St. Patrick's Day Fun

My family history definitely includes some Irish heritage (if you could't tell by my red hair).  And even though we are not Catholic, we still enjoy a few St.Patrick's Day crafts and activities.  My sorority was founded on St.Patrick's Day and green is my favorite color which makes this an even more fun holiday for me so why not let the kids have a lot of fun with it too!

   

Here is Addilyn's Leprechaun Beard.

Who can resist pepper painting when it makes such perfect four leaf clovers?

And of course we had to make something with mint in it.    How about Chocolate Mint Brownies...yes please!

Most fun of all is the annual city parade.  We of course, had a blast!

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Chocolate Honey-Pecan Cupcakes

I love to try new things in the kitchen.  Well, what I really mean by that is I love to try new recipes.  I am not a pioneer in the kitchen.  I almost never experiment and create a recipe all by myself.  Instead, I find something that looks good and make that.  The most adventurous I typically get is modifying whatever recipe I'm using (and usually only a tad).  Well, today I took a giant leap out of my comfort zone and I tried something new.  I made Chocolate Honey Pecan cupcakes...from scratch...and WITHOUT a recipe!  Here's the crazy thing- they turned out GREAT!  I was so surprised.  I was just so thrilled I tried to remember exactly what I had done and now I want to share it with you!  Hope you enjoy!

Cupcake Mix

2 1/4 cups Flour

1/2 cup Cocoa Powder

1 1/2 tsps. Baking Soda

1/4 tsp. Salt

1/2 cup shortening

1 3/4 cups Sugar

1 tsp. Vanilla

3 Eggs

1 1/3 cups Water

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare muffin tins.

Stir together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside. 

In a large mixing bowl beat shortening with an electric mixer set on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar and vanilla; beat until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one. Add dry mixture and water alternately to beaten mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just till combined.   Fold in 1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips. 

Pour batter into prepared pans. Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips on top.  Bake 20 minutes.

Honey/ Pecan Icing

4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

6 ounces whipped honey-nut cream cheese, room temperature

2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Beat butter and both types of cream cheese with a mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, and then vanilla; mix until smooth.

Last but not least, decorate your cupcakes (and please don't judge my crazy looking' swirls- I am not naturally gifted in the cake decorating skill).

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Fruit Pizza

Fruit pizza...one of my favorite desserts.  It is sweet and yet so refreshing.  It's a great spring time dessert because of all the amazing fruits that are in season then.  I was first introduced to it about 8 years ago at a birthday party.  Since then, I've used various different recipes (because there seems to be a ton) but my favorite so far  (in taste and appearance) is the one pictured here that Addi and I made into a rainbow for her letter r week lesson.

The base of the pizza is actually one large sugar cookie.  Anytime I make sugar cookies I use Sweet Sugar Bell's basic recipe.  For the fruit pizza I placed all the dough on a pizza tin and rolled it out into a perfect circle.  I baked it at 400 degrees for 12 minutes (but I would actually recommend pulling it out a minute or two earlier if you like it more soft).   For the "icing" I mixed an 8 oz. package of creme cheese with 2 Tbs of sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla.  I speed out the icing and then added fresh fruit.  Easy as pie. Ha ha ha...pun intended ;)

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We love because God first loved us!

Most people in our culture could not tell you the history or origin of Valentines.  Most would not know the story of St.Valentine who was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers and ministering to Christians being persecuted under the Roman Empire.  Most would not know that the day was also celebrated as a fertility festival with rather risqué elements that I won't go into here. However, to most individuals, Valentines has become a day to celebrate the idea of love.  Weather it's flowers, candy, a nice dinner these things are meant to be shared with those who are special to you.  So, regardless if it's origins are nobel or revolve around pagan rituals, and despite our societies transformation of the day into a "Hallmark holiday," in our house we celebrate Valentines as a day to focus on LOVE.  True love.   Love that comes from the Creator God himself!  Last year, when Addi was one we told her over and over again "God is Love"  (1 John 4:8).  This year our verse was 1 John 4:19, "We love because God first loved us."  We made a point to teach Addilyn that the only reason we can love others is because God has shown us love.    Some other verses we read together and tried to live out included:

• Deut 6:5- Love the Lord your God with all your heart!
• 1 Cor 13:4a - Love is patient, love is kind. (This is how we can put love into action)
• Matthew 22:36-29  Which is the great commandment? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (This is why we sent cards to others and hosted a party)

Here are pictures from our fun week trying to remember God's love for us and striving to love others from the overflow. 

These were cards we sent to grandparents and great grandparents.  On my mom's side of the family we always used the sign for "I love you" when leaving the house so when I saw this idea on Pinterest I couldn't pass it up!

This was the card we sent to Addi's great-great grandmother! Underneath all the pieces there really is a heart, I promise.  ;)

Addilyn made a heart butterfly to give to her Daddy.  So sweet!

Some of our friends who live pretty far away are going through a tremendous life change in their family by taking in a few foster children who desperately need love.  We collected letters, notes, and scriptures from others who knew them before they moved and put it into a Valentines care package. 

This is our Valentines morning breakfast tradition.  We LOVE cinnamon rolls in our house!

Addi and Siah had almost 20 friends coming over for their Valentines party so I thought we needs a few yummy treats to share with everyone.  Here is a homemade heart-shaped cookie cake.  I was so gooey when  took it out of the oven and began to crumble on the left side, but my oh my did it taste good.  

There was at least one friend who could not eat chocolate so of course I had to make another dessert so he could have some too, right?  It gave me a great excuse to make a homemade red velvet cake with homemade cream cheese icing.  I love baking, but feel I need excuse to do it.  This was my chance!

Since the party started around 10:00 I thought it might be good to have a few breakfasty items.  This was my attempt at at tray of raspberry danish bites and heart-shaped wild berry muffins. I think the muffins turned out rather silly looking, but oh well.

We had a fruit bowl full of heart-shaped strawberries and bananas.

Addi was thrilled to decorate for her party. She put decorations on the table...

...and sprinkled silk flower petals and heart garland all along the food counter.

For lunch, I could not pass up the opportunity to provide bagel pizzas with heart-shaped pepperonis.  So fun!

All the children helped make cards for a few ladies in our neighborhood.  They colored and used tons of stickers to really make the cards stand out.  I wish I would have taken pictures of a few of them.  They really were beautiful.  In addition to craft time, we also had game time.  I had made some Valentines busy bags for Addilyn and Josiah to play with and I pulled them out at the party to keep some of the kids entertained.  All in all I think everyone had a good time.

Heart size and color matching. 

Broken heart sticker counting.

Size sorting.

Cookie cutter match.

Candy heart pattern matching.

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25 Day of Christmas Activities- Week 4

Day 1- We're getting close!  Here is a picture of the cupcakes we made for the staff at the YMCA where we go several days a week. We baked them in a mold, iced them, and used sprinkles to finish off the holly wreath look.  Addi was so excited to take it to her "teachers" in the nursery.

Day 2- White-chocolate covered oreo snowmen.  We had a Christmas party and thought this would make the perfect treat.  Addi was great at putting on the noses, but I had to fix a lot of the chocolate chip mouth pieces with a toothpick.  This was an excellent activity to work on her fine motor skills and attention to detail.

Day 3-  It's Christmas Eve!!!  Today we wrapped presents that we had picked out for friends and delivered them to friends.  Addi has been asking to wrap more presents ever since.  I told her we'll just have to wait until someone's birthday.  Then she got so excited because she knew that Jesus's birthday was tomorrow.  She went on and on about how we forgot to get him a present and we need to wrap it and take it to him.  Oh, how my heart melts at the sweet sentiments of a two year old.

Day 4- MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!  Today we made Jesus a birthday cake and decorated it.  We sang happy birthday, read the Christmas story, and then opened presents.  What a fun tradition.  I love it!!!

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25 Days of Christmas Activities- Week 2

This week we played more games instead of making lots of crafts, but I'm thinking next week will be a very craft heavy week as we finalize some Christmas projects.  Here are the Christmas activities for week two!

Day 1-  Christmas Themed Tangrams- Addi was much better at this than I thought she was going to be!  We used paper and foam shapes that had been cut out.  This was actually one of the busy bags we had gotten and I hope I make more of the tangram games for other holidays throughout the year.

Day 2- For this Christmas felt board Addi had to put the current number of button ornaments on the tree according to the number on the star.  She did almost every number correct and was excited to put ALL the buttons on the tree before cleaning up.

Day 3- We made a snowman with paper plates, construction paper, cotton balls, and pom poms.  So much fun!

Day 4- In my family it was a Christmas tradition to decorate sugar cookies.  Now, here is a picture of the next generation participating in our family tradition.  I know it sounds so silly, but this melted my heart seeing them talk and work together on this.  I have such great memories of doing this with my grandmother and I'm so thankful to be able to pass this along to my little ones.

The final product after several were devoured. ;)

Day 5- We made a festive little wreath from Addilyn's sweet handprints and a few pom poms.

Day 6- Addilyn had so much fun with this activity.  We took pinecones and she decorated them with pom poms.  She could have done about 20 of these if I would have let her.  So funny!

Day 7- This game was also from our busy bag swap.  It's a "snowball" counting game.  Fun, fun, fun!

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