Half-Birthday Cake in a Mug

Celebrating half-birthdays has been a tradition in our family since O(7) was a baby.  The girls love it, and it's a simple way to have fun together as a family.  This year O(7) decided that she wanted to bake cake in mugs for her half bday celebration.  We did this a few years ago, but I couldn't remember what we did.  I asked my mom to find the simplest and quickest way to bake cake in a mug (since I had to work on O's half bday and wouldn't be home until after 7pm).   Luckily, I can always count on my mom!

Here's what we did...we mixed one box of angel food cake mix in a large bowl with a box of brownie mix (my mom said to use cake mix, but I only had brownie mix).  After stirring the 2 mixes together thoroughly, we put 3 tablespoons of the mixture into a mug along with 2 tablespoons of water.  We mixed it together thoroughly and microwaved the mixture for 1 minute. Done!  It really doesn't get much simpler than that!  While the girls and I were mixing up the cake and microwaving it, my mom was making a whipped cream topping.  It was delicious!!!

Here is a picture of the cake before we added the topping.  It doesn't look very pretty, but it tasted great!




Adding the topping...



Here's the cake after O(7) added her 7 and a half hot pink candles :)



After singing "Happy Half-Birthday" to O and my mom (they share a birthday), we ate the delicious cake.  We had so much fun, and it was so simple...a great snack and activity for movie night or a sleepover party, too!

Cinnamon and Sugar Pretzels

E(3) and I had fun baking together last weekend (O was busy listening to an audio book and organizing her room and wasn't interested in joining us). 

First, we made cinnamon and sugar pretzels.  E(3) LOVED unwrapping the butter, placing it in the bowl, and chopping it up (one of the 2 things on her Christmas wish list was butter...the girl LOVES butter!). 


After melting the butter in the microwave, she mixed in a teaspoon of cinnamon and a half cup of brown sugar.  She stirred in about 16 ounces of pretzels to coat them.
We baked the pretzels at 350 for 30 minutes.  I stirred them every 10 minutes. 


This simple and yummy recipe came from a fellow homeschooling mama!
After we made the cinnamon and sugar pretzels, we made Christmas rice crispy treats!  The girls always love making rice crispy treats, especially since I let them lick (gnaw on) the spoon when we're done!

Crockpot Applesauce...SO Easy and Delicious!

E(3) and I had a lot of fun making crockpot applesauce this weekend!  ( O(6) started helping us, but then decided that listening to a Dear America book on the ipad (via Tales 2 Go) while finger knitting was more enticing).

First, we peeled and sliced our apples.  The girls love using our apple peeler, but if the apples are a little mushy (they were!) and asymmetrical, it doesn't work well.


After peeling and slicing about 6 or 7 apples, we added in a teaspoon of cinnamon, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, a little less than a tablespoon of brown sugar, and a fourth cup of water.  E had fun stirring all of the ingredients together.  We turned the crockpot on low, went to church, and completely forgot about it.  When we returned home many, many hours later, the applesauce was ready!  (it was supposed to cook for 4.5 hours, but it cooked for about 5.5 hours....luckily, you can't overcook applesauce!)


This is a terrible picture of the applesauce, but it really was delicious.  The girls had a bowl before and after supper.  O(6) says she wants us to make a new batch EVERY day!

Here's a link to the last post I wrote about crockpot applesauce.  Since then I've realized that while blueberries do make everything healthier, they don't necessarily make it better and less than a tablespoon of brown sugar really is ok :)

Glow in the Dark Putty

Our Halloween activity of the day was to make glow in the dark putty.  This was super simple and fun activity.  I think the girls would have played with the putty all afternoon if we hadn't had to stop for their dance classes!

To make glow in the dark putty, you need a half cup of liquid starch, a half cup of white school glue, neon green food coloring, and 1 tablespoon of glow in the dark paint.

Pour all of the ingredients together and stir!

We had SO much fun, and I'm so glad to finally make putty again!  (O and I followed this recipe to make putty a few years ago, but we haven't made it since then because I was afraid that E would eat it.  Don't let kids who still put things in their mouths play with this putty as I'm pretty sure the liquid starch is dangerous if ingested.)

Fossil Cookies

We studied archaeology in our homeschool last week, so I thought it would be fun to make fossil cookies with the girls.  The girls were surprised (we rarely bake cookies) and delighted!

We made super easy peanut butter cookies...we mixed together 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 egg.

We rolled the dough into balls and pressed imprint "fossils" into the dough using our playdough stampers.  We baked the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes at 350.




  Fun and simple!




(please excuse E's dirty fingernails...they are not actually dirty, but are dyed with tie-dye).






The inspiration for making fossil cookies came from here.

More of What We Eat

Since several of you asked me to post more pics of what we eat, I decided to do that today.  I've been so busy with O's graduation, doctor appts, planning for Bible School, planning for a baby shower we are hosting, work, swimming lessons, gardening, working on O's yearbook, recital rehearsal, and the dance recital, that I haven't had time to write any posts in a while (I usually write several at once and then just post one a day).  Posting food pics is easy and fast!

This was a fast breakfast on Friday.  They had fresh cherries (E barely ate hers), walnuts, bananas, and watermelon.  They also had organic milk to drink and yogurt drinks.



This was supper one day last week.  The girls had their first ever fish sticks, and they LOVED them.  It's not something we'll have often, but it did make for a quick and easy meat.   They had sugar snap peas, carrots cooked with olive oil, dill, and garlic, fish sticks, cauliflower with cheese, and kiwi with frozen strawberries.



This was lunch (I think) one day last week.  They had cucumbers and tomatoes, frozen fruit (mangoes, blueberries, and strawberries), macaroni and cheese (their first instant mac and cheese...Annie's...they loved it and I added in a couple of spoonfuls of organic Greek yogurt to make it healthier), chicken, and ketchup for dipping.

Chocolate Banana Pops

E(2) and my mom had fun making these yummy treats last week while I was at work and O(5) was at school.

To make these yummy treats, they sliced the bananas into chunks.  Then they melted dark chocolate candy (Dove...about 1/3 of a cup) and mixed it with 1/3 cup of peanut butter and a tablespoon of coconut oil.  They dipped each banana piece into the mixture, put them on wax paper, and put them in the freezer.  They waited a couple of hours and enjoyed their delicious treat!

Homemade Moon Sand....FAIL!

Edit to add:  Our moon sand was great for a few days, and then it turned nasty...very, very nasty.  Don't make my mistake and use cornmeal instead of cornstarch...unless you only want it to last for a couple of days :)

The girls and I had fun making and playing with homemade Moon Sand last week. We made moon sand with O(5) when she was younger (probably 2), and it was really messy. This time we used a different recipe, and I liked it better. Here is the link to the blog where this idea originated. To make moon sand you need 4 cups of sand, 2 cups of corn meal (the recipe says corn flour, but we used corn meal...evidently I was supposed to use corn starch.  However, it worked out fine with the corn meal, and I like it better since we used cornstarch last time, and it was terribly messy.  I'm not sure how long it will last...I'll let you know), and 1 cup of water. We ended up tripling the recipe and adding a little bit of extra water.

The girls took turns pouring in the ingredients, and they loved mixing the dry sand and corn meal. I added in some mini construction vehicles, and we had a work site! I had fun playing with them, and O(5) asked "Mama, how do you know so much about construction?" so I must have done a good job of pretending! We were excited when Elliott played with us, too! They tired of the construction zone fairly quickly and started cooking with the sand...no big surprise there :)