Homemade Crackers

So we were in the kitchen yesterday but I didn't have time to post about it because my little chef ended up getting croup at night. But during the day we did make some homemade goldfish like crackers. I say goldfish like because we used a star cookie cutter, they are thicker than goldfish, and taste a little different too. I think the taste is good but I would have liked if they were a little more crunchy. And I definitely rolled out the dough way too thick!

This was a child friendly recipe though which is what I am always looking for. Alexandra was able to help me measure, pour, and pulse the ingredients in the food processor (of course after talking about how she should never ever ever touch the food processor unless I am with her!) and she cut out most of the stars herself.

I found the recipe courtesy of Miss Anthropist's Kitchen. I'm not going to retype the recipe but instead I'm going to just redirect you to her blog and I'll just post some pictures. (I'm on a time limit...I have a feeling Camden will be up any minute from  his nap!)

 Helping to our some ingredients in the food processor

 leveling off the salt

Our finished crackers

Chinese New Year Muffin Tin Lunch

It's Muffin Tin Monday! 

Since today is the Chinese New Year  thought I'd try to make Alexandra a Chinese New Year themed muffin tin lunch. Really the only thing Chinese related Alex knows about is "Ni Hao Kai-lan" and some food (which I haven't had in a while and now I am starting to crave it!) I gathered some ideas online and tried to put it together. Although she doesn't really understand what a new year means she doesn't understand the concept but I can at least try to teach her a little bit about it and the symbols, foods, and meaning of it. So here is my attempt at making a lunch to represent the Chinese New Year!

This morning we even made some homemade fortune cookies.  After watching a short clip on You Tube I figured I'd give it a whirl. I am sure they will take a little time to perfect but at least they were tasty!

Here is her lunch (with Kai-Lan in her dragon boat and Tolee in the backgrouund!)
Top row: a pear dragon since it's the year of the dragon, craisins (no real significance!), a homemade fortune cookie with a lucky number inside

Bottom row:  another fortune cookie, lanterns (grapes), and cheese stars to represent the Chinese Flag.

I can't wait to see what everyone has in their muffin tins over at Muffin Tin Mom!

Friday Art Day

Today Alexandra wanted to do some more activities so I thought it would be a fun art day. She loves painting and this is definitely something we need to do when Camden is down for a nap! So after attempting to put him down (three times) he finally fell asleep and he slept just long enough for us to do a few painting projects. 

Car Painting

The first one we did was car painting. This was an idea I saw on Pinterest. Alex loves cars and she loves painting so it was win-win! I put out some tempera paint onto paper plates and laid down some freezer paper and away she went. I really got the freezer paper to use for making appliques in sewing but I found it works really well for the arts and crafts we do.  I love that there is a shiny side on the bottom so if she uses gobs of paint in one spot it won't rip through the paper. 

I demonstrated how to paint with a car and away she went (making varoooooom noises with every push and pull of the car!) 

Grape Painting

Next we did a take on marble or ball painting. When we were at the Harvest Festival in my hometown in September there was a craft stand and Alex was able to do this fun and free activity. I loved it because it kept the paint contained in a box. And when I said we did our take on it, well, we didn't have any marbles...but we did have grapes! So we used grapes and of course she knows (and just to make sure I told her) that we can't eat these grapes!

In case you've never done this before here is how you do it:

Step 1: get a box (I used a shoe box but it is probably better to use a bigger box or a lid of a bigger box.) Tape the paper in the bottom of the box. Put some paint either on a plate or in a plastic container and put a grape (or whatever sphere you are using!) into the paint. 

Step 2: Dump the colored grape into the box and move it all around! Do this with each of the colors. At the end we just added all of the grapes in and went crazy! 

Here is the finished product! Colorful and really not all that messy! 

Bubble Wrap Painting 

For Bubble Wrap painting I first squirted blobs of paint onto our craft cookie sheet. 

 Next, I had Alex use a paintbrush and paint the cookie sheet and mix the colors . Then I cut a piece of bubble wrap the size of the cookie sheet and had her press it down gently (bubble side down!)

Then, lift up the bubble wrap, again, gently unless you want to wear all of the paint! 

 You can't see it because of her arm but here she is saying "whoaaaaaaaaaaa, awesome!!!!!"

 I cut out letters for her name and she used bubble wrap to make the print beside her design.

 And finally she painted a ceramic piggy bank that my mom got her as a gift. It's a colorful pig to say the least! She was very proud of it. So proud of it in fact, that the pig is now resting with her on the blanket on the floor. And I'm sure it will be in her bed tonight too. 

We're In the Kitchen Wednesday

A lot of blogs I read seem to have "theme" days. Perhaps it is a link up, a day for recipes, a day for crafts, or something else. Currently I don't have anything specific that I post on a certain day but I was thinking about doing "We're In the Kitchen" Wednesdays. I created this blog on a whim because I wanted a separate blog to post activities that I am doing with my preschooler and I thought perhaps I could connect with other moms and share ideas by linking my blog to others. I've had a  family blog for about 3 years, which is linked on my sidebar, and this is where I post family updates such as vacations, activities, milestones and just everyday happenings in our household. It became a way for us to stay in touch with family and friends and in a sense allowed them to watch the kids grow and keep updated even though we are far away from each other.

So I've had this blog now for just under a year and I think I would like to do a theme day on Wednesdays where I will share kid-friendly recipes. I love to cook and be in the kitchen. I'm hoping to teach my kids to cook as well and I hope that they enjoy being in the kitchen as much as I do! Ever since Alex was able to walk I would sit her up on the counter with me as I would make meals and she became my master dumper and stirrer. Now that she is 3 she can do a little bit more (currently I'm trying to teach her to crack and egg) and for Christmas I got her a cute little giraffe whisk, a whale measuring cup, and a scuba diver tablespoon. Now she can use her tools when she helps me. She loves helping me out in the kitchen and I really enjoy teaching her. 

So the first "We're in the Kitchen Wednesday" snack we made was Muddy Buddies. We made these because I had all of the ingredients on hand, they are super easy to make, and they are so yummy! I just followed the recipe over at the Betty Crocker Website. 

So to make Chex Muddy Buddies here is what you do: (I cut my recipe in half from the website - we don't need that many Muddy Buddies around our house! Even the recipe cut in half makes a nice sized snack!)

Ingredients: 

4.5 cups of Chex cereal (I used Giant Brand Rice Chex)

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/8 cup butter or margarine

1/2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup powdered sugar

Directions: 

Melt Chocolate chips, PB, and butter in the microwave for a minute or so

 Have your sous chef stir the ingredients together once melted (notice the cute giraffe whisk) 

 Once melted add the cereal to the chocolate mixture. Toss and coat the cereal.

 Put the chocolate coated cereal into a gallon plastic bag and add the powdered sugar. Shake the bag (great job for the little ones!)

 Time for a taste test!

 Thumbs up mom! 

And then hide the Muddy Buddies or your 3 year old may eat the whole bag! Although it was a super easy fun treat to make it's not low fat that's for sure! Enjoy! 

Snow and Ice Activities

The weather around here is still very cold....and still no sign on snow or ice so today, I decided we should do some activities in a snow/ice unit I found over at 2 Teaching Mommies. We read some books and then got to it with the activities. We also made snowflakes made out of marshmallows, paper, and wagon wheel pasta. The marshmallow snowflakes didn't last long though. As soon as it was complete Alex ate all of them off! Next, she practiced writing the letter I on my iPad and on a dry erase board. 

We have done these activities before where she needs to pick out the picture that is different. I was getting some other things ready and Alex just picked up a crayon and went at it and picked out the different snowflakes in a flash. 

Next some pre-writing practice with tracing

And a do-a-dot paper 

I read some books about snow...being a teacher I have tons of books down in our basement. I'm glad that I am able to get some use out of them! 

That used to be a marshmallow snowflake. Now it's just a bunch of toothpicks.

And we had some leftover colored wagon wheel pasta from another project so I thought it would be good to make a snowflake out of them.

New Look

I am a person of change. I am always changing things around. Ask my college roommate who has a blog titled Tackling Today's Tasks. Her blog doesn't have anything to do with this post but I just thought I'd give her a shout out. But seriously. If you went to college you know how small those dorm rooms can be. And we had our room arranged about 10 different ways over the course of 2 years living in the dorms. Then in our apartment we would always rearrange furniture.  That was 10 years ago. Wow. I graduated from college 10 years ago. Oh, another side note about me, I say things as they come to my mind...sometimes without transitions in between leaving everyone confused. 

Ok back to the topic. Change. I have been known to change my entire bedroom or living room on my own, moving heavy furniture, breaking shelves, etc, while my kids nap. (The broken shelves are why now I suppose I'll ask my husband to help out). The last time I went to visit my mom at her house I even wanted to change her living room around. She didn't necessarily have to move it around  but I thought it would be a nice change.  So I rearranged her living room with her permission of course! 

I  haven't even had this blog for a year yet and already I have changed the background. I see so many blogs out there that I just love and I love the designs but I am not blogging for money and I really don't want to hire someone to do it for me. I'm pretty tech savvy so I can usually figure things like that out. But one thing I wish I could do was get rid of the "Be Trendy" part underneath my header because and I don't really consider myself trendy. I wish I was. But hey, you may not  know me so maybe I can pretend to be. And if you do know me, you'll be happy to know I just bought my first pair of skinny jeans, flat shoes, and a pair of "Ugg-type" boots.'m working on that trendy concept. 

A Winter Muffin Tin

Today is Monday so that means it's Muffin Tin Lunch Day! Alex usually is asking for one at 10 am but since I didn't mention it to her this morning  was able to actually make one and serve it to her at lunch time! Plus, this past weekend we went grocery shopping so I actually had some options to make her a lunch instead of just finding bits and pieces of food in the fridge and pantry to throw in a muffin tin. So for this lunch I did a winter theme. Here in PA the past two days the temps have been in the 30's and windy....but there is no snow on the ground. It feels like penguins could be walking around out there so I thought it would be nice to do a winter lunch. 

Alexandra ate all of it but she didn't want to eat the olives on the penguin. She did take t he cream cheese out and eat it though! But a few weeks ago she was eating olives off of her fingers. I guess she's fickle. Also I gave her milk in a dessert glass with a straw and she said to me "Mom, only mommies and daddies drink from glass, not little girls!!!" True, she has always used a plastic cup but I told her it was ok because I was out in the kitchen watching. And the igloo was just decoration, although it is made out of marshmallows stuck to an egg carton. I gave her a few marshmallow "snowballs" because I thought that would be mean to taunt her with marshmallows and then not let her eat any. She would eat a whole bag if I let her. 

Here is what is in her winter lunch:

Top left: milk, large snowballs (american cheese), and a  snowflake (a cinnamon and sugar tortilla crisp)

Bottom row: Snow with sparkles (vanilla yogurt and blue sprinkles), a penguin on snowballs (olives, cream cheese carrots), and another crispy tortilla snowflake. To learn how to make them see this post.

To see other muffin tin lunches for inspiration go to Muffin Tin Mom. 

Snowflake Tortillas

This morning Alexandra and I made a tasty and super easy winter snack: Snowflake tortilla crisps. I found the recipe on the Family Fun newsletter that comes to my email but you can also find it on the Family Fun website. Here is how you make them! 

You need flour tortillas, vegetable oil, cinnamon and sugar, colored sprinkles if you'd like, scissors to cut the snowflakes, a brush to brush on the oil, and a cookie sheet. 

** the actual recipe calls for confectioner's sugar but I was out and that NEVER happens!!! I guess I just made too many treats over the holidays! 

** If using confectioner's sugar the recipe says to bake and then sprinkle it onto the tortilla after getting it out of the oven while it is still warm. 

Dig In! Alexandra thought it was necessary to lick all of the cinnamon and sugar off first...

After taking a few bites I thought that it would be very good with some cream cheese...oh I was right....so good!!!!