We are a coffee-less family, but we had an out of town guest in town this weekend so our house was full of the aroma of freshly brewed Columbian Roast…  Once our guest went home, I was left with an abundance of coffee filters… I thought, “How can I use these for good?”  Well, I quickly remembered that if you water paint on a coffee filter, the color spreads beautifully.  So the boys and I made turkey feathers out of the left over coffee filters.  The directions for this craft are below and so are the boys finished products!  

Supplies:

Coffee filters (white)

water paints

construction paper

black marker

glue

Directions:

Place the coffee filter on a piece of construction paper so it doesn’t “bleed” onto your work space.  Give your child directions(depending on their age) about not mixing the colors of the water paints, rinsing the brush, etc..  I tell my boys that I don’t want the colors to look “muddy” but to stay pretty like a rainbow.  This usually helps them.  I also cover the black and brown paint with a piece of scotch tape so they don’t muddy their work, but again, that is dependent on age.

Let them paint their coffee filter…  I usually don’t give many directions around this, just that they should try and fill the entire circle with paint.  Both of my boys painted theirs totally differently, and that is what makes them so special!

After they have painted their filter, you will want to set it aside and let it dry.  The next step is definitely age dependent.  In Kindergarten and up I would have them draw their turkey head, legs, beak, and waddle.  I would also have them cut it out.  I did this for my toddlers, but again you do what you feel is best… After you’ve cut out all of the body parts, glue them on!  I let my boys put the glue on their pieces, flip them over, and choose their destination!  I then had them draw their eyes and GOBBLE GOBBLE, the turkey is finished!

I love Turkey’s so be watching for a few different crafts in the next couple of days!  This is one that we made last November, we are currently working on a smaller version, but for now this is what I have…

Supplies:

Chart paper or construction paper

Colorful Paint, I used Tempera

Glue or Tape

DIRECTIONS:

I quickly drew and cut out a head, body, and legs of a turkey.  I then set all of the parts aside and got the paints out one color at a time.  We started with brown and painted the body, head, etc..  I then moved on to the legs, feathers, etc…  Again getting one color out at a time so as not to have a “muddy turkey”.  I assembled our turkey once he had dried and realized he was a bit bigger than expected.  The best place for him to fit was on our sliding glass door so that is where he went!  He really was very cute and painting is such a great way to build fine motor skills that we killed two birds with one stone (so to speak)….

We had some good friends and family over for a pre-trick or treat dinner party…  It really was a great way to spend the holiday!  We had chili with all the fixin’s, corn bread, chips, cookies and these amazing cupcakes that my neighbor made… The cupcakes were so amazing in fact that no one wanted to eat them…  The best part of the night was of course the kids in their cute costumes going door to door asking politely for their special little baskets to be filled with all sorts of great treats!

The boys and I made spiders for decoration…  I used black construction paper cut into a circle for the body… Fan folded strips of black paper for the legs and used a white crayon to draw the faces… I certainly wouldn’t want to find one of these guys in the corner of my living room!

I made these “mummy cups” by wrapping a paper cup in gauze and sticking some google eyes to the front of the cup… I filled the cups with glow sticks, pencils, erasers, noise makers and a sucker and gave one to each of the kids…

What is a special holiday without cut out cookies!  My kids love rolling, cutting and even decorating cookies!

My neighbor Melanie made these amazing cupcakes.  I’m not going to even attempt to tell you how she did it!  One thing I know for sure is that they were so cute no one wanted to eat them!  THANKS MELANIE…

This is a family favorite of ours…  I often make this for the boys when we are going out because it is so quick and it’s something that the boys and the babysitter will eat!   An added bonus, NO FILLERS…  It is one of those recipes that you really can just mess with the amounts on.  I have seen a variety of recipes for these, so you might have another one that you love… This is just the one we use!

Ingredients:

Chicken (boneless skinless is very easy), I usually use 4 breasts

Buttermilk (it is low fat, did you know that????)  I usually buy a 16 ounce container

Bread Crumbs (any variety, I like either plain or italian) I usually start with about a cup and add if needed

Salt and Pepper

Cooking spray

Directions:

Cut the chicken into strips….  Put the chicken in a bowl and pour the buttermilk over it (it really depends on how much chicken you have to how much buttermilk you are using).  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  If you don’t have buttermilk you can whisk an egg and soak the chicken in that, as well…  I soak the chicken in the fridge for as long as I have, but you don’t have to soak it at all if you don’t want to.  Put the bread crumbs in a bowl or plastic bag… You can add parmesan cheese to the bag if you like it…  Take your coated chicken and toss it in the bread crumbs until coated…  Lay your chicken strips in rows on a greased cookie sheet (I use cooking spray).  I usually give it another quick sprinkle of salt and pepper.

BAKE your chicken at 375 for 20-25 minutes, or until cooked through.  You may want to flip your chicken after 10 minutes… ENJOY

As we approach that special night when our kids get to dress up and go house to house asking strangers for candy I am thinking of a way to get them to not eat so much of it…  My plan this year is once trick or treating has commenced, I am going to “TRADE” my kids some of their candy for a NEW BOOK (and try not to eat the candy myself, ha)….  I know that they will love this because they absolutely LOVE new books… Here are some books I might consider for the trade or even just to “rent” from the library…  They are favorites of mine at school and I know the boys would love them at home too….

This is a craft that I have done for years with Third Graders, First Graders and Kindergarteners.  This year I decided to try it with my 2 & 4 year old.  Basically the older the child the more independent they are with each of the steps.  With my little guys I just did the cutting and let them glue.  You know your child and his/her ability!   Our house is now starting to look a little bit like a pumpkin patch!

STEP 1:  Cut a pumpkin out of orange paper;  I traced a bowl to get a more accurate circle, but pumpkins are rarely accurate so free handing it is just fine!

Step 2:  Draw two zig-zag lines down the pumpkin.  Again, older children can do this themselves, I did it for my preschoolers…

Step 3:  Cut along the Zig Zag Lines and glue your “puzzle pumpkin” to a black piece of paper…  I used a glue stick and let my little ones  glue….

Step 4:  Draw pumpkin eyes, nose and mouth on yellow construction paper and cut out.  Glue these onto your puzzle pumpkin.  (Again, older kids can draw and cut their own pumpkin face, I asked my guys what shapes they wanted and then cut them for them.  They glued them on).  I made a variety of faces….  My little guy’s art is much cuter than mine… Their finished product pics are at the bottom of this post!

Step 5:  My Preschooler’s Finished Products… They really had a lot of fun!

Yesterday was my son’s 4th birthday.  We had his birthday party over the weekend…  He is really into music so I decided to do a music theme… At first I thought I’d hire a high school guitar player to come over and play a couple “favorites” while the kids danced around.  Then I remembered that I had been thinking of taking a Kindermusik class this fall and did a little research.  It turned out that a Kindermusik teacher in our area also did birthday parties.  I quickly signed up for class, fell in LOVE with our teacher, and hired her to come to S’s birthday party!  She spent about 45 minutes at my house with 11 toddlers (which qualifies as a saint) and it was truly AWESOME!  After she was done, we had just enough time for lunch, cake, gifts and one final dance song!

Here are some of my “party tips”

*  Create space… Move furniture to the edge of the room to make space for people!

*  Stick with a theme and a color scheme….  I chose orange so I had orange balloons, jelly beans, plates, cups, etc..

*  Get party favors that are “fun” and “usable”

* An hour and a half is plenty

* Pack kids food in little bags, buckets, boxes etc..  This year I packed the kids lunches in brown gift bags that I had decorated with their names and some musical stickers.  Inside each bag was a sandwich, goldfish, fruit snacks, juice box/water, and a napkin.  The kids had a carpet/hardwood floor picnic…  It was great.  We did cupcakes after this on little plates, but that was easy to pass out.

Here are some pics:

*  We hired Kim from Kindermusik with Kim to entertain our young guests….

We ordered these party invitations from Tiny Prints….

*  We gave out these inflatable guitars that we ordered from Oriental Trading Company…  We handed them out at the end of the party and had a dance party with all of them, so cute!

*  A few more party favors keeping with our orange theme…  I ordered these from etsy…  Gotta love that site!

I saw this craft while perusing through one of my favorite websites, Family Fun.  I am going to run out and get the supplies I need for this craft because it really is so “stinkin'” cute!  THANK YOU FAMILY FUN… I’ve stalked this website for years, but didn’t get their magazine until more recently.  If you don’t get it,  you really MUST.  A student’s parent got it for me as a holiday gift and I just love it!

MATERIALS

Red Delicious apple
5 red gumdrops
Toothpicks
4 whole cloves
Fruit leather or fruit roll up
Red shoestring licorice

HOW IT’S MADE:

Turn an apple on its side. Insert one end of a toothpick into a gumdrop and stick the other end into the bottom of the apple core to form a snout. Break toothpicks in half and affix four gumdrops as feet. Set clove nostrils in the nose and clove eyes above the snout.

Twist off the stem, poke a hole with a toothpick, and insert an inch-long piece of shoestring licorice into the hole to make a tail. Finally, cut a piece of fruit leather/ fruit roll up into a rectangle measuring 1 by 1/2 inch, then cut again on the diagonal to form two equal-size triangles. Affix upright triangles with small pieces of toothpick to create ears, then bend over the upper portion of each triangle to cover the spot where the toothpick shows.

picture and recipe courtesy of http://www.familyfun.com

Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
2 1/8 cups white sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (3-4 bananas)

6 oz mini chocolate chips

Frosting:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
3 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 9×13 inch pan or line 24 cupcakes. In a small bowl, mix mashed bananas with lemon juice, set aside. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream 3/4 cup butter and 2 1/8 cups sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in 2 teaspoons vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Stir in banana mixture.  Add chocolate chips.   Pour batter into prepared pan.
Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place directly into freezer for 45 minutes. This will make the cake very moist.
For the frosting: In a large bowl, cream 1/2 cup butter and cream cheese until smooth. Beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add confectioners sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high until frosting is smooth. Spread on cooled cake.

Yep, you heard me right!  POOP GOOP…  When my boys were babies my pediatrician gave us a recipe for “Poop Goop”  which was the best thing to cure diaper rash!  Well, my 2.5 year old has a bad rash on his bum because he is having some unknown food allergies and so I dug out the poop goop recipe and it worked it’s magic… It truly is the BEST thing EVER for a RED BUM (what ever the cause)…

Recipe:  You use equal parts of the three ingredients…

1 part diaper ointment

1 part Cortisone Cream (such as Cortaid)

1 part Mylanta

Mix them together and there you have it.  We keep it in a little tiny tupperware container…  I use half a tube of diaper cream, half a tube of cortisone cream and mix those together.  I add a little Mylanta at a time to thin it out…  Works like a charm!  Enjoy…