There's Something Fishy About This Lunch...

I wanted to surprise my daughter with a special lunch the other day so instead of just a regular peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I decided to create a little underwater scene.

I just cut the sandwich with a cookie cutter, put on an icing eye, and drew a mouth with an edible marker.  The bubbles are just slices from the narrow end of a carrot and the seaweed is carrot shavings.  I used carrots because that's what we had, but any fruit or veggie could be used, really. 

Ashlyn loved it and thought it was funny that when she wanted more and I gave her the scraps, I called them sea snakes.  :)  Do you create fun little meals for your kids?

Movie Night - Nightmare Before Christmas

I just put up everything about our Nightmare Before Christmas movie night over at my Disney blog! I would love for you to go check it out! Here's one tip I love that I used during our movie night.


It's getting cooler here in Florida and I know it is downright COLD some places. I love hot chocolate when it's cold outside but I always have to wait forever to drink it so it cools down a little and I don't burn my mouth. We have some whipped cream in the freezer and if you put a spoonful or two straight from the freezer into your hot chocolate right after you make it, it makes it extra delicious and cools it down just enough to drink right away! We're also loving the addition of a special Peep during Halloween season. :)

Keep Calm and BAKE ON!

One thing you should know about me is that I love to bake! I love to try different cookie recipes and decorate my creations. I have a few new things I'm going to be trying out here in the next month or so.

First of all, I am hosting my 2nd Christmas Cookie Exchange! I tried a new cookie recipe last year (Red Velvet Shortbread cookies) and am going to make a new one again this year. I have two recipes I want to try and in the next few weeks (with a short break because my husband is going to be leaving for school and he sneaks cookies as soon as I get them out of the oven is my taste tester) to decide which one to take to the cookie exchange. Choice number one is Alfajores (Argentine Caramel Sandwich cookies).

photo from Better Homes and Gardens

Choice number two is Cinnamon-Sugar Roll cookies.

photo from Better Homes and Gardens

How delicious do those look? I can't wait to try them out!

Now, I've made many batches of cake pops and have even decorated my daughter's 2nd birthday cakes (two regular cakes and two mini cakes). I LOVE making cake pops and the cakes were generally very fun to make (though I honestly did get frustrated at times since it was my first time). I also really admire all the cookies Bridget makes over at Bake at 350. I have finally decided to try out decorating cookies with royal icing! Yeah, I'm sure I'll get frustrated at times since I really have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm excited to try it out. Maybe I'll find a new passion! Then again, if I fall in love with it, I'll be making cake pops and decorated sugar cookies for every get together I go to. Not that anyone has ever complained that I bring cake pops wherever I go. ;) Anyway, since Thanksgiving is a week away, this weekend I will be making these cute treats.

photo from Bake at 350.

Well, I'll be trying to make them, at least. :) Like I always say, even if they don't turn out cute, they'll still be yummy!

Stay tuned because I will definitely be posting how everything turns out. First up... the adorable turkey cookies!

Celebrating Fries!

Yesterday was National French Fry Day! We made sure we had some french fries with our dinner as well as a special dessert.

I made some pound cake, cut some into strips, and poured some melted red candy melts on top as ketchup. It didn't look quite as cute as what I pictured in my head, but it was still fun.

After dessert, Aaron said that he was expecting just pound cake with candy melts on top (which would have still been yummy) but that it tasted better than just that. He said it was better than the sum of its parts.

I have an idea for the leftover pound cake, too... you know, besides just cutting it up and eating it. :) I'll be sure to post about it after we try it out.

Did you do anything for National French Fry Day?

M-I-C.... K-E-Y...... M-O-U-S-E!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For awhile now we have been thinking and thinking and obsessing (well, maybe that last part was just me) to try and think of 100 things to do for the 100 days leading up to going to Disney World. The plan was putting the ideas on links and making a fun countdown calendar! Well, Sunday night we finally finished up and put everything together.

Monday we pulled off the first link.... 100 DAYS LEFT!! We had a special dinner to celebrate. I decorated our kitchen island thingy like I do with our movie nights.

The digital photo frame in the middle was going through pictures of Ashlyn with a bunch of characters.

For dinner we had Princess Pink Lemonade...

... Pirates of the Caribbean Grape Cannonballs...

... Mickey pizza (one regular and two personal)...

... and dessert was Rocky Road Brownies.

I was originally going to make sugar cookies and cut them out as ghosts to be Hitchhiking Ghosts. I had been meaning to make these brownies for awhile so Aaron suggested just making them and cutting them out. Well, the topping is way to sticky for that, so they are just the rocky road the hitchhiking ghosts have to travel on. :) Whatever it is, it was super yummy! I'll share the recipe soon... it is incredibly simple, too.

The Lion King Movie Night

Last night was our latest movie night! We watched The Lion King. Ashlyn enjoyed it but she actually didn't sit through the whole thing. I'm thinking maybe she just wasn't in the movie mood. She normally has a really good attention span and will usually watch a whole movie. It had been quite awhile since I've seen the movie, but my Daddy sent me a copy recently. I was incredibly excited!!! I had been looking around EVERYWHERE for a copy to borrow since it is in the Disney vault right now and I didn't feel like buying it on ebay. I knew it was a fabulous movie, but I forgot how fabulous.

So here is our table. I decided not to decorate the dining room table this time and just focus on our kitchen island thingy. We didn't have much, but I thought it was cute. Baby Simba didn't stay up there for very long. He is one of Ashlyn's favorite stuffed animals (it goes between him and her stuffed Princess Aurora doll) so she wanted to carry him around. :)

I knew exactly what dress Ashlyn was going to wear. I just thought it was perfect for the theme.

Before dinner we went on Safari for Simba!

Where's Simba?

We kept it simple. Aaron took Ashlyn into the kitchen and once I hid Simba in her doll bed and then once in her princess tent thing. After that she didn't want to give him to me to hide. She wanted to carry him around. :)

For dinner we had Wildebeast Steaks, Pride Rock Baked Potatoes, and Forest Broccoli Trees! (We had a very last minute guest and we just had enough broccoli for 2... Ashlyn had dinner earlier... so that's why it's so skimpy. haha)

For dessert was Rafiki's Banana Pudding! I alternated the Nila Wafers with animal crackers to keep with the theme.

Monday marks 100 days until our upcoming Disney trip! We are in the process of making a countdown calendar to hang up on Monday and we'll have a special dinner. I'll be sure to post about it afterward! Have a great weekend. ♥

Muffin Tin Monday - Oceans and Ponds

It's time for another Muffin Tin Monday!! It is a "No Theme" week, but I decided to do my own theme. This week we did Oceans and Ponds (sounded better than Bodies of Water or something that incorporated both shrimp and ponds that I had in mind). :D

Ashlyn had popcorn shrimp, carrot reeds around a ranch dressing pond, fish eggs (cut up grapes), and goldfish!

I took out the goldfish crackers before giving her the tin because I wanted her to actually eat her healthier stuff. She never really had grapes before and didn't particularly care for them. We found out recently that she likes shrimp, but she only took a couple of bites. She ate all those carrots, though, and was really light on the ranch. She just munched away like a little bunny! Then, of course, she gobbled up the fish crackers, but that wasn't really even a question. :)

To see what other creative people did with their tins this week, visit Muffin Tin Mom!!

Also, HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!

Muffin Tin Monday - Seeds, Plants, and Flowers

It's Muffin Tin Monday! This week is another part of the Springtime mini-series. This installment is all about Seeds, Plants, and Flowers!

I made a peanut butter and jelly flower with a mini marshmallow center (inspiration here), a pastrami, turkey, and cheese flower (inspiration here), Rice Krispies "seeds," extra flower cheese, and broccoli "trees." The broccoli had some cheese on it so maybe we can say the "trees" are bathed in "sunshine?" lol

Ashlyn didn't eat everything, but I was very proud that she tried everything!

To see what creative tins other people made, head on over to Muffin Tin Mom!

Muffin Tin Monday - Birds and Nests

I hope you are all nice and rested and ready for a new week! We didn't really do a whole lot this weekend, but it ended up being wonderful. A nice, relaxing weekend where we just spent time having fun together as a family. :) All three of us had colds during the week and were starting to feel so much better this weekend, so it was really nice. And what better way to start the new week than with...


MUFFIN TIN MONDAY!!

This week starts a spring mini-series and this week is all about birds and nests.


Ashlyn had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (that is supposed to be a bird... obviously I haven't bought cookie cutters yet), a rice krispie treat nest, and strawberries to act as little eggs (though I put the extra slices in their own cup). This is only the second time she's tried strawberries. She tried a couple of bites, but wasn't really digging them. She didn't hate them, though. I think she just needs to get used to the tartness of them so we'll be giving her bites every couple days or so.

Now, next week's theme is going to be a difficult one for me, but hopefully I'll think of something fun. We have finally decided that our next movie night is going to be Pocahontas, so I'll be in planning mode this week anyway.

To see what others came up with for this week's MTM theme, check out Muffin Tin Mom!

Monsters Inc. Movie Night

Well, whoops. It's been almost a week since our Monsters Inc. movie night and I completely forgot to post about it! In my defense, Ashlyn and I have both had colds and I am just now beginning to feel human again (I think of Beauty and the Beast every time I say that).

So anyway, like I said, we watched Monsters Inc. Before dinner and the movie, the three of us did a little craft. I bought three poster boards and we each painted a door. For Ashlyn's door I taped some paper in some strategic places so when I took it off you could tell that it was a door. Here is her creation (all the purple is her and the yellow is from us making the door details stand out).

Here is Aaron's (you can see where Ashlyn felt his door needed a little purple).

Here is mine.

I really didn't have anything for decorations besides some green plates, green forks, and blue spoons, but the doors acted as decorations. And you know what? I had the. cutest. decoration. EVER! Our very own life-sized Boo! ;)

For dinner we had Boo's Mini Meatloaves (a fabulous recipe I found in Kraft Food & Family magazine - we've only tried the Fiesta ones but all three of us really like it) and Mike's Mashed Potatoes. Quite awhile ago Aaron asked me to make homemade mashed potatoes and once I did, we've never gone back to boxed. They are so good!

To drink we had Sully Punch. We got some of the clear Kool-Aid and put some blue food coloring in it (I don't know if they make blue Kool-Aid but they sure don't sell it here) and had purple ice cubes (grape Kool-Aid). Sorry you can't really tell the colors in the picture, and you also can't tell, but the ice cubes are Mickey Mouse shaped!

For dessert we had Eye Scream Sundaes. It was just so much fun. I still don't know which movie we'll be doing next week, though! Eek! We're going to decide this weekend, though, so I can start planning everything. I really wanted to do The Lion King because Ashlyn just ADORES her stuffed baby Simba, but I can't seem to find someone here who owns it and neither the library nor the little video store thing has it. My dad is sending us a copy, though, so we'll do that soon.

I also wanted to let you all know that tomorrow is NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DAY!!!!! Heck yeah! I am totally making a batch tomorrow to celebrate. I was trying to decide whether to do something like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (I have something I want to make with the oatmeal container so I need to use it!), Congo Bars, or what. But you know, this time I just want to make good old fashioned regular chocolate chip cookies. You can't go wrong there! Unless you're out of milk... but with a 19 month old in the house, we stay pretty well stocked with milk. I am also making rice krispie treats on Sunday because I'm using some for Muffin Tin Monday, but I'm sure we can find some poor, unsuspecting person to burden with our extra cookies and rice krispie treats. ;)

Muffin Tin Monday - No Theme (Mother's Day)

Since Sunday was Mother's Day (happy belated Mother's Day to all the mommies out there!) there was no theme for MTM this week. We didn't really do a tin, but Mother's Day breakfast was MADE in a tin. Does that count?


The three of us had delicious chocolate chip puffins for breakfast!

To see what others made this week, please head over to Muffin Tin Mom!

A Wonderful Cinco de Mayo Meal

Man, I wish I took pictures but alas, I did not. But I still wanted to share with you a quick, DELICIOUS meal that we had last night in honor of Cinco de Mayo. Which also gives me an excuse to give you the links to the great recipes.

Our dinner:
Beef Enchiladas
Spanish rice
Churros

Nothing crazy complicated, just simply good food.

Anyway, the beef enchilada recipe I got from The Pioneer Woman. She has amazing recipes, as many of you know. This is one that is in our regular rotation. Aaron requests it often (as well as her meatballs, but that's another post).

The spanish rice was, honestly, a box of Rice-A-Roni Spanish Rice. The only difference is that we chop up a beautiful, fresh tomato to put in instead of canned. I have nothing against canned tomatoes, but in this we can taste the tinny can flavor more than in other dishes.

My friend over at Momma's Playground shared the churro recipe that she found. I was a little nervous while making it, just because I had never made churros before. I always have some level of nervousness when making a new recipe. But holy cinnamon-y goodness, Batman, they were GOOD!!!! All three of us just loved them and I know I'll be making those again soon.

Ashlyn will be going down for her nap in about 30 minutes and then I am going to heat up some leftover enchiladas for lunch. Mmmm... now after writing this I may not be able to wait until she takes a nap! But if I make it now, she'll end up eating half of it. Decisions, decisions....

Hollywood Cookies

So awhile ago I got an email that said the PTO was throwing a Hollywood Extravaganza party for the kids that go to the elementary school here. They were asking for volunteers to help out as well as people to donate baked goods. I perked up at that part! Of course I would bake something to take to the elementary school! I'm always looking for a reason to bake.

Now, I couldn't just make any old cookies. Oh no! I had to do something cute. So I bought a couple of those aluminum cookie sheets (that way they could toss them afterward without having to worry about returning my pans to me). These things were FLIMSY and even with two stacked on top of each other I had to be really careful so it wouldn't just tip over. I also borrowed some cookie cutters from a good friend of mine because, believe it or not, I have very few cookie cutters! EEK!!!! I only have a few mini ones and Halloween ones. How the heck that happened, I don't know. But I am starting to collect more. My first major purchase will be a kit with the basic stuff like numbers, letters, circles, holiday themed, etc.

Anyway, I took one of these tins and some blue and green construction paper. I trimmed everything to make it look like sky and hills. Then I cut out letters to spell out "Hollywood" and put the letters among the hills. That's right.... a template for the Hollywood Hills.

I then made sugar cookies and cut them out to spell "Hollywood" and made a bunch of stars. I frosted the letters with white frosting and tinted the rest yellow for the stars. I only frosted some of the stars because, well, I was lazy. But it ended up looking really good with every other star yellow. This just didn't look like enough cookies to take, and I happened to have an extra box of cake mix on my hands, so I made a quick batch of Cake Mix Cookies (I've seen this recipe on many websites, but this is the very first place I read about it). It was the first time I made these and they were pretty good! I had strawberry cake mix sitting around but I think it would be even better with chocolate. Yum!!! Anyway, here is what it looked like once everything was done.

I was pretty proud of my creation! I wish I could have stuck around to see how the kids liked them!!

Movie Time!

After reading a bunch of ideas on a Disney discussion board I frequent, hubby and I have decided it would be cool to have a movie theme night once in awhile... every 2 weeks or so. We kept our first theme "night" pretty simple. I already have plans to make them much more elaborate as Baby Girl gets older. We were planning on watching 101 Dalmatians since we just purchased it. And instead of a movie night, we had a movie morning on Saturday. We had chocolate chip pancakes...

...and dalmatian milk.

To make the dalmatian milk I used a pastry brush and "painted" some chocolate syrup on the inside of a clear glass (all we had at the moment were our wine glasses) and slowly pour milk into it. We ended up not watching our movie because while we were cleaning up from breakfast the power went out. Our netbook was fully charged, though, and we have a few movies on the hard drive so we went ahead and watched Up instead.

Sunday we finally got to sit and watch 101 Dalmatians. After the movie I sat down with Baby Girl to do a little activity. I had printed out a picture of one of the dalmatians, got out some circle stickers I had lying around, and I let her "Put the Spots on the Dalmatian!" It was her first time doing anything with stickers and she had SO much fun!

In a couple of weeks we are going to do a night for either The Little Mermaid or Finding Nemo. How about a poll? Comment and let me know which movie you think we should do (and you know I'll definitely be posting about it after we do it) and I'll pick whichever one has the most votes!

Mickey Oreos Revisited

Remember these tasty little treats? Remember how I said I had BIG plans for them? Well, I tried to take that pretty little picture I had in my head and make it reality. Did it work? Ehhh, let's just say please keep in mind this was my very first time working with fondant, not to mention I was super excited and was probably in a hurry to see the final product!


Does this give you an idea of what I did? No? Okay, how about this...


Still no? Okay then.


You know you have the Mickey Mouse Club March stuck in your head again. And you're welcome. :)

I know it is far from perfect, but I'm proud of it. I know what I did wrong and how to fix it next time I work with fondant. I have a new project in mind with the rest of the fondant I ordered. Nope, nothing to do with Disney. It'll be a Valentine's Day treat. We'll see how it turns out! Practice makes perfect, right?

Who's The Leader of the Club That's Made For You and Me?

M-I-C... K-E-Y... M-O-U-S-E!!! In chocolate-covered Oreo form! ♥ Yes, trust me, I know! The other day I was going through major Disney withdrawal. We are barely starting to plan our October trip to Walt Disney World (more about that in a later post) and I am just already itching to go. Plus I love baking and really wanted to make something kinda cool. I knew I wanted to combine these two things and make something Disney-inspired. I thought and thought but just couldn't come up with something that seemed perfect.

Picture found at Pooh the Bear

Then it came to me in the shower (yes, I'm one of those who does my best thinking in the shower). At first I really wanted to do these as cake pops. Because we all know how incredible cake pops are! But I had just done Christmas cake pops and have already planned on making some for Easter (cute little chicks? Easter eggs? Not sure yet.) so I thought I would lay off of the cake pops until then.

It is then that I remembered I really wanted to try out the dipped Oreos that Jamie at Momma's Playground did for Christmas. We always take each other's ideas and give them our own little twist. I love that. She took my reindeer cake pops, turned them into Oreos, and now I'm turning her Oreos into Mickey pops! You don't understand how excited I was to try this! I stuck a popsicle stick into the Oreo, dipped them into melted chocolate candy melts, and stuck them in the freezer. Once they were hardened, I dipped some whole candy melts into melted ones and stuck them on as ears.


I just LOVE them! But, they look a little plain, don't they? I have BIG plans for these little guys. But, I live in the middle of nowhere and have to order a lot of things offline so it will be a little while before I can reveal that little secret. ;)

Red Velvet Shortbread Cookies

I mentioned changing up a recipe a little bit for Red Velvet Shortbread Cookies in my National Cookie Day post. When I made them with the original recipe from Better Homes & Gardens, they were delicious, but hubby wasn't crazy about the cocoa aftertaste. It was better once the white chocolate went on, but I decided to play around with it a little. So instead of 2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder, I put 1 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa and 1 Tbsp. hot chocolate mix. DELICIOUS!!! It tastes like the first batch I made but without the aftertaste. Hubby said they were perfect. Trust me, the original recipe is wonderful, but this just suits our tastes even more. Here is the recipe with my twist:

Red Velvet Shortbread Cookies

You will need:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
  
• 1 Tablespoon hot chocolate powder mix
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, cut up
• 1 tablespoon red food coloring
• 3 ounces white chocolate (with cocoa butter), coarsely chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons shortening
• Finely chopped nuts, sprinkles, or nonpareils (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Combine flour, sugar, cocoa powder, hot chocolate powder, and salt. Add butter and red food coloring. Combine (by hand or food processor) until it resembles fine crumbs. Mix/process until mixture just forms a ball.

2. On a lightly floured surface, knead dough lightly until nearly smooth. Roll or pat dough to a 1/2-inch thickness. Using a floured 1-1/2-inch round cutter, cut out dough. Place cutouts 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press scraps together and reroll.

3. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes (20 worked perfect for me) or until centers are set. Transfer cookies to a wire rack; let cool.

4. In a heavy small saucepan, melt white chocolate and shortening over low heat, stirring constantly (honestly, I didn't add the shortening). Dip half of each cookie into melted chocolate. If desired, sprinkle with nuts or sprinkles. Let stand on waxed paper until set. Makes about 24 cookies.

Please don't mind the not-so-great dipping technique I used. I was short on white chocolate and had to maneuver the cookies around instead of just dipping. :) And I have decided that these are going to be the cookies I take to the Christmas Cookie Exchange I am hosting soon. I hope everyone likes them!!

Muffin Tin Monday - Christmas Morning!

Good morning everyone! It's time for Christmas Morning!!! Well, at least for the MTM theme this week. When I got out all my Christmas decorations after Thanksgiving, I realized that I don't have any Christmas cookie cutters!!! How did that happen? So I'm definitely going to be ordering some soon. They won't get here by Christmas, but they'll be ready to go next year. I am excited that I got to use my new Christmas tin, though! Baby Girl had...


Red and green yogurt, Nutri-Grain bar bites (they reminded me of Christmas cookies), and you can't have Christmas "cookies" without milk! (We always try to name the milk something silly for the themes since all Baby Girl really drinks is milk except for the occasional cup of apple juice or a sip of water.)

She's been picky about what she eats recently and won't eat much so I wanted to pick out some of her favorites. She ate pretty well! And of course she hung out in her pj's. :) Now I need to go and start planning next week's MTM. I LOVE the Christmas themes! :)

Another great thing about MTM is checking out what everyone else came up with! Head on over to Muffin Tin Mom to see!

National Cookie Day

While getting my Book Fan Friday post ready, I almost forgot what else today means... it's NATIONAL COOKIE DAY!!! Yummy! Recently I tried out a recipe for Red Velvet Shortbread Cookies and they turned out really good. They just might be the cookie I make for the Christmas Cookie Exchange I'm hosting in about 2 weeks.


Today, though, I am going to tweak the recipe just a little to see how it turns out. I will post about my experiment tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Did you celebrate National Cookie Day today? I would love to hear what you did! Now for the next holiday... tomorrow, December 5th, is.... Walter Elias Disney's birthday!!! You know we're doing something special for that!! :) I have a few things in mind, so we'll see. I hope you join me!

National Pie Day

Welcome to December! Remember a few days ago I said I was going to celebrate a few not-so-well-known holidays throughout 2010? Well, today's the first one (yes, I know it's not 2010 yet, but whatever)...

NATIONAL PIE DAY!

Who doesn't love pie?


I mean just look at that loveliness! Tonight hubby and I will be whipping together a quick apple pie. I'm still not sure whether to make a full pie or cute little apple pie pops. Why don't I have it done already? Well, I still need to run to the store and grab some apples. :)

Another idea I played around with was to not make a sweet pie, but make chicken pot pie for dinner. SUPER yummy!!! One of our favorites. I totally would have made the ridiculously cute pumpkin pie bites if we didn't still have a little bit of leftover pumpkin pie in the fridge. So many options today!

A couple of my favorite sites for pie ideas (well, baking ideas in general) are Bakerella and Bake at 350. Incredible sites! Did you celebrate National Pie Day today? I would love to hear what you did!

So I know you are all just dying to hear what holiday my family and I will be celebrating next. It is....

Friday, December 4th: NATIONAL COOKIE DAY!! Okay, seriously, is this whole random holiday thing going to make me fat? I'll have to make up a National Join a Gym Day... or maybe that's already a day... Anyway, I am hosting a Christmas cookie exchange and have yet to decide on what cookie I am going to take. So I'll pick a cool looking new recipe and try it out that day. I hope you all have a fabulously festive December!