Easter chick cookies

Inspired by the very talented Maki Ogawa's cute little chick cookies, I decided to make my own version, and we all know how that goes....

While searching for a ball shaped cookie recipe, I found a recipe for Snowball Cookies at The Baker Who Cooks and thought the kids would love the surprise of the chocolate inside.  However, I wanted to make mini-cookies, so I exchanged the Hershey Kiss for butterscotch chips.
(I also made some non-chick cookies with white and milk chocolate chips inside).
 
Some notes on the process:
* As I was rolling the dough into balls, I realized that I could use the pointed end of the butterscotch chip as the chicks beak.

* For the eyes, I melted some semi-sweet chocolate chips in a bowl, and used a ziplock bag as a pastry bag to dot on the eyes...not the greatest method, but it worked okay.

* To make the nest, I just used the left over melted chocolate to scribble onto the plate in a nest shape.  I then put it in the freezer for a half hour or so to harden.  Very easy!

* Maki used chocolate pens to decorate the eyes and beaks...but I had never heard of such a thing...so I looked on Amazon and found this cool product - Cuisipro Food Decorating Pen,  which looked like it could be very useful.

*  The cookie recipe calls for nuts, which I didn't have, so I just omitted them. (I don't get too hung up on the details when baking, but luckily it worked out this time.) 

* The recipe also does not use eggs, which makes it a good one to remember late at night when you have a sudden craving for something sweet but don't have any eggs...and let's be honest, how often does a lack of eggs in the house thwart all plans of making a decadent midnight treat.

The kids loved the little chicks, and devoured the entire batch in about an hour.  I think it was partly because I obviously wasn't monitoring them too closely and partly because the cookies were so small it made them very more-ish and hard to keep track of how many you had actually eaten.  
Oh well, that just means no cookies for me for breakfast tomorrow ;)

Below is the step-by-step process:

1. Divide up the cookie dough

2. Roll into ball shape

3. Push butterscotch chip into the center

4. Roll the dough around the chip

5. Make sure the top end of the chip sticks out slightly to form the beak

I made some plain ones, too, with chocolate chips and white chocolate chips

update: linking here

April Fool's Day Fun for kids

I know April Fool's Day has been and gone, and I am just getting around to downloading my photos...

We had a fun day, and at dinner time, my husband commented on the fact that April Fool's Day seems to be my favorite holiday! It made me chuckle, because I have never really thought much about how into it I get each year. April Fool's Day is the perfect day for spur of the moment tricks and general silliness and it doesn't require too much foresight and planning.  And because "on the fly" is how I roll, this is a match made in heaven for me.

Also, I think I enjoy it because right now, I am the one in charge of all the tricks...but soon it will be the other way around and I will be subjected to goodness knows what, with three cunning and creative little boys in the house.

They started off with JUMBO bowls of Cocoa Crispies...

...only to discover that when they dug their spoons in, there was a huge chunk of ice in the bowl and in fact, they were only getting their usual serving size of cereal. But they were so happy to be allowed to eat cereal on a weekday, that they weren't too bothered about the reduced portion.

For lunch, I just mixed up all the packaging

(fruit cocktail trick inspired by Come Together Kids)

At snack time, I told them I was making fried eggs, and they actually got really excited about it.  I think the yogurt and half a canned peach (inspired by the very clever Meet the Dubiens) was a bit of a let down!  

But I let them have two gummy worms, and they were happy :)

For dinner I made the usual meatloaf and potato frosting cake...which didn't fool the older boys, but the youngest one was super excited to get "cake" for dinner.  

They all loved the jello "juice" trick (from ivillage)- especially since they were actually allowed to eat the jello before the meal!

The Chicken Pot Pie dessert idea was from Family Fun and I must say, I didn't think it was going to come out as well as it did..but it really did look like Chicken Pot Pie and the kids loved it!

And to top it all off...a little bit of "raisin in the toothpaste" trickery. 
After they went into the bathroom to brush their teeth, I hovered outside and overheared the older boys in a heated discussion about it...
"I think there's a booger in the toothpaste....wait, its a....a....a RAISIN!!!"
And then they proceeded to put the toothpaste on their toothbrushes and brushed away happily as if it was the most usual thing in the world for a raisin to pop out of their toothpaste!
BOYS!!!

It was pretty hilarious!

Do What You Can

 

via imgfave

More Skip Hop Love

I am just loving these colorful products from Skip Hop...

Palette Plate

Mate Stay-put Placemat & Plate

Zoo Bibs

Jersey Shore Body Suit

This cracked me up!

via SkipHop

Spring and Happy Things

Around here there isn't much of a feeling of Spring in the air, but this beautiful image from Dana Made It reminds me that Spring really is just around the corner.

 

These super cute accessories from briarclaire 

(via Somewhat Simple)

made me smile :)

A fun jingle bracelet from Heather Bailey 

Flower stationery from Kates Papiere

 A perfect cupcake from Food Network
 

 

L'Occitane Pure Shea Butter

 

More fun stationery from Kates Papiere

April Fool's Day Fun from the past

With April Fool's Day coming up tomorrow, I am starting to wonder what little tricks to put up my sleeve...

Here are some ideas we have done in past years...all inspired by Family Fun...

I always start by sneaking into their rooms while they are still asleep and drawing on eyeliner moustaches...this is becoming trickier as they get older, though.

For Breakfast:

We have frozen water in cereal bowls (about half full) overnight and then placed a thin layer of cereal on top.  The kids were so excited to get sugar cereal for breakfast (sugared cereal is  a HUGE treat around here ;) )...only to discover that in fact, they were only getting a very thin "layer" of cereal.

Another year, we tried the "turn the milk blue" trick, which involves putting a few drops of blue food coloring in the bottom of the cereal bowl and covering it with cereal.  When the kids pour the milk, it magically turns blue!  They loved this one.

For Lunch:

I always put a gummy worm in their apples.
Last year, I saved a MacDonald's wrapper from lunch a few days before.  MacDonald's is also a huge treat in our family because we are more health food inclined, but my oldest had somehow convinced me to buy them a burger and since I had this trick in the back of my mind, I consented.  They were so excited when I told them they were having MacDonald's again for lunch....bet that PB&J sandwich that was hiding inside the wrapper was a huge let-down.  All this trickery can be quite disappointing sometimes ;)

For Dinner:

We have made meat loaf cupcakes (dyeing the potato pink with beet juice) and served grilled cheese sandwiches for dessert (yellow cake with yellow frosting).

We have also made meat loaf cupcakes with mashed potato and chocolate sprinkles to make it look sweet instead of savory.  For dessert, we did the "spagetti and meatballs" - with spagetti frosting, strawberry sauce pasta sauce and maltball meatballs.  I think this has been the biggest hit so far.

...what have been your best kiddy April Fool's Day tricks?

{update:  linking here }

This is how I feel today...

This made me laugh...does anyone else feel like they spend a large part of each week cleaning their house, only to have their house almost instantaneously unclean itself?

{image from here}

Easy Homemade Granola Bars

Last week I made granola bars for the first time.  I didn't realize how easy they are to make and they were a huge hit with the whole family.  

I used this recipe from Eat Me Delicious. 

{But since we are a chocolate loving family, I added white and milk chocolate chips.}

***The key to this recipe is in making sure the mixture is very tightly packed before baking.  

Next time I am going to add a layer of melted chocolate to the top instead of the chocolate chips inside...mmmm, yum.

...my little side kick was waiting on the sidelines, hoping to score some crumbs...

as was my other little sidekick, who it appears had built himself the world's smallest train track

Lego Ski Resort Fun

Like most kids, my children are crazy about Lego, and like most homes across the country, there is Lego lurking in every nook and cranny of my house.  I try to designate specific areas of the house to Lego playing, but I guess it is just not part of the nature of Lego for it to be confined to a specific space (or I guess, neither is it part of the nature of children to be confined to a specific space in the house!) ...and so Lego has just become part of the decor in our house.  And to be quite honest, I don't know what I will do with myself when part of the vacuuming experience doesn't involve emptying out the canister and fishing out tens of the tiniest pieces of Lego.   But it is all worth it when you see how Lego sparks their imaginations and that the kids can spend hours totally immersed in putting together new and different creations.

Last weekend they had grand visions of transforming our living room into a ski resort, with Lego Ski Guys and chair lifts and gondolas strung across the living room.  When their vision included large sheets of cardboard and vast paper backgrounds,  I we decided that it would be a much better idea to make the ski resort in their bedroom, where they could make their resort as large as they wanted to, and could keep it up as long as they wanted.  And it is always a bonus when one can enter the living room without unsuspectingly being half decapitated by barely visible string hanging from wall to wall to wall!


It was a very easy project - all you need is:
Cardboard
Tape
Large roll of paper
Paint
String

We had all the supplies on hand, except for cardboard, which required a quick trip to the recycle center.   We cut the cardboard into two ski runs and covered them in the paper - since ski runs are white, that was all that needed to be done.  Except, of course both ski runs had to have ski jumps, which were playmobile bike ramps that the kids taped on.

Then we rolled out the paper and painted a mountain landscape for the background.  We taped this to the shelving in the kid's bedroom and left a little shelf space for the catwalk!  Lastly, we hung the string across the mountain peak background for the gondola  and chair lifts to move along.

The kids spent hours making the gondola and chair lifts and putting together the skiers and snowboarders, which is always a good thing for a mother of four :)

update: Linking up here

Make Your Own Lego Mini-Figures

A little while ago AshleyAnn did a post about making lego mini figures with her kids... and since my boys are equally as lego-obsessed, I thought that they would love to do this too.

The boys had so much fun deciding on what characters to make.  However, we used modeling clay instead of salt dough, and I just assumed that all modeling clay hardenend, but apparently we had the non-hardening kind, and so ours never hardened completely.  Next time we will try modeling clay that hardens, but the softer counterparts have held up remarkably well.

Anyway, this is a great project to have in your back pocket for a rainy day.

All you need is:
Salt dough
Lego Mini-figure tray
Sharpie (to draw faces and details)

Suzanne Kasler Design Studio

Since my own studio (aka miniature home office) is located in a tiny corner of our dining room, and seems to be swept along by a wave of perpetual motion as it constantly creeps into the dining room and covers the entire surface of the dining table every evening by dinner time, I am always daydreaming about my dream home office space. 
Today I am having serious studio envy after seeing these pictures of Suzanne Kasler's design studio over here. I love the neutral palette with pops of color, the spring blossoms and mini eiffel towers...sigh...bliss.

Hearty snacks for kids

With boys in the house,  the most often used phrase I hear on any given day is:

"I'm hungry."

So the other day, when I noticed the organic mac and cheese on sale at the grocery store, I started loading up my grocery cart, thinking that it would be a healthy and filling snack alternative.  But by the time I reached the checkout, I realized that it would be just as easy for me to boil pasta from the cupboard and just add butter and parmesan cheese.  DUH?!  Why have I never thought of this before?  Seriously?!

I use the organic pasta from Costco, which is really tasty and comes in a pack of 6.  I think each bag costs just over a dollar.  I have been making a full bag's worth of pasta on Mondays.  I cook the pasta, add a few tablespoons of butter and freshly grated parmesan cheese and a little salt.  It keeps well in the fridge for a few days and I change it up, adding hotdogs  or microwave bacon occassionally.  I keep the servings smallish, so that it is more of a snack than a meal.  It's also great if we are having a super busy day and I don't feel like cooking at the end of the day... then I just use the pasta base and add to it for a quick dinner.  In our family, the one bag I make on Monday, usually gets around three days worth of snacks, so I usually offer it every second day and when the batch is finished, I wait at least a week or two, to make more, so the kids don't get sick of it.

Also, I buy a big block of parmigiano-Reggiano at Costco, and cut it into smallish blocks.  I cover them with cling wrap, ziplock them and freeze them until I need to use them.  Freezing cheese is great, especially if its a type of cheese that you buy specifically for a recipe, but then don't  want to use the rest of it right away.  Although I have only tried freezing hard cheeses, not sure about the soft ones.

Felt Flower Headband Tutorial

After having a house full of boys,  I am having so much fun having a little daughter to share my girlygirl-ness with.  My little baby girl has been unwittingly immersed into a world of pink, pink, pink.  I am constantly dressing her in pink girly outfits and there is absolutely no mistaking that this baby is a girl...

And if all this pink isn't enough to clearly identify my child as female, then these pink headbands ought to do the trick!

For the dark pink headband, I followed this tutorial here but as I was hotglueing it all together, mine got a bit out of hand and I ended up with this instead. I do still want to go back at some point and try to get the same effect as icandy's very cute one.

The light pink headband was very simple and only required a hot gluegun, needle and thread, and some felt. I had a pearl bead in my craft drawer which I sewed on at the end.

1. Cut out your small petals (9) and large petals (9) - my diagram has a different amount for both, but I ended up using 9 each!
2. Pinch the ends, and then hot glue together as shown.
3. Cut out a small circle of felt (not shown) to use as a base to hot glue the large petals together in a circle. Hot glue the smaller petals together (not on a circular base, though).
4. Hot glue the smaller petals (now one piece) onto the larger petals (which are also now one piece).

Lastly, either hot glue or sew the flower onto an alligator clip or a headband.
The whole project took me less than 10 minutes!

She didn't mind having her photo taken with the first headband, but was totally over it when I tried to put the second one on!!!
The color of the second flower is a bright pink, but it looks red in this picture for some reason.