The other day we had a boring, rainy day in Raleigh. Chris was out of town and it was too wet and cool outside to do anything fun outdoors with the boys. In other words, it was the perfect day to bake something. I told Brady we should bake something fun and asked him if he had any suggestions. He quickly replied, “A Dinosaur Cake!” While I was not exactly sure how to pull that off, I knew we had to make it work because he was so proud of his idea.
This cooking session with B-Man was not necessarily about trying a fancy new recipe or pulling off some elaborate Pinterest project- but more about getting messy in the kitchen and having some fun. We didn’t pay attention to swapping out ingredients for healthier alternatives, in fact we used a boxed cake mix we had in the pantry. We indulged in sugar and fat and loved every minute of it. No regrets.
First, we made a list of the steps for making some really cool dinosaur cupcakes. We got out all of our ingredients and got to work.
Our to-do list for making cupcakes. He loves lists! He’s so my kid!
We used a boxed cake mix (watermelon flavor!) for our cupcakes. Actually, we used half of a package of cake mix because we really didn’t need that many cupcakes. We added 1 egg, 1 cup of water, and 3/4 cup oil. Brady helped crack the egg and stir up the batter. We put our cupcakes in the oven and got to work on our homemade frosting.
While our cupcakes were cooling, Brady got to work picking out some of his favorite dinosaurs to top our cupcakes with.
Sidenote: Stop what you’re doing right now and go find watermelon flavored cake mix at Target. Smelled and tasted amazzzzzing!
B gave them all a bath so they were nice and clean.
Decorating the cupcakes was definitely Brady’s favorite step. He was so proud of how they turned out and even wanted to bring some to our neighbor’s house.
I loved this time in the kitchen with my Brady-Boo. He was so involved and so happy to be making his “vision” come to life! Also, despite the fact that he is not usually a dessert loving kiddo, he ate every bit of one of these cupcakes. He must’ve tasted the love in them!
Best. Rainy. Day. Ever.
I love that little finger sneaking into the picture trying to get a taste!
We love to celebrate any and all holidays around here. An excuse to give a gift, decorate, or make a special meal- and we’re on it! For Kids Cook Monday we decided to start celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with some green food. Last year we attempted green smoothies and, while they were delicious, they weren’t, um, green. This year we were determined to have GREEN smoothies. And we got our wish! We also made some cute little shamrock quesadillas to go with our smoothies.
Green Smoothie Ingredients
1 banana
2 kiwis
1 bag frozen peaches
1 container flavored Greek yogurt
about 1/2 cup of Orange Juice
about 3/4 bag of spinach leaves
Brady enjoyed helping me pick out green ingredients for our smoothie at the grocery store. He even chose key lime yogurt because of the green container. He was also excited to try kiwi- which he described as green strawberries with lots of seeds. Sounds about right to me.
We tossed everything in the blender (tasting each item along the way.)
Nolan did the honors of pushing the blender buttons. He’s come a long way from being terrified of it and running away screaming.
Here’s how our smoothie turned out. Super green!!! This batch made enough for me and the boys to each have a very big glass. Nolan finished his and then asked to finish mine. That’s a big deal because he is not an easy kid to get healthy food into.
And because we couldn’t just eat smoothies for dinner, we made some fun cheese quesadillas using Spinach wraps and a shamrock cookie cutter.
These took just a few minutes to cut the shapes out and cook up in a pan.
Helpful hint: these were much easier to cut out when warmed up for about 15 seconds.
We served them with some bright green guacamole and felt super festive!
Not exactly an Irish tradition, but tasty and GREEN!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Oh, and because I can’t leave well enough alone, here’s Brady’s lunch for school tomorrow!!!
Turkey spinach wrap, green apple with peanut butter, and cucumbers and hummus. Wonder if he’ll notice the color scheme?
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! On March 2, people across the country come together to celebrate “Read Across America Day” in honor of Dr. Seuss. This is a day to not only recognize one of our most amazing authors, but also a great opportunity to for teachers, students, parents and children to come together to read and take part in literacy related activities. I always loved celebrating this day with my students when I was teaching, and now it is a day I look forward to enjoying with my own kiddos as a stay at home mom.
This year Dr. Seuss’s birthday falls on a Monday, so we made some tasty treats for “Kids Cook Monday” to go along with some of our favorite Dr. Seuss books.
We started by reading the most classic Dr. Seuss book, The Cat in the Hat. It’s funny. It’s silly. And, it’s always a crowd pleaser. We made some easy little fruit kabobs to go along with our lunch and story.
Then we read my favorite Dr. Seuss book, Horton Hatches the Egg. It’s the sweetest story about an elephant who promises to take care of an egg and goes through terrible circumstances but never leaves the egg. I just adore Horton’s selflessness and love. I always loved reading this book to my first graders and will never forget reading it to my Brady when he was just a tiny baby. Seriously, my favorite.
We made these cute little haystacks that look like a bird’s nest with blueberries to represent the egg that Horton was protecting. These are the easiest and tastiest treats.
Nest and Egg Ingredients
1 cup Butterscotch Chips
1/2 cup Peanut Butter
2 cups Chow Mein Noodles
1 cup of blueberries
Here’s how we made our nests…
Melt the peanut butter and butterscotch chips together in the microwave. (About 1 minute)
Stir the mixture until smooth.
Add the chow Mein noodles.
Stir until all the chow mein is coated with the peanut butter mixture.
Scoop spoonfuls of the chow mein mixture onto a greased cookie sheet.
Add blueberries to the tops and put into the refrigerator for at least a half hour.
While the nests are cooling and hardening in the fridge, let your littlest helper lick the bowl.
These little guys are sweet, salty, crunchy and the blueberries are surprisingly necessary!
If you don’t have many Dr. Seuss books at your house, or you can’t make it to the library to check some out, look on Youtube for some awesome readings of some of his most popular books. This is one of my favorites too!
Hope you and your little one get to spend some time in the kitchen and with a great Dr. Seuss book!
If you would like any more information about “Read Across America Day” or ideas for celebrating Dr. Seuss, check out this website!
Ah, Winter time. That lovely time of year where noses never stop running, feet never seem warm enough, and cabin fever sets in. Admittedly, this North Carolina winter has paled in comparison to what went down last winter in Pennsylvania, but when you’re a mom of two small kids, cold is cold. No outside playtime and always having to bundle up to go anywhere is a drag. Then when you add snow or ice that keeps you housebound, well, that’s a lot of togetherness!
So, I’m sharing what we do to keep sane in Winter months.
First of all, without a doubt, there is more T.V. watching and iPad time. I just don’t know how to completely avoid that.
At least it’s educational!
We have literally played with every.single.toy. in our house. We build and take apart various train tracks all day long. We paint pictures. We play with Play-doh. We read and re-read our favorite books. We do puzzles. We make buildings with Legos and blocks. We have races around the house. We jump on our trampoline. Aaand, that gets us to right around lunch time. Whew!
Working on those fine motor skills!
Another life saver during winter months is a new toy added in the mix. Anything new that can be a distraction, is always a win! Except for this toy. It’s called a Wubble. It was described by Brady as, “The BEST toy ever!” And, it popped the day after we got it. We didn’t even have time for the novelty to wear off! Ugh…
The real winter fun begins when we can get out and play in some cold weather. Last week we had this weird ice/snow storm that froze everything, made roads impossible to drive on, and canceled school all week. Thankfully we were stocked with lots of food and Chris was home with us as his travel plans were canceled for the week because of the weather. We couldn’t go anywhere, so we just used that time to bundle up and play on the ice.
Nolan kept saying “Pretty Snow. Wow.” but he only kinda tolerated being outside in the cold. He refused to wear gloves and was much more interested in coming inside the warm house to eat breakfast.
While North Carolina does have it’s share of warmer winter days where temperatures reach into the 50’s, for the most part it’s much chillier this time of year and you are forced to find inside activities to fill the day. Some of our go-to places to venture to are the mall play area (if I’m up for dousing the kids with hand sanitizer afterwards), the train table in the children’s section of Barnes-n-Noble, a friend’s house for a playdate, the Chick-fil-a play area (so mommy can get an iced tea and a moment of sanity), story time at the library, Marbles Kids Museum (definitely getting our money’s worth out of those annual passes!) and the North Carolina Science Museum.
At the “World’s Largest Dinosaurs” exhibit at the Science Museum.
Dino dig at the Science Museum. Brady was in heaven.
When all else fails and we just can’t think of anything else to do, we make music, play music, and dance.
Another winter pastime of ours is finding a house project/re-decorating. It must be all that time spent sitting around the house that makes me start to critique every piece of furniture, paint color or throw pillow. Our house is new, so theoretically I shouldn’t have that much I’d want to change, but my dining room table has been on my mind for sometime now. I’ve always loved the table as it used to belong to my grandparents, but the chairs were not my style. During our week of being stuck inside, I finally bit the bullet and ordered some new chairs. Then, our first outing after the ice storm was to Home Depot for a new light fixture for the dining room. Thanks to winter storms, my hubby was in town all week and had some time in the evenings to put this all together for me!
I’m a much bigger fan of the “After” look.
We try to make the most of our time together during all the cold weather, cabin fever loveliness, but some days seem to turn into a blur of baking cookies, watching movies, and taming toddler madness. I’m sure Spring is right around the corner, but for now we’ll keep searching for our lost gloves, watching the Planes movie on a continuous loop, and checking the news for school closures.
Keep warm, friends! And for goodness sake, if you’ve got some better ideas for entertaining kiddos during the winter, please share them with me!
It’s almost Valentine’s Day and we’re totally that family that buys into the whole “Hallmark Holiday” event. Yes, it’s cheesy and you should just show your love all year round, but what’s it hurt to have a little fun and go over the top with mushy stuff every now and then?!
As a wife I don’t expect expensive gifts or fancy dinners- in fact I really just like hanging out around the house and indulging in desserts and champagne. (Don’t get me wrong, flowers are appreciated too!)
As a mom, I just like having a fun day to look forward to with my little guys. We decorate the house, make fun food, give little gifts. Again, why not?!!
On top of our family celebrations, Brady also has a Valentine’s Day party at his pre-school. This year when I asked him what kind of card he wanted to give his little friends, he said, “Um. An alligator card.”
Well who could say no to this little face?!
Hmm…the Gator fan in me loved this response. The mom in me was like, “Do they sell those? Oh gosh, what is Pinterest going to suggest I spend hours making?” So, to make it easy (on me) I had my handy hubby come up with a quick Alligator card design. After he designed it (and made all the changes I requested) all I had to do was print, cut them out with “fancy” scissors, and glue some Hershey Kisses on them. I helped Brady write his name on them, and we were done!
I thought I’d share what we came up with in case anyone needs a last minute, quick Valentine for their little one. Just click on the link below the image. There are 2 cards per sheet.
Happy National Pizza Day! With love being in the air and all (Valentine’s Day right around the corner!) we decided to make heart shaped pizzas today.
Recently I read a study that talked about how much pizza the average kid eats and how bad it is for them. **Insert guilty mom face** Depending on what kind you eat, it can be high in fat, sodium, and empty carbs. No, we do not eat pizza all the time (maybe once or twice a month) but we do enjoy it around here- especially Nolan. Plus, it’s just so darn easy to order and have delivered! Well, even though I still stand by delivery pizza as an every once in a while treat, it’s always nice if you can “healthify” something you enjoy by making it at home now and then.
Healthy, Happy, Heart Pizza Ingredents
We made our Heart Pizzas with a store bought whole wheat dough, but there are tons of great homemade whole wheat dough recipes like this one – Ultimate No-Knead Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
We rolled out our dough on our counter top that we (washed) and dusted with flour. Once we pressed the dough out flat, we began to cut out our heart shape with a cookie cutter.
We topped our pizzas with our favorite jarred marinara sauce and low-fat mozzarella cheese.
Brady picked his favorite veggies to top the pizzas. (I tried to get him to pick a red pepper for a pretty Valentine Day color, but he insisted on orange.) Here he is munching on his veggies!
We chopped them into shapes that we could use for making happy faces on our hearts.
Then we decorated our happy hearts!
We baked our hearts for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees.
These came out so cute and definitely satisfied a pizza craving for my boys. It was a fun way to kick off Valentines Day or just an overall love of pizza.
Happy National Pizza Day! And Happy Valentine’s Day!
Not only is guacamole delicious, but it’s super easy and fun to make. And with these easy to follow instruction sheets, they’re perfect for the littlest of chefs.
I have to admit, the teacher in me was really excited about these. I can definitely see a fun Science or Writing lesson that could happen with these on Cinco de Mayo!
I knew I wanted to try this guacamole recipe with Brady, but we made a bigger batch because, well, Nolan eats a lot.
We gathered all our ingredients and got to chopping. We ended up using 2 avocados, the juice of 1 lime, 1 tomato, a handful of chopped cilantro, 2 cloves of garlic and about 1/3 of a white onion.
Brady felt so big following the recipe instructions on the I-Pad and his favorite part was definitely squeezing the good stuff out of the avocados!
We also made some homemade corn chips today to go with our guacamole. This was fascinating for B. “Wait. Chips don’t always come from a bag?!” Here’s how we made our baked corn chips.
Baked Corn Chips
Ingredients
Corn Tortillas
Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Here’s how we made our baked chips. So much easier than you would think!
First we brushed each tortilla with a small amount of olive oil on each side.
Then we stacked our tortillas (we had 5) and sliced them up with a pizza cutter.
Then we spread the chips out into an even layer on a baking sheet.
We liberally sprinkled the sea salt on the chips.
Then we put the chips in the oven for about 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees. (Until they were crispy and golden brown.)
There ya have it- A healthy snack that was easy and fun to make! (And maybe a little learning took place along the way!)
Full disclosure… the chips were a hit, but Brady definitely asked me for a spoon at one point. Apparently, it’s now socially acceptable to just eat guacamole straight from the bowl!
Nolan is officially the age that Brady was when he was born- right around 21 months. I can’t for the life of me picture how I managed a newborn and someone Nolan’s age. I’m sure the only reason it was possible is because Brady was a completely different 21 month old than Nolan is. Brady was calm, quiet, and liked to play independently. Those are not exactly the words I’d use to describe Nolan, but he’s fantastic in his own way. He’s at such a fun age, that I wanted to take the time to write a post that could act as a “snap shot” of a typical day in the life of Nolan. I want to remember as many of his little quirks and catch phrases as possible.
Just woke up. Must bring all items from my crib downstairs.
You never quite know what kind of Nolan will wake up each day. Happy and singing a song?! Screaming and demanding you take his socks off?! Busy and talking to the pictures on his wall?! Either way, you can just about count on the fact that he will not want to get out of bed without his “night-night” (blankie) and Pup-pup (puppy.)
The other thing we can count on each morning is that Nolan will wake up HUNGRY. “Snack! Milk! Foffle! Pancake!” Just a few of the things he yells at us as soon as we come downstairs.
You must always be prepared with snacks and milk when Nolan wakes up. Keep the beast happy.
The boy enjoys his breakfast. Yogurt is always a favorite (and one of the few healthy foods he requests.)
9 times out of 10 Nolan is not satisfied with only eating his own breakfast. Generally he assesses the situation to scope out what everyone else is eating and either grabs it out of your hand/mouth or, when he’s being polite, stares you down and says, “I want some.”
At some point in the morning, you will inevitably hear Nolan say from the other room, “Yay. I did it.” To which we respond, “What did you do, Bubba?!” and he very matter of factly states, “I pooped. I stink. Stink! Stank! Stunk!” We’ve never accused him of being subtle.
Other favorite phrases, “I’m awesome” “Hot Mess!” and “Wow. I’m fast!”
When it comes to playtime, Nolan is all boy. He loves all the things his big brother loves- trains, cars, and airplanes. In fact, he plays with cars and trucks even more than Brady ever has. It’s one of the few times he’s quiet and calm…
Nolan loves to line up his “f*cks” (trucks) Still waiting on him to turn that “F” sound into a “TR”
He also reeeeally likes to drive his “f*cks” up the “Mommy Mountain. Wheee!” It hurts a little…
He usually plays really hard- running around full speed, knocking things over, singing, squealing, roaring, and then all of a sudden needs a break. Like anywhere…
On school days, Nolan and I get lots of “Mommy and Me” time.
The boy is a big fan of selfies. Like, wants to do them all the time.
Some mornings we go to Toddler Time at the library or walk the park. Other mornings we run errands- lots of Target runs.
My Target buddy- wiping down the cart like it’s his job. “Mess! Yuck! All better!”
And, most mornings he falls asleep in the car because he just can’t quite hang yet without a little morning snooze.
And of course this usually happens as we’re on our way to pick up Brady from school!
When we go into Brady’s school, Nolan gets excited and tells me “lollipop!” (Brady’s teacher made the mistake of letting Nolan choose something from her treasure box once. Since then, Brady’s school= Lollipop.) After we get home and he takes his afternoon nap, he wakes up…yup, you guessed it, HUNGRY.
Snack time Round 177…
When the weather is nice in the afternoon Nolan loves to play outside!
“Folfing” is the BEST! And he WILL throw a fit if someone leaves the house with golf clubs and he’s not invited.
Walks in the park are cool too (as long as there are snacks involved.)
One of our favorite things about Nolan is his ability to talk/sing non-stop all.day.long. He just doesn’t shut up! We joke that he narrates his own life. In a car ride he goes from describing everything he sees on the road- “f*ck! tractor! bulldozer! light!” to naming the members of our family, “mommy! daddy! Brady! Nolie! Albert! Gato!” to singing a prayer, “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Ah-men. A-men!” to labeling the parts of his body, “eyes! nose! tongue! hair!” And occasionally he’ll treat us with a little gem like this…
When dinner time comes around, Nolan is not shy about expressing his hunger. His favorite foods are pizza, tacos, “foofies” (cookies) and hummus. He doesn’t exactly crave the healthiest of foods…
After dinner, Brady and Nolan usually run around the house chasing each other or playing on their riding toys. When Daddy is home, they have dance parties and play Hide and Seek. Nolan, bless his heart, tries so hard to hide and be quiet, but usually calls himself out by loudly saying “Husssshhhh!! I hiding.” Either way, he just loves playtime with his daddy!
No one makes Bubba laugh quite like daddy.
At the end of the day Brady and Nolan take their bath together. Nolan always initiates the splashing.
He is the first to splash, and the one who cries the loudest when water gets in his eyes.
When I put Nolan’s jammies on he usually asks for powder and lotion. He specifically says, “Lotion. Feet.” (People who know my feelings on feet should be impressed that I will in fact put lotion on his little *clean* feet.) And usually as I do this he looks at me and very seriously says, “I’m fancy.” Apparently soft feet=Fancy.
Right before bed we always read books with Brady- Nolan loves to “read along” with sound effects and voices for the characters.
When it’s time to say goodnight- Nolan doesn’t leave anyone out. “Night-night, Brady. Night-night, Albert. Night-night, fan. Night-night, downstairs.” And then it’s off to thumb-sucking, blankie snuggling, dreamland…but not before a quick song that he sings to his night-light and space heater.
We love this kid so much. From morning to night, happy to sad, clean to messy, and everything in between, he keeps us laughing!
Loving this age- full of toddler energy and laughs, but still baby enough for some mommy snuggles!
Eggs are always a great go-to for Meatless Mondays around here. Brady has always loved eggs-Nolan, not so much. However, I find that if they are in something else (like a quiche or a breakfast sandwich) he will eat them. This egg bake we made for Kids Cook Monday has gotten his stamp of approval. We have this dish in different varieties several times a month. It’s easy to throw together and you can add in whatever you have one hand (bacon, mushrooms, spinach, turkey sausage, etc.) We like it equally well as a meat or vegetarian meal. It’s great for breakfast, but we have it a lot for dinner. It’s also a nice way to sneak some veggies into a meal for kiddos (or adults) who are a little picky.
Here’s how we made ours!
Ingredients
1 can of crescent rolls
6 eggs
About 1/2 cup milk
Salt and Pepper to season veggies and egg mixture
Your choice of produce- we used;
1/2 green pepper, 1/2 onion, 1/2 a container of mushrooms, handful of grape tomatoes, handful of green onions
2 Cups shredded cheese
Any combo of vegetables would be delicious in this!
We started by chopping up our vegetables and giving them a quick sautee in olive oil. We seasoned them with salt and pepper.
Then we prepared our egg mixture. We whisked up 6 eggs with 1/2 a cup of milk and a little salt and pepper. We also threw our green onions in the mixture.
Then we got to assembling…
Brady helped unroll the sheet of crescent rolls and press them into the (greased) baking dish.
Then we topped the crescent dough with our sautéed veggies, 2 cups of cheese and poured our egg mixture on top.
We baked the whole thing at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes (or until the egg mixture is completely firm.)
We serve ours with salad or fruit for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It also makes great leftovers for the next day’s breakfast, lunch, or dinner!
We’ve also made this with salsa and pepper-jack cheese for a Mexican flair. Gotta love kid friendly food that appeals to the whole family and is EASY- Win, win, win!
We love Greek Yogurt around here! It’s always in our fridge and while it’s a great breakfast or snack on it’s own, I love when I find a new way to use it. I’ve been trying to find ways to incorporate more protein into our breakfasts lately (and some of us are not in the mood for eggs too early in the morning!) so I decided to try adding Greek Yogurt into a pancake batter. I’ve seen lots of versions of this online, but I like this one the best. It’s sweetened by the yogurt and comes out thick and fluffy.
Greek Yogurt Berry Pancakes
Ingredients
1/2 Cup Flour
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 container Blueberry Greek Yogurt
1 Egg
About a cup of any type of berry
The strawberries can go in the batter or as a garnish on top.
(This recipe made about 3-4 pancakes. So, for our family we definitely doubled it!)
In one bowl, we mixed the Baking Soda and Flour.
In another bowl we mixed the egg and yogurt.
Then, we mixed the two bowls together.
Brady threw some of the strawberries into the batter for good measure.
It should be noted that the batter was thick and not pretty. Tasty when cooked, but not pretty.
We put a little butter on the griddle before spooning the batter on. We flipped them when they began to bubble a little in the middle and the other side was brown.
A few more strawberries, just because.
Not the prettiest, but yummy!
This pancake recipe is not overly sweet, so some recipes I’ve seen call for extra sugar or even a little honey. We left that out of ours because we knew that we’d be adding syrup to the top and they’d be plenty sweet. I was pleasantly surprised by how these came out and I really want to try different versions of it…with vanilla yogurt and bananas, with peach yogurt and peaches. The possibilities are endless!
our blessed adventures 