Bunny Cakes

Halloween Oreo Cream Pie - The Easy Dessert

My previous post was all about the baking projects I have in mind to try for Halloween.  However, sometimes you don't have a lot of time to bake, but still want something sweet, festive and not store-bought.  The solution, Jell-o's Oreo No Bake Dessert.  I would usually turn my nose up at the bright blue box while cruising through the baking aisle at the grocery store, but something recently made me dump it into my cart.  The bright blue box sat in my pantry till one day the boys were 'bored' and wanted a project.  The *Oreo Cream Pie* turned out to be the perfect treat to make with the kids.  There are four steps to build it.  The first step is to melt butter--so easy it the kids can do it with a blindfold on.  Second step is to mix the oreo crumbs with the melted butter and tamp it down to form the bottom layer of the dessert--again, perfect for the kids.  The next step is to mix the pudding mix with milk using a beater--this step gets a little messy and is best for the adult to handle, but it is over in 3.5 minutes.  Finally, spread pudding over the crust and top with crushed ores and refrigerate.  To make it festive we added some additional crushed up Halloween Oreos, Halloween sprinkles and a candy corn pumpkin.  The taste is quite delicious and has quickly become a favorite in our house.

-K

Halloween Boo

One of our favorite Halloween activities is 'Booing' our neighbors.  The boys like it because they get to sneak around at night and leave mysterious surprises for our neighbors and I like it because I get to put together fun Halloween packages.  This year I decided to create my own version of the Boo message to be left with the Halloween treats.  Please feel free to download your copy of the Boo poem and spread the Halloween cheer.  Update: Check out our latest Chevron version of the Boo Poem.

If you are unfamiliar with 'booing', then the poem below summarizes it all.

*The Halloween Boo Poem* (slightly modified)...

The phantom ghost has come to town
To leave some goodies...I see you've found.
If you wish to make this a happier Fall...
Continue this greeting, this phantom call.

First, post this Ghost where it can be seen,
And leave it there until Halloween.
This will scare other Phantoms who may visit.
Be sure to participate, you don't want to miss it!

Next, leave treats at two doors where the Phantom hasn’t hit.
You have only two days to act, so be quick!
Deliver at dark when there isn't much light...
Ring the doorbell and run--stay out of sight!!

And last, but not least, come join in the season.
Don't worry, be happy, you need no good reason.
This is all in good fun and we are just trying to say...
Happy Halloween & Have a Great Ghosty Day!

 

 Happy Booing!

-K

First Day of School Treats - Fifth Grade

The boys started 5th grade last week (yes, pre-Labor Day).  I can't believe their grade school years are coming to an end.  As a tradition that will sadly end this year (next year they will be in middle school), the boys handed out baked goodies to all their prior teachers and their new teacher.  In my nesting moments before the baby's arrival I made sure to print and cut out the treat holders so I would have them ready for the first day of school.  The design for the treat holders features their school mascot, a cardinal, NOT getting stabbed by a bunch of pencils.  Inside the treat holders we tucked a heart-shaped brownie.

If you want to make your own treats you can download the file here.  To make: 1) Print out the design; 2) Cut around the border; 3) Use a corner punch to round the corners (optional); 4) Fold on the gray lines; 5) Punch a hole in the top; 6) Tie with a ribbon.

-K

Custom Soccer Bag Tags

This spring the boys are playing soccer again and Hubby is their coach.  He wasn't planning on coaching, but had to step in at the last minute due to a coaching shortage.  The team decided to name themselves the Speedy Turtles.  As soon as they had a team name I was off creating their logo (I couldn't help myself).  I found the perfect turtle image and then added the soccer balls.  Of course once I created the logo I really didn't have a use for it until the end-of-season treats.  Then after seeing the badges my work made for all the kids on Take Your Kids to Work Day I got the idea to make luggage tags for the players to tie to their soccer bags.  After creating the design for the tags it was time to call in the professionals.  I turned to my copy center at work, which also takes on personal jobs and does amazing work.  They mounted the tag images on heavy card stock and then laminated them and punched the holes.  For those of you who don't have a copy center at work, I am sure this is something (at least the lamination part) that Kinko's can handle for you.  The cost of the tags came out to $0.50 each, I couldn't believe how cheap it was.  Both the kids and parents loved the tags!

I usually get a lot of questions on what software I use to create my images.  To create the above tags I used Google image search to find tow images: the turtle with the rocket and the soccer ball.  The turtle image didn't need any clean up, but for the soccer ball image I had to remove the white background.  To do this I used Photoshop's magic wand to select the white background and then delete it, so I was left with just the soccer ball on a transparent background.  If you don't have Photoshop, but do have some other photo editing software then chances are you can remove the white background.  To put the images together with the lettering I use Adobe Illustrator, but if you don't have that then you can also do this easily with Microsoft Powerpoint or Word.  If I don't need to do anything special I usually turn to Powerpoint because it is easy and fast to use.  The latest version is surprisingly powerful, so don't be shy to give it a try!

Jelly Bean Carrots - An Easy Easter Craft for Kids

The boys wanted to do an Easter craft while they were home for Spring Break.  I was going to have them make more Egg Animals, but I couldn't find my stash of wooden eggs.  Then Martha came to the rescue with her easy-to-make jelly bean carrots--see link here for the how-to directions.  We ended up buying 1.3 lbs of orange jelly beans and 0.5 lbs of green jelly beans which made eight carrots.  The boys enjoyed the craft and now we have fun Easter decorations.

-K

P.S.  You can use piping bags as your 'cone-shaped' cello bags.

This Year's Valentine's Day Cards

Now that the boys are getting older (4th grade), they have a lot more opinions on what their Valentine's Day cards should be like.  When trying to come up with this year's theme we first decided on what to include with the cards.  After some searching we went with the classic novelty gift, a whoopee cushion.  From there we came up with a skunk theme and added our own version of Roses Are Red to our cards.  A flower lollipop completed them and added the obligatory sweet element.  

The cards were assembled by folding the whoopee cushions in half (use a craft glue dot to keep them folded), then we added a card on top, which read: Roses are Red, Flamingos are Pink, I Hope Your Valentine's Day Doesn't Stink.  Finally we placed the cut-out skunk on top and tied it up with the lollipop.  We later ended up having to drop the lollipop from our cards due to changes in the county v-day policy prohibiting candy, but they still turned out cute!

I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

-K

Turkey Day 2011

We had a very lovely *Thanksgiving*.  We stayed true to our family traditions and only veered slightly.  We went sans tablecloth (loved it, no last minute ironing) and because I missed out on making sugar cookies for Halloween I had to make some for Thanksgiving.  I added our guests names to turkey cookies and had intended them to be place-markers, but my icing script needs some work so I saved them for the dessert table.  We also made mini turkeys, fall leaves and flowers with the extra cookie dough.  This year's centerpiece was my favorite from last few years.  It consisted of four flower bunches from our local grocery store (salmon colored roses, orange and red berries & greenery) with some red leaves from our yard and peasant feathers added in to complete the look.

Little O had his first meal and year ago last Thanksgiving and he surely enjoyed his Thanksgiving meal again this year!  In this picture he looks so much like my sister as a baby.

-K

Halloween Redux

Today I started to gather up all my Halloween decorations to pack away till next year.  It makes me a little sad, but I am comforted by the fact I can bust out my Christmas decorations soon.  Before I say good bye to Halloween officially I thought I would share some final Halloween pictures.  

This year for Halloween costumes one of the boys stated he wanted to be something 'simple--nothing fancy'. He decided on Indiana Jones, while my other son oscillated between a million choices.  The tricky part with kids is to get them to commit to a costume and stay committed.  I thought the Indy costume was perfect and wanted to lock it in before he changed his mind to something else.  Then we came up with the idea that the boys, who are identical twins, would be Harrison Ford: Indiana Jones and Han Solo.  The boys received much positive feedback on their selection from relatives and other adults (who doesn't love Indy & Solo?), so I knew it was a go.  Putting together the two costumes was fairly easy and required only minor fabrication on my part.  

For our Halloween table I almost didn't do anything at all.  Things were too chaotic with the kitchen cabinets getting painted and all their contents spilled throughout the house.  In the end I followed the boys' lead and went with something 'simple--nothing fancy'.  Just a few elements made it festive enough: a black cat centerpiece surrounded by a few pumpkins, Halloween straws and black & white plates.

-K

Halloween Brownie Kabobs

Traditionally we always send in a treat to the boys teachers for Halloween.  Despite our kitchen being 'down for the count' we still managed to bake some brownies.  Instead of doing our typical candy roll packaging for the brownies, we decided to try something new: brownie kabobs!  We layered candy corn and orange & white M&M's on the bottom of a festive glass.  Then we piled on the mini-bundt cake brownies and stuck them through with a wooden skewer (mainly to make sure they don't fall over).  Finally we topped it all with a Ghostly peep.  We found that peeps leave a gooey mess on the skewer if you have to push it through far, so we just added the peep to the top brownie with a toothpick.  Wrap the whole thing in cello and tie with Halloween tag (ours are from Martha Stewart's Craft line) and ribbon for the perfect treat!

-K

Pumpkin Bounty

When it comes to pumpkin picking my philosophy is Pick Early, Pick Often.  So last weekend when the rain finally broke, we put on our boots/high tops and headed out to our favorite local farm, Wegmeyer Farms.  We have never disappointed by the wide variety of pumpkins there and this year was no different.  The boys were instantly won over by a long pink variety called the Pink Banana, while I was intrigued by the Knuckle Head variety, a traditional pumpkin with lots of fun, warty knobs.  Besides picking out pumpkins my other mission while I am at the farm is to take pictures of the boys.  Sadly, each year their tolerance for posing for pictures diminishes, but I still managed to get a few good ones.

Here is a picture of our pumpkin loot piled on our kitchen counter...

 

and the boys at the farm...

-K