little work at all and we had a ton of fun doing it!

Be sure to share your crayon creations if you decide to make some!

Easy Chicken Tortilla Soup

Every great now and then Jeremy can catch lunch together and we typically hit up the soup and salad buffet at Big Boy. I love their veggie soup but on the days that they have tortilla soup, I typically go back for seconds because it is SO good. 

It's gotten cold here in Ohio and I haven't felt very well the last few days so this soup was calling my name. I knew it would be pretty simple to come up with something similar so here is my own version. 

2 chicken breasts - shredded
4 cans of black beans
1 frozen bag of corn
1 can of diced tomatoes with chiles
1 container of Swanson Mexican broth
1 package of taco/fajita seasoning

Mix all ingredients until warm.

I've made this in a half hour on the stove top or thrown all of my ingredients in the crock pot and let it simmer all day. Most of the time I just throw in a couple of frozen chicken breasts, let it cook, then remove and shred them right before we eat.

We usually have tortilla chips or strips and shredded cheese with ours but any sort of taco topping would be delicious!

Enjoy!