Cupcakes Kisses 'n' Crumbs: kids kitchen

Showing posts with label kids kitchen. Show all posts

18 August 2011

Back to School Organization

Feeling a little rushed now! Just over 2 weeks until the first day for our kiddos and I feel like our current routines are just NOT going to work! Hoping to have a schedule worked out and get a week in of practice before school really starts.

I have already been getting up an hour or so earlier than the kids, well most days anyway, so I have time to prep breakfast and get as much done before the day starts. If these kids wake up any earlier I might have to change it to a bedtime routine instead.

We haven't really had a breakfast schedule like we do for dinner, but I think we might need to try one this year, and especially since I am not really a fan of cereal for the kids, not very often anyway.

I'm thinking

Mondays~Pancakes, fruit and sausage.. everyone needs Monday to be a good day!

Tuesdays~Oatmeal and stuff

Wednesday~Yogurt and fruit or granola

Thursdays~Waffles with peanut butter and fruit

Fridays~Cereal and fruit

Our kids LOVE this chocolate PB, and I like that it is better calorie and fat wise than the regular pb!

I am hoping I can make things easier and do most of the prep work ahead of time, like cutting all the fruit ahead of time and making the pancakes and freeze them. And keeping small things for the oatmeal so it's not getting everything out, just a little basket with little containers instead of the bag of brown sugar, because kids and bags of sugar do not mix in the morning!

Snacks could easily get out of control if I just let the kids have whatever they want. So I need to have stuff organized and easy for them to access (and easy for me to manage what they are getting) I liked Real Simple Magazines idea about keeping all the snacks in one spot.

and already having stuff pre portioned out. Those single serving size snacks are so expensive when I could just put them in separate bags and save a bunch! I think giving the kids choices makes it easier for me and them, no fighting, no "I don't like that" problems. We don't really do cookies or sweets here very often, but I don't want to restrict it so much that they don't know how to make good choices either.

So I will probably make certain things a 1x a week treat, they can pick the

day but I am not stocking those up everytime they are empty.

I will work on snack organization and share what I come up with.. I'm pretty sure these will be involved

I like that they are re-usable and kid sized, and not breakable! And I am totally wishing I would have kept those plastic baby food containers now.

I plan on having a LOT of snacks ready so the kids can just pick out what they want in their lunchbox too and I will make the main part. I think they will do a better job of eating it if they pick it out.

I can tell already I will be adding another to do one day a week in my HMB!

10 August 2011

Happy S'mores Day!

Might have to make this super easy 1 dish 5 minute S'mores bark tonight!

12 April 2011

Harry Potter Movie Night.. at home!

Our kids are SO excited to see the newest Harry Potter on Friday when it comes out on DVD, they weren't taken to the theatre because we need to skip all the scary parts!

Hubby has been gone all week but he will be home just in time to have dinner and watch a movie Friday. There is no school that day so we have all day to play and do some fun stuff! The older 2 really love to help cook and do cooking stuff, the youngest likes to play IN the dishwasher (not really loving that). So I am trying to make a list of all the things we could make for dinner/movie night. Stuff that isn't too complicated/time consuming or expensive! I know for sure we will do something simple for the main part of dinner. Friday's are kinda busy, but especially this Friday! So we are having pork roast in the crock pot and oven roasted potatoes, but the rest I want to take some of the Harry Potter character favorites and see what I can do!

I've shared these chocolate frogs before

I have a feeling those won't make it this time, they are a little complicated for kids.

Some other stuff from around the web:

chocolate wands (but not in Valentines day colors)

I will probably do purple and got these Wilton Edible Glitter Stars

The kids will love them, making and I am sure eating!

Harry Potter and friends have Pumpkin Pasties (Pumpkin hand pies) as a treat in the books. I'm thinking I am going to try to make sweet potato ones, and not sweet, but savory ones, using this recipe for some inspiration, but I still want to do them small sized!

My favorite recipe for sweet Pumpkin Pasties is HERE, don't these look amazing?!

And of course the kids are already asking if they will get to have Butter Beer! I've made it for them before HERE, but I found this recipe that I want to try instead this time!

1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup butterscotch topping

1 1/2 cup vanilla cream soda

Combine condensed milk and butterscotch topping. Heat mixture and stir to combine.

Heat cream soda and add mixture, stir thoroughly!

Also thought about making them float style instead of warm too.

Some other things that could be fun are

Butter Beer Cupcakes

Rock Cakes

I think these are usually a scone type pastry, but I thought it would be cute to do a regular cupcake and use these on top to make it a "rock" cake!

If you're dying for an at-home Harry Potter movie night, but want to stick to your diet, try looking into Sensa weight loss sprinkles -- they're about as close to real magic as you can get!

13 March 2011

St.Patrick's Day

Is only a few days away and we have a busy week, so I am prepping what I can now!

One thing that is new this year is Ramsey's obsession with Elf on a Shelf.. so much that when I put a little leprechaun out he asked if he was watching him to make sure he was good.. Like I am going to turn down an opportunity like that! So we said yes of course! The last few years we have had the kids decorate a baby food jar and leave it out for the leprechauns with a card. This year we are doing it a little different. We told them the leprechauns only come to visit if you have been very good! I picked up a container of pots like these

and I have some gold chocolate coins to put in them, we hide them in the front yard and sprinkle a trail of St.Patrick's Day confetti to kind of lead them the right way! As soon as they turned the calendar to March in school he has been asking when the leprechauns are coming. Love that he remembers and enjoys it!

And I made a small batch of the potato candies I shared HERE, just to try them out. What I did different was only use about 1/2C (for the half batch) of toasted coconut and I used 1 1/4C of chopped walnuts and added 1/3C powdered sure more than the original recipe. They are pretty cute! Sending some for the teachers this week! This is the ones from last week, cute right?!

And I picked up all our fruit for the rainbow the kids LOVE! This year instead of just yogurt I will give them some of the cute cloud marshmallows too! I don't have a picture from last year (thank you strep throat medications) But pretty similar to this, minus marshmallows, yogurt instead!

source

And if I remember a grocery store stop for some white carnations to turn green over night, we haven't tried this yet but I think our kids would love it!

And we made these rainbow cupcakes from Family Fun last year.. but I think the potato candies are plenty of sugar!

And if we get up early enough I might make these for breakfast!

From I am Mommy

Hope you all have a good St. Patrick's Day! Have anything special planned?

20 February 2011

1 Month Until Spring!

Coastal Living

That is just 1 tiny month, 28 days, 4 little weeks to get Spring cleaning done, for me anyway! I like to have it all done by Spring or shortly after so we can spend time outside when it is nice, and get a early start on projects! I've talked about my Spring Cleaning plan the last couple years but it changes EVERY year!

Ive been trying to do small projects every Friday, usually just organizing, I actually like organizing but the actual cleaning part I am not a fan of so I like to just get it over and done with so we can move onto the fun stuff!

I like to start with the kitchen, it seems to be the most work so once it's done everything else seems easy! This has been my plan/list the last 2 years. I will probably spend part of nap time tomorrow going over it and seeing if there are other things I need to add to the list! And I think I might order some Shaklee products so parts of the kitchen might have to wait (like the oven!)

I hope to get started Tuesday and be done with the kitchen before the weekend!

18 February 2011

Cute little Marshmallows {Perfect for St. Patrick's Day}

I WISH I would have snagged a picture of the bag, but I had to get them out and see what they were like.. and didn't think to take one! But I found these at Cost Plus, World Market they were by the candy and there are chocolate and vanilla in each package, I just picked the vanilla out because I am using them for this

Taste of Home

I made a fruit rainbow last year, not sure if that was mid Strep Throat or when I had my wisdom teeth removed, either way I was barely awake enough to take pictures. But I know the kids liked it! Can't wait to do it again and surprise them with the cloud marshmallows!

I didn't get to do a lot of what I wanted last year because of being sick or teeth, going to try them this year and probably some more!

27 January 2011

Winter Hot Chocolate

The kids have been having hot chocolate here a couple times lately

Hearts and Melted Snowmen

07 January 2011

Organizing Friday!! The kids dishes.. there are SO many!

I swear they breed!!

We used to keep ALL the kids stuff in the upper cabinets but as the older 2 could reach the bathroom faucet letting them get their own water was fun for them so we moved the cups to a drawer they could reach.

And our oldest really likes to help with the dishes and setting the table so I decided to move everything where he can reach.

There was NO room! So many sippy cups and random containers in the drawer that there was no room for anything else! I swear at one point it was really organized but now the baby realllly likes to play in that drawer. (so much that I found a sock, a few lego's and half a package of wipes!)

I went through all the bowls and plates and decided to keep about half of them (the other half are now in the play kitchen, well they are supposed to be, but I have a feeling they will be all over for a few days until the novelty wears off!
Here is the before

During naptime I emptied the drawer and decided we don't really need 12 sippy cups or chopstick helpers!

Our oldest helped me put everything back in, he is SUCH a good helper!
After

All done, and the other cabinets look SO much better now too!

Here is the before

After

Let's hope I can keep Finnley out of the drawer now, his big brother will want to re-organize it everyday if he has the chance!

Next thing I need to organize is..
Birthday stuff! The biggins birthdays are in less than a month and I am not nearly as prepared as I wish I was!

04 January 2011

National Spaghetti Day, and PB Pretzel truffles!

National Spaghetti day is January 4th (today).. I didn't know until about 10 minutes ago, but I can make spaghetti tonight!

And although I don't have an amazing recipe (or any recipe) for spaghetti, I just guess and mix stuff together and taste and add more so I rarely use a recipe! But to make it a little more special I think I will make some Ravioli Truffles! I saw THIS recipe on The Capital Baker and sounds yummy! Chocolate with Peanut Butter and Pretzels?! Yes please! But I want to make them go with the spaghetti a little more, so I am using my Ravioli Chocolate mold, which you can get HERE, but I got mine on ebay.