Kids Activities Blog» snacks

Halloween Cookies: The Cutest Sugar Cookies Ever!

Heather — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:26:39 +0000

I love making cut-out sugar cookies with my kids during the holidays, but let’s be honest…it makes a huge mess and takes a long time! If you’re looking for a quick way to make Halloween cookies with your kids, check out these adorable Candy Corn Sugar Cookies!

No cookie cutters, no rolling out the dough…so these can be done lickety-split.

You will need:

*Your favorite sugar cookie dough recipe

*red & yellow food color

*loaf pan

Prepare your cookie dough as per your recipe for cut out cookies (not drop cookies).

Divide your dough into thirds. Color 1/3 yellow, 1/3 orange (use color mixing chart on your food coloring drops box), and leave the last 1/3 plain.

Line a loaf pan with plastic cling wrap or wax paper. Press yellow dough into bottom of pan, followed by orange & white dough. Press firmly. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight for best results.

We didn’t do a very good job of splitting our dough evenly into thirds…but it turned out cute anyway!

When the dough is firm, turn loaf pan upside down & remove your dough. Look at those layers!

Using a sharp knife, cut your dough into 1/4 inch slices.

Cut each slice into triangles. Discard (or eat!) the ends that are rounded if it bothers you.

Spread out triangles onto a cookies sheet & bake according to your recipe’s directions. Be sure to pull them out before they get browned on the top…the colors will not be very vibrant if they bake too long! I learned the hard way with my first batch…

I love how easy these cookies are to shape, and you don’t have to flour the counter, roll out the dough, use cookie cutters, re-roll your dough, and repeat the whole process fifty times.

Allow to cool & enjoy!

Organizing Life… for School

Rachel — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:16:42 +0000

We are beginning kindergarten with two of my kiddos and I’d love to tell you I have our learning routine or system together… but I don’t! This past week, I scoured the internet in search of tips to help us as we adapt to a life of learning with kiddos in preschool and kindergarten. Here are a few of the “must-do-one-day” tips I have found. KinderCare is asking moms across the country to share tips that have helped them and their kiddos adjust. I’d love for you to share your tips in the comments.

A Little Delightful has a great printable to help you plan lunchboxes. No more eating PB&J three days in a row!

I Heart Organizing has a great snack system. In her fridge she keeps a basket full of snacks for lunches and for after-school treats.

DownTown created a list of tons of great, healthy snacks. We are on the go a lot more during the school year and snack more often. So many great suggestions to tide us over.

Does your preschooler come home with hundreds of papers, projects and artworks? Mine do! I love this “binder plan” from MondoCherry.

Organizing our preschool really means organizing my life. A mom over at SheIsDallas uses a household notebook to neaten her life.

We have a craft closet that is exploding – and I love this idea from I Can Teach My Child. She uses a hanging clear shoe holder to organize supplies. No more hunting for colored chalk!

…and lastly my favorite! This is a mom of all boys… one starting kindergarten this year… and I just love how she organized her “school” closet – wish I could replicate it!

What advice do you have for moms prepping for preschool?

KinderCare will choose one lucky participant and make donation in their name to the Reach Out And Read chapter of their choice!

Freezer Banana Pops: Homemade Summer Popsicle

Rachel — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:11:08 +0000

One of the things that says “summer” more than anything else are popscicles. This is by far my kids favorite way to consume a banana – stuck on a stick, smothered with chocolate, and covered with sprinkles.

Freezer Banana Pops are also a great way to rescue those bananas that are nearing the end of their shelf life. These homemade Popsicles will keep in the freezer for several weeks.

Your Banana Pop Ingredient List:

Lollipop sticks. We cut up bamboo skewers to create our sticks. You can also use popsicle sticks or even plastic forks.

Chocolate. Melt it in a small crockpot or a double boiler on low. Add a dab of butter to it while it melts and stir frequently so the chocolate will be smooth.

Sprinkles. ‘Cause everything is better if it is rainbow

Egg Carton. We plugged the sticks into the egg carton to help keep the pops upright and not touching each other so they would look pretty. They taste just as good if you lay them down on a lined cookie sheet.

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What is your favorite summer Popsicle?

Monster Apple Faces

Rachel — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:23:54 +0000

Have candy? Peanut butter? Some apples? We made monster apple faces with the leftovers from our birthday party this past weekend. During the kids birthday party we had a candy buffet for the kids to decorate their own cupcakes – it was a huge hit! We couldn’t let the leftovers go to waste – time for an idea that has been percolating for months. I love the hillbilly apple teeth that Esther of Laugh with Us made with her girls. and Linda of Little Family Fun made some apple faces with her tykes. We combined the concepts for some crazy apple monster mouths. Check back later this week for a bunch of ideas to have a Monster Birthday Party.
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What did we use to create our faces? Apples, carrots, cream cheese, peanut butter, died green coconut shavings, sprinkles, nerds, jelly beans, nerds, yogurt covered raisins, cereal, gummy worms, licorice bits, and more.

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Cut 1/4th of the apple out, and core the remaining portion. Add something sticky – we used cream cheese and peanut butter, but I bet nutella would be great too!

We made some with horns, some apple monster faces with worms crawling out of their heads, and of course, lots of crazy eyes. These were a hit with my preschoolers..

Have you played with your food? Or done an activity with monsters? Let me know! I’d love to feature you in an upcoming post!

Quirky Kids Snacks: It’s Playtime Link-up

Rachel — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 03:21:27 +0000

My quirky kids like to play with their food… and it’s Wacky Wednesday at our house in honor of one of our favorite books by, Theo LeSieg. Here are several silly and “wacky” snack ideas that were recently linked up to It’s Playtime! I hope they inspire you and your children to have fun playing with your food.

Sun Scholar has two fun activities where she made her kids food into an experience. In her post Edible Beach Bucket, Rachel made a graham cracker topped pudding for her kids to enjoy and then made a watermelon shark – complete with a mouthful of fish.

Deb from Science at Home had several snack ideas, the one that stood out to me was scotch eggs. I have never heard or seen them before, but they look like little bread covered globes! This would be a perfect take-out “learning” snack!

Jill of Kitchen Fun has a whole blog chock full of silly cooking ideas for kids! I could get stuck there for hours! Two of the posts she recently linked up include her Panda Burgers and the Bert and Ernie Fruit Faces. Yummy!

Amy is one of my new blogging pals. I have enjoyed browsing her blog chronicling the preschool she is running from her house. She has numerous varieties of butterfly snacks, some with muffins, others with fruit and tortilla chips but the one she linked up had fun with veggies – my favorite!

Another wacky kids blog is Paint on the Ceiling, featuring Hannah and her kiddos. This week they had fun munching on and painting with their food!

Bananas, flax seed, antioxidant filled chocolate and pretzels make up this fun and simple “spider snack“.

Kelley of Little Wonders made a great bucket list that I featured on the QuirkyMomma Facebook page a few weeks ago. This week they linked up one of their activities: Making banana pops! These look so yummy!

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The It’s Playtime weekly link-up is featured on the following blogs – check them out to see the different play-themed posts they are featuring:
* Anna : The Imagination Tree
* Jamie : hands on : as we grow
* Rachele : Messy Kids
* Jenny : Let the Children Play

How to Play :

* Let us know you love us, make our day & link back to us in your post/blog.
* Visit on Thursdays. Link-up a post about play. Your link will show up on each of the blogs in the It’s Playtime community.
* Each hostess will pick posts to feature. (By linking you are giving us permission to use an image and link to you)

P.S. Printables, giveaways and reviews will be deleted, we are trying to keep this link-up party about playing with our kids.
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DIY Hot Pockets: Perfect On-the-go Meal

Rachel — Sun, 22 May 2011 17:38:41 +0000

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With our upcoming adoption (and all the fees that are associated) we are tightening the money belts. There was a time when I thought nothing of a quick run through Wendy’s or wherever to feed the kids with the dollar menu. I discovered a kid-friendly, incredibly easy to make and oh-so-convenient portable meal solution – DIY Hot Pockets. This is such an easy way to use up leftovers in the fridge. We have made hamburger pockets, wrapped up hotdogs, and even made a version of chicken cordon bleu, where we layered chicken, ham and cheese. All of them are yummy, easy to make, easy to transport and quickly gobbled up.

How we made Hot Pockets:

We used our no-fail bread recipe, and rather than making rolls, we rolled the dough out into rectangles or triangles.

Smooth a fat source on the dough (ex: Cheese, mayonnaise, sour cream). IF you don’t use a fat source the meat has a tendency to get dry.,

Add a vegetable. We have filled out pockets with peppers, onions, broccoli heads, spinach, and more!

Layer proteins like cooked chicken breast, hotdog, bacon, even hamburger patties.

Fold the dough over the filling, ensuring that the edges are well sealed.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minuets (time varies depending on how full you make them).

Do you have any tips on how to save money on meals when you are “on the go”? I’d love to hear about them!

Cinnamon Roll French Toast: Who said preschoolers can’t cook?

Rachel — Wed, 11 May 2011 20:45:36 +0000

Last week we did a series on playing with our food, we made kale smoothies, played dress-up with collard greens, in the past we have painted our pancakes, and have made spider bananas. My nearly five year old daughter was so sweet to me for Mother’s Day, she made me cinnamon roll frech toast circles for breakfast. This is such an easy breakfast idea, yummy, a hit with the kids!
To have your kids make cinnamon roll French toast circles you’ll need:

Canned cinnamon rolls
Eggs
Milk

Yup, it’s that easy. Quirky E and her siblings smashed the rolls till they were nice and flat, then we put the pan into the oven to cook them until they were just done – probably about ten minuets or so. Then they broke and beat the eggs (their favorite part) and after getting the flattened rolls out of the oven they soaked them in the egg and dropped them onto the frying pan. Make as traditional free ch toast at this point. Yummy, and my daughter loves knowing that “she made it”.

Want another kid-cooking recipe? Check out Esther from Laugh With Us, her daughter had fun making french toast too! And this post was originally inspired by college student, Meaghan from Clutsy Cooking, who made these in her dorm room.
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What are your kids favorite foods to make?

Hairy Hotdogs: Cheap Kids Meal

Rachel — Wed, 04 May 2011 11:28:16 +0000

Want the perfect babysitter meal for the kiddos? I mentioned that I recently found a deal on restaurant meals (Thanks Ebates). Now add the perfect meal for the babysitter to make with the kids and we have a terrific “date night” plan. All you need is pasta and hot-dogs.
We broke the spaghetti in half. The kids had fun stuffing them into the hot-dog chunks. Then we boiled the hairy hot-dogs and served them with BBQ sauce to dip them in. It was a hit and easy enough for a sitter to replicate.Where did I get my inspiration? From one of my favorite blogs, Tribal Times! They made hotdog octopuses months ago, alas my two year old couldn’t “thread” the hotdogs, so we made ours “hairy” but just as much fun!

Do you have a favorite, cheap kids meal? Stop by and tell me about it in the SavvyLiving community!

Kale and Berry Smoothie: Genius Way to Get your Kids to Eat Veggies

Rachel — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:09:16 +0000

Kenmore is running a facebook contest right now where we could win a $3000 in a gift certificate – that would totally rescue our dying appliances!! Their contest asks us to feature our “genius tip”. With three preschooler, an infant and a hubby who thinks “green” has a flavor, I have had to resort to a few tricks to make sure my kids are getting enough green leafy vegetables. My Genius Tip is how to get picky kids to eat veggies.
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The kids favorite way to eat spinach, kale, collard greens even broccoli is when I puree it – We love making Kale and Berry Smoothies – so yummy! The Kale gives the smoothies a really bright happy color and once frozen becomes sorbet.
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To make the smoothies:

Chop up the Kale, Spinach or Collard Greens and fill your blender to the brim. We prefer Kale as it is more nutritious than spinach with 25% more vitamin A, higher levels of Vitamin C and Calcium – it is a true powerfood! It also tastes better than Collard Greens which has a spicy aftertaste.

Once you have your blender full of kale, add half a cup of juice. Blend well.

Top with 2 bananas and as many berries as you want. I think we added about 2 cups worth. Blend till smooth.

Serve immediately or freeze into Popsicles. If you want to make sorbet, freeze it for 1-2hours, till it just starts getting ice crystals. Then stir. Re-freeze. Wait an hour or two and then stir it again. At this point you can re-freeze and it will stay soft. Our Kale Sorbet is the perfect after-dinner dessert for my dairy-intolerant kiddos. Yummy and good for them. Who needs to eat veggies for supper when we can have them for dessert! Don’t want to have Kale smoothies? Check out The Local Cook for Kale Chips - they sound great!

What is your Genius Tip? Kenmore wants to know, and is giving away up to $3,000 in Gift Certificates and a chance to have the best Genius Tip turned into a TV Ad! Visit their Facebook page and enter today!

Share your quick genius tip with us:

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Kenmore. The opinions and text are all mine.

Twizzler Candy Bracelet

Rachel — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 13:44:09 +0000

It’s cold, rainy lazy day and this edible bracelet activity is great to keep the kids engaged and entertained indoors. Don’t have any twizzlers? You can make bracelets with fruit loops. We’ve even made bracelets out of jelly beans – if it’s edible and sweet it will keep the kiddos engaged.

All you need to make your own twizzler bracelets is some ribbon and a few packages of the candy. We dug into the last of our Halloween candy (gasp! Candy doesn’t have an expiration date does it???), the snack-sized packs are perfect. I chopped them into segments. The kids got to practice self-control, fine motor skills, and pattern-making as they created their jewelry. Ironically, this post could alternately be titled, “how to get your kid to eat less candy.” I think it’s interesting how interacting with their food makes the kids enjoy it more, even if there is less of it to go around. These twizzlers made a total of 4 bracelets (with a few pieces left for me to nibble on).

What crafts have your kids been creating lately? Leave a link in the comments… or if you want more ideas, check out the latest blog hop, Fun for Fridays.