Chocolate Chip Cookie Birthday

My son turned six a few weeks ago as you and know, and I made a lot of chocolate chip cookies the day before.  I made a giant cookie pie again, and was once again not happy with the results, it was better than the previous year, but it was too dry.  Although I'm not convinced anyone makes a yummy giant cookie, I think it just looks exciting. Although I need to work on my decorating skills of giant cookies, I've improved but I still have a way to go.  My son asked for those candy candy cake things. 

My boy is adorable isn't he?  I'm so crafty.

 Then for his birthday in school, I make chocolate chip cookie sandwiches. Which meant I had to make 60 perfectly size chocolate chip cookies.  I used betty crocker cookie creme, which you can buy in the premade frosting section. Everyone said they were yummy (ie half the kids, the teacher, the teacher's assistant, my friend who I gave the last four cookies to), but I thought the cookie creme was too store bought tasting, I would be interested in finding a yummy homemade recipe.

 The birthday boy loved them!  He also loved being sung too, and getting to eat the first bite (a tradition in the kindie class). It was also 100 day at school, so he was dressed up like he was 100 years old.  Note the mustache that is actually a beard.

Just for the record, I needed two bags of cookie creme for my 30 sandwiches, and I think I used less than recommendations.
I still want to try out the chocolate chip cookie ice box cake.

Sensory Box

Last year when my daughter was in speech therapy one of her favorite things was a sensory box.  Once I found out my husband did not move the sandbox, I always planned on making one, but I just never could decided how I wanted to do it.  Finally enough was enough, and I did it. It has hard black beans, hard kidney beans, hard macaroni noodles, beads, and a bunch of little animal toys that plague the toy box, plus other stuff the three year old added. Kids love putting their hands in all that stuff.

She loves it.  I originally though I wanted a big box for it, but now I realize that was crazy talk, because it would be a potentially bigger mess.  Sensory boxes are great, but you need to be in the same room as them, because sometimes its tempting to be naughty and throw the beans.  

 Even my 6 year old was fascinated. Ignore the fact I used a camera that couldn't take bright light pictures.

If I would have paid better attention in speech therapy I probably could tell you the benefits of sensory boxes, but I just know they are great for little fingers and brains.  The great thing is they are cheap, if you don't have a plastic shoe box, they are only $1, but we had millions, I use them for everything.  The beans, and macaroni were all out of food storage, and the toys, well the toys obviously needed a new life, and so it was a free project, and great for winter days.
Speech therapy was for my daughter, but I was present and participating in all of her classes, it turned out it was great mothering class too, it taught me what is normal for kids, and how kids want to touch and move to learn. (I hate moving and touching when I'm learning.) So when my son is trying to do is homework, and stops to jump all over the room, then calmly sits down and writes another sentence, I now realize that is normal. When his homework is counting, and he wants to jump to count, counting each jump around the kitchen table, I now just let him, instead wanting to ornerily tell him to sit down and count.
Here is a fun website for other preschool things.

Mini Candy Cake

We had the Elders over for dinner from our church, and made mini candy cake.  Luckily they were brave souls and didn't think I was trying to kill them with sugar.  Mini cakes are so much more enjoyable I think, 6 inches is the perfect size to get nice mini piece of cake which is a necessity for this cake to prevent a sugar overdose.

 My six year old was very involved in the process.  We started with finding this idea for nerd confetti cupcakes on pinterest. Which is incredibly simple, just add nerds into white cake batter. Then instead of buttercream frosting I had been dying for some pudding frosting.  I add grape kool-aid to the frosting for extra candy taste, and for color.

Don't mind that there is a massive amount of frosting in the middle of my cake.  I live at 7,000 ft and well you try to make a cake that doesn't collapse in the middle at that altitude.  Just for perspective a lot of baking says, for high altitude (3,500 ft- 6,500 ft), and then how much flour to add.  Yes, I live higher than the instructions even list!  

So back to the frosting, in case you haven't had wonderful pudding frosting, here is the extremely simple recipe.  I didn't grow up eating pudding frosting, but luckily my mother in law makes it.

PUDDING FROSTING
1 (3 oz.) pkg. instant pudding, any flavor 1/4 c. powdered sugar 1 c. cold milk 1 (8 oz.) container Cool Whip, thawed Combine pudding, sugar and milk in bowl. Blend well. Fold in Cool Whip. Frost cakes and store in refrigerator.

from cooks.com

Before I added the cool whip I added in grape kool-aid powder.  I got the idea from this nerd cake recipe.

Look at her eyeing that cake, she just wants to smash her hand in it like she is on her first birthday.  By the way the frosting was so good, I probably consumed about 2 cups worth of it after I finished frosting the cake.  It was a mini cake after all and we didn't need all the frosting. 

We actually baked the cake on monday when we also made cupcakes.  I froze the cakes, and we ate a few cupcakes for FHE.  These are the few cupcakes that survived the week, and they ended up with some frosting too. On monday I just put straight cool whip on the cupcakes with nerds, because I didn't feel like making frosting, or have time.

 Overall the project was a success, my son is normally not a cake person and asked if I would make this next year for his birthday.

By the way part of the reason I love mini cakes, is very rarely do you have enough people over to eat a full size cake.  So I bake two round 6" cakes, for a mini cake, then cupcakes, this time I ended up with 24 mini cupcakes, 12 normal size cupcakes after the two 6" round cakes.  Now mind you I get a little bit more cake out of a box mix for some reason at this altitude, but that is two desserts right there.  Cupcakes for one party, a mini cake for the next dinner event.  According to this site you can freeze a well wrapped cake for a month. Not only is it healthier not to consume a whole cake, it saves money and time.

Valance

I made a valance for my laundry room.  I have absolutely no practice in making valances, but I saw a cute one on pinterest that I never could find again, and I realized that is what my laundry room was missing.

I hated the window and especially the honeycomb blinds, but that is when I realized a valance, I didn't want full on curtains since a laundry room is so dusty and linty.  I think its perfect, although I do know it would look better if I knew how to make a professional looking valance.  I love the material, I love toile, I love green and since had the material waiting for a project, it was perfect. The project was only the cost of a cheap curtain rod, and it matches my wreath, sort of, the greens do match.

Lucky

I painted these lucky letters years ago for St. Patrick's Day, but what I had done with them fell apart.  I finally re-purposed them into this sign. I love it, the frame has a little bit of glitter in the paint but not as much as the letters.  The rainbow picture was taken in our backyard.  Not the best ever rainbow picture, but definitely not bad.  I was surprise how well it went with the frame-- at least in my opinion.

This is pretty much my new favorite thing in my house, until March 20th.
Once again I'm a fan of the variegated paint job.

Princess Dress

In my attempt to find flannel at JoAnns Fabric store, we ended up on the character material aisle, (its the same one). Nan desperately wanted princess material, so I gave in so I could put back some other ugly material she had asked for.  The material was half off, and has that elastic smocking, so it was about the easiest dress in the world to make.  All I had to do was hem up the side since the bottom comes hemmed, then add straps.  For character prints its actually kind of cute material. She loves it. It ended up costing less than $8, not bad for a dress especially on with Disney Princesses on it.

Homemade Valentine's Day

For some reason I make my kids homemade valentine presents. I was going to quit this year, but then I saw Rainy Day Hopscotch in a Family Fun Magazine in a doctor's office and knew that my son would love it.  He is obsessed with hopscotch from recess. 

 The longest part of the project was cutting out the stencils.  I would link to family fun magazine but I never could find a link.

 My daughter got a frilly tool belt.  Probably doesn't look like a tool belt to you, but we have a kid tool belt that she loves and wears all the time because she loves the pockets.  Not all of her pants have pockets and she needs pockets for her cell phone.

Valentine Breakfast

My kids woke up early on valentine day's so I made them, heart pancakes with valentine sprinkles inside and on top of the cream.

I feel guilty I didn't take a picture of my son in his red shirt.

Do you know what this is?

Do you know what this is?

 A pinata!  A refrigerator pinata from Wall-E its where he finds the plant.

Did you hear the whole saga of the pinata, long story short there was nothing in the $10 pinata range that my son and I agreed on other than a present that was a square.  My husband said all along we should just make on and when I looked at that square of a present pinata I threw the idea out to my son.  He loved it.  My husband wanted to do a balloon pinata of Eve, but my son wanted a refrigerator! What 6 year old picks a refrigerator for a pinata? Mine.
If we were making a pinata I wanted it to be ruffly with paper like a real pinata, so I read all of Oh Happy Day's Tutorials, and dyed my white streamers with tea after seeing this watercolor streamer tutorial. The pictures don't show that our white was actually tea brown, to imitate the rust and dirt or Wall-E's world. I never got to putting a handle on it.  The pinata has a false back and the candy is behind the plant.
Brent thankfully helped me do the whole thing, I had never made a pinata before.  When we were finish I was unhappy with results, but after staring at it a long time, I realized it was the composition not the execution. Then my friend said, I love how creative he is-- in reference to him wanting a refrigerator pinata.
My son loved it, and that is what matters.

Oh course we only sang Jim Croce's Roller Derby Queen once or twice.

She is a five foot six and two fifteen A bleached-blonde mama with a streak of meanShe knew how to knuckleAnd she knew how to scuffle and fightAnd the roller derby program saidThat she were built like a 'fridgerator with a head

Strawberry Birthday

For the big 3-0 I thought my husband needed an actual cake, so I made him a tiered strawberry shortcake cake (pound cake).  It was very yummy I was pleased with how it turned out.

Snow Day

Today is a snow day, and I WISH I had had time to go pick up a yard of some light pink floral calicoes.  Last week I decided my daughter might love a comfy pillowcase dress, but I don't have material for that. Sad day, snow days are great for snowing.  My kids play, and have pretend sleep overs, and campouts on my bed, while I sew a few feet from them.  I'll have to find some craft to sew today.
By the way I make my own pillowcase, its easier for me, since I don't shop anywhere with pretty pillowcases and don't have any.  Plus my daughter is still too small for a pillowcase dress actually made out of a pillowcase.

Invite

As you know we are in the thick of things with Birthdays.  When I couldn't find a decent priced invite, I decided to make my own wall-e invite.  Printing your own invites is hardly hard, but I have never done it before so I feel so accomplished.
Ignore that black line of the left I don't know where it came from.

Then these are the thank you notes, yes I make my child write thank you notes.

Valentine Skirt

I made my daughter a valentine skirt.

 I've wanted to make this style of skirt for years, but could never bear to cut perfectly good jeans.  Well these were too big for her waist ever since she potty trained, but had holes in the knees! Perfect.

 I love it! Except she stopped wear skirts, maybe she'll pull it out in the summer, when she doesn't need a pants underneath. It should still fit in the waist.

Princess Crown

My daughter's friend had a princess party and my friend (the mom) told me I did not need to buy a present.  So I made this instead.

I had an unwilling model so here is my lamp modeling it.

 I based it off this pin I saw of tulle crowns, and J's crown. As I made it I thought either this is ridiculous or ingenious.  Its a fine line. I couldn't tell if if it would look like a 70s headband.
 Best part of this craft/present is I already had the material.  The other two moms at the party loved it, so I guess it wasn't ridiculous.

Snow White

Back in October I bought my daughter two dress up dresses at Goodwill.  All her friends had princess dress and she did not.  Individually they were a little less than $5 each.  But both need a little bit of care. I was willing to do it to save $30.  (These were $20 dresses new.)  The first one was Princess Fiona from Shrek, and once I removed a few things that had frayed it turned out to be a beautiful dress.  Her favorite is the Snow White Dress.  It turned out to need more care, I asked my mom to help me over thanksgiving, and still by Christmas it needed more work.  The bodice and skirt of the dress were fine, but the sleeves just kept shredding.  Imagine my excitement when I search snow white sleeves on Pinterest and found this tutorial for the sleeves. I spent less than $2 on material to make the sleeves, still I was on top if it worked.

That is not her doll, its her friend's and boy was she excited when she found it!

By the time it took me six hours I don't know if was a top of a good deal, but considering it was christmas break and I'm a stay at home mom, it probably wasn't too bad of a deal.  Not to mention I learned a lot while sewing these sleeves.  I'm pretty sure these sleeves should have not taken 6 hours, but I'm not a seamstress I'm a crafter. Plus if you haven't figure it out yet on this blog I'M TERRIBLE at following directions!!! Not to mention you have to start by making your own sleeve pattern which totally paralyzed me.
Part of the reason it took a long time, is did french seams, because I didn't want the dress to fray and I wanted it to be comfortable.  But part of it is I don't have a lot of practice with satin, it handles a lot different than cotton calico, so it was just hard for me.  But like I said, I learned a lot.
Unfortunately now, I think the sleeves out shines the dress, well the bodice.  I considered about replacing it, but decided it wasn't worth it, plus it made my daughter really nervous for me to be reworking her dress.  She was quite upset until it was done.  She loves the dress, and if I replaced the bodice she probably wouldn't love it at much, she LOVES the button.  Snow White stories are now her favorite in her Princess Collection Book.
(She also likes stories about "the doggie"-- Beauty and the Beast)

Even though it is opposite I think she plays a good snow white even with her fair blond hair.  Then again Marge Champion was the model for snow white and she definitely did not have hair as dark as a raven.