Advent Day 3: Christmas Cookie Cutter Pizzas

This was fun to do AND it got dinner out of the way!

Advent 2013, Day 2

Advent Day 2: Family hand print reindeer antlers!

Advent 2013, Day 1

For the past few years, instead of doing an Elf on the Shelf, we've had a Magic Holiday Mailbox! Everyday, Santa's "elves" leave our daughter fun activities and treats to do with family and friends. This year is no different! The magic mailbox made it's return yesterday with a letter from Santa, a snowman chocolate, and the activity of going to buy toys for the local 'Toys for Kids.' I didn't feel it would be right to take pictures of the outing, but here is her getting her letter from Santa, which she LOVED!

The Santa Envelope template was from www.mrprintable.com

Thanksgiving Thankfulness Countdown Calendar

A kiddo spin on the daily thankfulness folks are posting on facebook. When it came to Halloween, Viv asked us ever single day to countdown how many days until THE day, so we thought it might be fun to do a Thanksgiving countdown calendar for her to look forward to doing every day. When we were making this, we talked a lot about what being thankful means, and what we're all thankful for in our family. It's been heartwarming to hear her daily reflections of what she's happy about, and to share our own.

Hallowhirlwind

So little Fall, so much to do! Here are some fallish crafty things we've been up to:

A fun one I found on Pinterest:

We didn't end up putting glowsticks in them on Halloween night because I was under the weather and didn't make it to the store that day, but here they are as part of our porch display:

 

Here are the "Spooky Snacks" we made for Viv's class when it was our week to provide snack:

Pumpkin carving

For our favorite Bat Dad

Loving window crayons!

Crockpot Baked Apples (a successful experiment)

First of all, I #$%@ing love fall. Love. I just want everything to smell like leaves and and cider and pumpkin spice all.the.time!
Per usual, I didn't have all the ingredients for each recipe I found online, so I decided to combine a few recipes and create my own baked apple experience. It worked! Definitely a much-lower-cal alternative to apple pie, and just as amazing!
Obligatory crappy phone pic

MIX: 1/3 cup of steel-cut oats (moistened with a few tbs. of water), 1/3 cup of brown sugar, 3 tsp. of softened butter or margarine, 1 tbs. of finely chopped raisins, 1 tsp. of cinnamon in a bowl and set to the side. 
REMOVE: the core from 5-6 (depending on the size, ours were tiny) apples, making sure not to cut all the way through. Leave about 1/4 inch in the bottom of the apple (see pic). If you have a fancy core-removal thingy- awesome! If not, use a pairing knife and spoon ( I sued a baby food spoon for the last 3 and I worked swimmingly).

STUFF: the apples with mixture and place in crock pot.

TOP: Each apple with a sprinkle of slightly moistened oats.
POUR: 1/2 - 1 cup of apple juice or apple cider into bottom of crock pot.
SET: Crock pot on high and let back for 2-2.5 hours or until apples are starting to fall apart!
If you like your apple baked goods with ice cream, but are trying to stay low-cal, try freezing some greek yogurt (we did, and Viv LOVED IT!!) for a few hours and top with that. 

Pre-K Favorites!

How quickly time flies!

 Compared to last year...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kiddo Craft: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Long time, no craft! This summer has been a blur and a half, albeit a wonderful one. It did include some crafts, but I haven't had a hot minute to post any pictures, so that will have to wait for another time!
We planned on having lunch at the playground today, but the weather had other plans for us.
We love Eric Carl's illustrations, and this project was inspired by 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'!

You will need:
(Not pictured- hot glue and magnets)
For the butterfly wings, I recommend you use vibrant artwork your child has already created. We used some of the crayon stained glass we made this winter!

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Bachelorette Party "Booze Bouquet"

Clearly this is not a kiddo "do-together" craft ;-) I made this for one of my dearest friend's bachelorette party. I had seen the manly nip bottle bouquet's all over pinterest, but wanted something a little more girly, but still a bit naughty!

Here's what you will need:

 

I think the supplies are fairly self-explanatory, although you can either use green floral tape, green vinyl ribbon, or something else of your choice.

Start by splitting the faux flower apar by the wire stems, and removing the leaves.
After cutting your dowels to the desired stem length, hot glue each flower to a dowel, as pictured below.
To additionally stabilize the flower, add a few drops of hot glue between the plastic green base petals and the flower. 

Using either floral tape or vinyl ribbon (I suggest the tape, since it provides it's own adhesive) , cover the dowel and metal stem.
Hot glue nip bottles to the center of each flower- make sure they are really centered! For extra stability, add drops of hot glue between layers of petals where needed.

Arrange dowels until your are satisfied with your arrangement. I suggest starting with the middle flower first, and arrange around that.

At this point I still felt like it was missing something. But what? Aha! I placed a call to my hubs, who was still at work: "Could you pick up like, 3 penis pops on the way home?" I know, the call every dude wants to get just before heading home after a long day. Kindly, he obliged and made the stop. They were fresh out of penis pops though (popular item?) so I ended up with these babies:

They were perfect for putting on dowels though, so it worked out. I also decorated the bucket with the wedding colors, but that's not really necessary.

Summer Food Fun: Corona Cupcakes

Crappy cell phone pic

These were really easy and delicious! Perfect for any summer party or BBQ.

What you need:
- Yellow cake mix, any brand
- 1 Cup of Corona
- Juice from 1/2 a lime
- 3 Tbs. vegetable oil
- 2 large eggs

Optional:
- Extra limes for garnishes
- Schmancy umbrellas

 Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F)
- Mix all ingredients with a mixer until all thoroughly combined.
- Pour into making cups (3/4 full)
- Make for 15-20 or until done.
- Let cool, frost and garnish with lime wedges and other goodies

Frosting:
I used pre-packaged cream cheese frosting, which complimented it perfectly, but if you're looking for homemade, here is a good recipe...
- Soften 1 cup of cream cheese and using a mixer, combine  with 1 cup of powdered sugar and the juice of 1 lime