Gingerbread man

OK this was my first experience with making gingerbread men or ginger snips in general. it didn't go so well lol. she did excellent helping mix pour and even roll out the dough. how ever when it came to cutting it out. she did the cookie cutters great and then I tried to move them to the pan then turned to a ginger bread blobs. lol I ended up cooking them most of the way in a big giant cookie and then cutting them out and finishing the cooking process. lol it worked. I have talked to several people and I have learned cut them out on parchment so all I have to do is move the parchment to the pan and not the dough. I love how we can learn from every experience and we can grown. I can see how moms of older kids seem to have it all together cause they have done it over and over again and learn something new each time. I think that is so important for all moms to understand and know. No one is perfect but we can all grow and learn.

Coffee filter snowflakes

SO this is a classic winter activity that I can remember doing as a kid. It is so simple you just take a round coffee filter and fold it in half then in half again and again. then you cut the sides not going all the way through the filter. when you open it looks like a snowflake. We made several and up them up on the siding glass door. She was not very enthusiastic at first then when she opened it and it looked like a snowflake she was so excited and couldn't wait to do more. I think this may be a new tradition.

Pin cushions

I don't know about you but every time I sew I am always hunting the pin cushion. I gets moved or hinds under the material. Well I got tired of it the other night when I was sewing and made this. I am not sure what I should call it or if it has been done before, but I was quit proud. I made a pin cushion that has ribbon attached to it and it can tie around sewing machine. it doesn't move and is really handy. Thought I would share.

Snowman pancakes

I love making special things for H. this morning she requested snowman pancakes. I thought I would share what we made. just made 3 small circles in the pan one on top of the other. then after cooking added M&M's so simple but so special for her this morning. I just love the little things.

Northpole breakfast from UP

Up (our Elf) made H a surprise breakfast special from the North pole. She had chocolate, powder sugar donuts decorated like a snowman with black gel icing and part a sour worm for the nose. She also had a note from Up saying that she had a special message from Santa. IF you have not see this site check it out it is awesome messages you customize from Santa. Here http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/home

Elf on the Shelf

We had an arrival from Santa in the mail about a week ago. He was sent to watch over H and report to Santa about her behavior. It is awesome!!!!! She is so good and her room is staying so clean. He hides in different places everyday after reporting to Santa that night. The package came in the mail in Santa wrapping paper with a note from Santa.

Taco Pizza

So my lovely husband was sent to the store for tortillas and came home with an 80 of corn tortillas! 80 what am I going to do with 80 tortillas so I starting getting creative. I took the idea of a pizza and a tostada and combined them. I grilled a tortilla in a skillet and once it was brown on one side I flip it and add a light layer of cheese let it melt and then add a mixture of beans, salsa, taco seasoning and sour cream that was warmed. and a small layer of cheese on top. Taco pizza.

Thanksgiving Muffin tin Monday

For MTM this week we did a Thanksgiving theme. We have string cheese, apples (she ate some of them before i could get a picture), bugles for cornucopia's, carrot sticks, celery sticks and turkey grill cheese made with fruit leather and sweet peppers. After lunch we made turkeys from play dough by adding feathers and googly eyes.

Baking soda and vinegar experiment

My husband showed H what happens when you mix baking soda and vinegar a while back and she was totally impressed. only problem she wanted him to do it again and again. So I came up with this solution. I poured some baking soda in a baking pan and I put water in one container with blue food coloring and vinegar in another with purple food coloring. I gave her an eye dropper and we experimented. We talked about what we thought would happen with them and then looked at the differences in the reaction of the water and baking soda vs the vinegar and baking soda. She loved it and was able to see it happen over and over. When she was tired of playing with it we did a grand finally and poured all the vinegar left over in the dish!

Pumpkin Investigation

My daughter loves Sid the Science Kid and how he always investigates thinks. So this year before we carved our little pumpkin we had a pumpkin investigation. I saw this idea someone I think pinterest and had to do it. I just hand made a investigation form, we looked at and wrote down information. I was a lot of fun and we learned a bunch about pumpkins and I loved this project till we got to our last question (How many seeds are in the pumpkin?) can I tell you I had no idea! I will let you see for yourself







434 seeds inside one tiny pumpkin!!!!!!!!!!!! we gathered them in groups of 10 then counted by tens. wow that was hard work

Fall Dress

Last year I made H this pumpkin shirt for our trip to the pumpkin patch. Well this year it is to short so I made it into a dress. I just add fabric to the bottom and a ribbon on top to hide my mess lol and now she is ready to wear it again. I made it a little long so she may be able to wear it next year too.

Apple Dumplings

My husband made this the other night OMG they were amazing! He got the recipe from all recipes and I am not going to lie when he told me there was Mountain dew in it I was not to sure, especially since that is the one soda I really dislike. but turns out it was amazing. Here is what you will need:

Ingredients

• 2 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored (I used honeycrisp apples)
  
• 2 (10 ounce) cans refrigerated crescent roll dough
• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle Mountain Dew

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Cut each apple into 8 wedges and set aside. Separate the crescent roll dough into triangles. Roll each apple wedge in crescent roll dough starting at the smallest end. Pinch to seal and place in the baking dish.

Melt butter in a small saucepan and stir in the sugar and cinnamon. Pour over the apple dumplings. Pour Mountain Dew™ over the dumplings.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

Simple Halloween decor

So I am all about cheap and homemade decorations. Here are some of the things that I have made and my little one has helped in making. She helps with EVERYTHING which I love but there is nothing getting past her. LOL

These are ghost that we made from styrofoam balls from the dollar tree and cheese cloth. I have these hanging from the chandler in the dinning room and then some outside in the trees. My daughter thinks they have there mouths open like that cause they are hungry and they want some of our food.
This is a mummy we made using an empty pickle jar and cheese cloth I cut into strips then hot glued to the jar. H wrapped it and told me where she wanted me to glue. Then we attached googly eyes to the jar.
And finally these are bats cut from foam I got at Hobby Lobby half off it was really cheap and they are from last year and still work great this year. We just have sticky tack on back of them. I put the sticky take on and let H hang them where ever she wanted. they came out really cute.

Decorating Pumpkins

At our Halloween party for MOPS the kids got to paint a pumpkin. They had so much fun and for 2 children it was there first time painting so it was extra special. Here is the way H's pumpkin came out. We used tempra paint I would not recommend that type of paint because the paint started to pile off as soon as it dried I think next year I will use craft paint, but it is about the process not the product and they all had a blast.

Halloween treats

Today we had a small Halloween get together for my MOPS group and here are a few of the things we had to eat. My friend made some amazing spinach dip with witches fingers. I unfortchantly don't have the recipe for the dip but the fingers were really easy to do. She just took carrots and added an almond to the tip with a little bit of cream cheese. Super cute. Then we had Mummy dogs YUMM. Me and other mom made them at the party cause the kids where busy playing but they were such a hit that my daughter wanted them for dinner too. All it is is hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls.I cut the crescents into strips with a pizza cutter. Then my friend made brown tomes. She made a batch of brownies and cut them into rectangles and half a Milano cookie for the tome. She used gel icing to write RIP on it and then used gel to stick the mini pumpkin candy on the tome. Super cut idea. We all had a lot of fun and the kids had fun painting pumpkins.

Halloween art

SO here is some of the art that we did this week. Both very simple to do and what kid doesn't just love playing with glue:) in this first one I cut out a pumpkin shape out of orange construction paper and gave her pumpkin seeds and glue. She had fun counting the drops of glue she dotted on the paper and at one point made an eye but then it ended up blending in with all the other things. Before we did the project we talked about what was inside a pumpkin and what it may look like. I used store bought seeds for this only cause we didn't carve the pumpkins yet that will be fridays project and we just had seeds at the house. The other one I just gave her green paper and some open ended materials buttons, eyes, straw pieces, pom poms and sequence. We read the book Go Away Big Green Monster this week and we talked about what a monster would look like so she created her version of a monster. I think he is pretty cute. Love how she gave him eyebrows and a spider nose. very creepy

Homemade lava lamp

Thank you Martha Stewart Halloween special! I saw this and just had to try it. Fill bottom of container with 1 to 2 inches of water. Add food coloring until desired color is reached. Tilt bottle slightly, and carefully pour vegetable oil into container, creating a layer on top of water, filling to about 1 to 2 inches below the opening of the container. Break Alka-Seltzer tablets in half and drop into container as desired. They will sink directly through the oil layer and begin bubbling in the water layer, drawing the colored water up through the oil like a lava lamp! It is so AWESOME!

Halloween wreath

I have made a couple of these tips of wreaths in the past for friends having babies and they are so easy to make. This year I decided to make a Halloween wreath. All it is about 2 yards of fabric cut in to 1 in wide and 6 inch long pieces of different colors and patterns. and you just tie it on the wreath. I go the wire wreath basic that has 4 layers of wire wide so it is fuller you can get it a hobby lobby for $1.99. I should have taken a picture of the base first but didn't think about it till just now. After you material is cut you just start to tie it onto the base it really is just that simple. I made the plaque in the middle with a unfinished piece of wood that I painted orange and used puff paint and free handed the black dots, ghost and words. The whole thing cause me like $3 cause I used scraps of material I already had at the house.

Fall goodie bags

The leader of my MOPS (moms of preschoolers) group made these little goodie bags for all the ladies at our table and I thought they were so adorable and just had to share this. it is just an orange bag filled with candy and twisted at the top and tyed with floral tape and a pipe cleaner. so simple and super cute. great favor for a party or just to surprise teachers, friends or coworkers.

Apple slices

I saw this in a magazine and it looked good so I just had to try it. All it is is an apple slice with peanut butter on top and raisins on top. It was so easy and the kids can do it. We loved it! a must try

Magic Pumpkin Seeds

Yep it is still 100 degrees here in Arizona so we are still in shorts and totally jealous of everyone having nice weather and light jackets. My Mother-in-law did this with H when she was visiting earlier this year with a flower and H loved it so I recreated it for pumpkins. I just took pumpkin seeds and put them in a small ziploc bag and scrapbook paper and a stick and glued it on to make the bag. I thought about painting the seeds with some sparkly glitter to give them whimsey but decided to just go with the plain. Then I mailed it to her, and let her open her own mail. We then when outside and dug a hole and buried the seeds just like any other seed and watered them in a nice sunny place. We talked about all the things that a seed needed to grow and how long it would take to grow, ect. She said 100 days LOL. Then that evening when her daddy got home from work she went to help him pick out clothes to change into and I replaced the seeds with this little pumpkins. (I wanted the really little cute ones but they didn't have them at store so these would have to work) After dinner he asked her what she did that day and she grabbed a flashlight and told him to came see. She was so surprised to find little pumpkins there it was adorable she told her daddy, "Wow they really are magic seeds it only took one day to grow." over all it was really fun and magical experience. We are going to be decorating them with buttons, glitter, and of course googly eyes tomorrow.

Muffin Tin Monday Jack-o-lantern

We have been talking about pumpkins and Jack-o-lantern. So I made a fall/Jack-o-lantern theme: peach yogurt with Halloween colored sprinkles, apple cinnamon straws, water, bugles, pumpkin shaped sandwich with mini M&Ms for face, and loaded mash potatoes. H had fun decorating her sandwich like she did her pancakes yesterday.

Jack-o-lantern pumpkin pancakes

OK so I posted a recipe for pumpkin pancakes the other day and we had some left over pumpkin and my little one asked if we could make the pancakes again. So this time I reserved about a tablespoon of batter before the pumpkin was mix and put it in a ziploc bag with one drop of green food coloring. After I made the circles for the pumpkin base I added a small green stem. and when it was done cooking I let H decorate it with mini M&Ms to make a jack-o-lantern. SHE LOVED IT!!!