Bring Holiday Cheer with ScentSicles

I love holidays!  And Christmas just happens to be my favorite one.  I cannot believe that it is right around the corner.  The stores are decorated with trees, lights and holiday splendor.  We haven't fully decorated our house yet but I am really looking forward to it.  I love looking at lights, wreaths, trees and crosses.

This year marks the 40th anniversary for Tree Classics, a maker of realistic looking artificial Christmas trees, wreaths, and other Christmas ornaments.  In honor of this year's celebration, I was recently sent cinnamon scentsicles from Tree Classics for review.  Scentsicles are amazing scented ornaments that can be used on trees, wreaths and garland.  They are available in a set of three, each set contains six scentsicles.

 Putting the hooks on the scentsicles is a breeze.

one set of scentsicles

They come with their own hooks for hanging.  Scentsicles are available in pine, fur, spruce, snowberry wreath and cinnamon.  I love the cinnamon scent from my scentsicles.  They smell fantastic and it really does help put you in the Christmas mood.  The scentsicles scent will remain for 30 days, which is really ideal for the Christmas season.  I really wish I had smellography so that you could smell the cinnamon through the photograph.  You will just have to trust me.
 

Here you can see a cinnamon scentsicle on our wreath.

Thanks to Tree Classics generosity one of you will be the recipient of a Tree Classics gift.  The winner will not pick their gift but will instead have a surprise sent to them directly from Tree Classics.  Fun, right?  Just leave a comment on this post about anything and I will randomly select a winner on November 30th.  Please remember to leave your contact email along with your comment.  Good luck!

Congrats to Laurie - the winner of this giveaway

Be sure to visit Tree Classics on facebook, twitter, and pinterest.  Check out Tree Classics website to view their range of holiday offerings as well.

Disclosure: Thanks so much to Tree Classics for providing me with my own set of cinnamon scentsicles for review.  As part of Tree Classics 40th anniversary Christmas campaign I am eligible to win prizes.  All opinions are my own.

Dissecting Owl Pellets

 A, C and D ready to go

 B was ready as well

Yesterday we dissected owl pellets!  I know it sounds gross but it was actually quite fascinating.  Owl pellets are not owl poop but the hairballs of undigested owl food.  They contain hair, fur, bones, teeth, etc.  After dissecting the pellet you can determine what your owl ate.  The older four kids each dissected an owl pellet and E and I worked on one together.

E digging through our pellet

 B digging through her pellet.

C with his pellet.

D finding the bones.

If you can't tell by the pictures, we really had a great time seeing what our pellets contained.  We had charts to identify the bones and what animals they came from.

Here are some of the bones that E and I found.

 Here you can see a clear rodent jaw with the teeth next to it.

Here you can see a clear rodent hip bone.

 A and B looking at some of the bones and identifying them.

 B had all rodents bones.

D and E and I had all rodent bones as well.  A and C had rodent and shrew bones.  I was really impressed that all of our pellets had so many bones.  One of our pellets had 5 different skulls.  I ordered my owl pellets off Amazon from Mountain Home Biological and I would highly recommend them.  If you are looking for a fun and exciting science activity, dissecting owl pellets will not disappoint.

Allergy Woes

C playing Fall ball, he was on the Storm

The last few years have been hard for our children as far as allergies go, mostly C (and recently E).  We have been taking C to the allergist for a few years now.  And after trying several medications he will begin desensitization shots in the next few weeks.  He has a lot of environmental allergens like mold and cedar.  I really hope these shots work!  I hate the thought of him getting shots but I don't like the alternative either - having trouble breathing, constant nose sniffling, throat irritations, etc.  Anyone else have to go through desensitization shots for you or someone you know?  I would love to hear about your experience.

 Princess E at the Fall Fest October 2015

We discovered a few weeks ago that E is allergic to fire ants.  She had a scary episode when I was in New York.  She was bit by ~ 10 fire ants.  Her foot swelled up, she had hives on her tummy, blotches started forming all over her face and her voice became raspy - really scary I know.  I thought it was a quantity thing but her pediatrician told us that she definitely has an allergic reaction to fire ant bites.  I now carry Benadryl and an Epi-Pen wherever she goes.  Hopefully, we will never need to use it.  I have an even greater appreciation for those who have allergies, especially multiple ones that include food.

My Entrepreneurs

Kids Creative Paintings at Acton Children's Business Fair 2015

I'm so proud of A, B, and C.  They put together a business, Kids Creative Paintings, created product, and sold their goods yesterday at the Acton Children's Business Fair.  They came up with the idea, the name, and their paintings completely on their own. 

 

 Inside their tent

They figured out the cost of each product and how much they needed to sell their paintings for in order to make profit.  I attended the fair with them; however, I was not allowed to talk or sell their paintings for them. 

 

 Making a sale

Talking to potential customers

I spent most of the fair walking around and checking out all the booths (there were 115 booths). 

 Other booths at the fair...

I am glad to say that they did indeed make money and the learning experience and opportunity to create the business itself was so fantastic.  They sold 20 of their 27 paintings.  A huge shout out and thank you to everyone that supported them!  This was our first year to participate and the kids had such a good time they are hoping to participate again next year.  I cannot wait to see what they come up with!