1st grade lunches

I love making school lunches! It is so much fun to think about and plan. I found a couple sites that have free printables for lunch box notes on Pinterest. These sites have my favorites. Reasons to skip the housework , Frugal coupon living , and Moritx fine blog designs Here is her first two days of schools lunches. the sandwich and turkey wrap are double stacked

Valentine's day Cinnamon rolls

We made these this morning for breakfast. I had intentions to make these super cute cinnamon rolls. Problem the Pillsbury Cinnamon rolls I bought didn't unroll so I improvised. We added a drop of neon pink food coloring to the frosting and a couple Valentines colored sprinkles. Over all they still tasted the same and H had fun decorating them so it was a win. We made lemonade from our sour lemons:)

December Activities

Here are some more things we did in December, that I never got around to posting.
We made our first gingerbread house. This was an experience! I did not expect it to be that challenging or messy did I mention sticky. LOL. it was really fun but I just want not prepared for the mess and I assumed it would just come out amazing. It was a lot of work. We really enjoyed making it and H did more licking her fingers than anything but all in all I think I found a new family tradition.

I am prepared for next year and am so excited to see the difference as the years go by and we learn more about this each year.
Christmas tree pancakes! This was a lot of fun, I made pancake batter and added green food coloring and peppermint extract and put it in a squeeze bottle I got at Walmart for 97cents by the kitchen gadgets. I learned how to do this here! This blog has some of the most amazing pancakes.


Then I used it to make an outline on the pan that was like a Christmas tree. Make sure you pan is on low heat or you will not see the green.
Then filled in the outline with the pancake mix.

Here is how it turned out. I added blackberries to make it look like ornaments on the tree.

Reindeer breakfast: This was made with two pancakes one smaller than the other, two chocolate chips, ham cut like antlers and a red candy for nose.

SNOWFLAKE ORNAMENTS
So this is one of the coolest projects I think I have ever done. I love it and it was so simple. All it is is Borax laundry soap found in the laundry detergent isle. Hot water and pipe cleaner. First you make a shape with pipe cleaners I made a snowflake. Then add a string to hold it and attach to a pencil to hang. Heat water to almost a boil mix in 1/3 cup of Borax and stir in a glass jar till mostly dissolved and hang ornament in water high enough to cover completely. (like this)

Then just wait we did it at night and then checked it in the morning. and this is how it turned out.
completely amazing!!

And we made a Christmas tree from a sugar ice cream cone, left over icing from cupcakes and left over candies from gingerbread house. H painted and decorated the ice cream cone all by herself. Again she did a lot of licking of her fingers lol.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!!!

Pumpkin Pancakes

cutest little pumpkin pancakes ever:) (well bugs are not that fall friendly but my little princess really wanted buggy pancakes) I just used regular pancake mix and added 1/2 can pumpkin, pumpkin spice, cinnamon and sugar, brown sugar and added a little more water to loosen it back up cause it got thick. I made these for the first time last year and they are a family favorite.

Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

I am making this Pumpkin Cranberry Breadhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif for my MOPS meeting tomorrow morning. I made a loaf and then muffins for my daughter and husband with the left overs. There are only 8 women in my group. I really love the bread however the next time I make it I am either going to try dried cranberries or none at all. I used defrosted frozen ones and they where really tart and I didn't care for that part however the pumpkin part was amazing.

So filling mini muffins is kinda tricky so put a ziploc in a cup to hold the bag for me and poured the batter in.

Then cut a small corner and use like a pastry bag

Muffin Tin Monday: more ocean theme

today for Muffin Tin Monday H wanted another ocean theme. We had a really busy week last week and didn't get to do all the things I wanted to do for our ocean theme so I am continuing it into this week. She had goldfish, yogurt colored blue and has crumbled animal cracker and blue sprinkles for beach and ocean, sail boat made out of an apple sliced in half and then a fourth on top for sail with a toothpick holding it up, and dolphin nutella and jelly sandwiches. in the bottom middle there is also a half of baby bell cheese that is hard to see.

Muffin Tin Monday

Today we had apples, cheese stick, celery, pretzels, and peanut butter and jelly shaped like dolphins and a heart. we started talking about Oceans and fish this week. and will continue to talk about it through next week. I am excited about all the activities I have planned for the week.

Pancakes with bacon in it!

So I saw this recipe and my mouth started watering. I cooked and drained the bacon, I used maple bacon, then poured the pancaked mix right on top. I added a pecans and a little maple syrup to the pancake batter. My husband and daughter loved it.

My daughter helping me make twice baked potatoes for dinner. I love including her in cooking. She has her own knife from pampered chef. she cut the broccoli, mixed and mashed the potatoes, filled and added the cheese to the top. How do you include your kids in your meals?

Muffin Tin Monday

Today H had her last day of this session of dance class and had a small party after. The class is from 9-10am so I made banana muffins and made these cute little toppers for all the girls. I had it printed at Office Max for 29cents. If I would have thought about it I would have had them shrink it a little but they still came out cute and the girls loved them.
For muffin tin Monday we had a left over banana muffin, pomegranate apple sauce, fresh peaches, string cheese , hot dogs and of course ketchup and trail mix with peanuts, raisins, and goldfish.