Snack Attack

The kids got a new snack face this week.  I used Jif Hazelnut spread (nutella, but not nutella), spread it on our favorite sandwich thins and then both kids added Cheerios faces to them.  These made for some messy faces, but were oh, so good!

"I don't want to eat bugs"

This was uttered by Wil a few weeks ago to me in the car, and though it may sound odd...what was more odd was that I was asking him to.  I wanted him and I to have bugs.  What?  You may be asking yourself, but I must explain (therefore today's picture).

During the month of November I worked very hard to try to eliminate GMO (genetically modified organisms) from the food we eat.  This meant not buying our normal spiral or shell store brand mac and cheese (which I love!).  I found the Annie's brand which is organic and verified by the nonGMO project, but even though the kids like them, certain flavors anyway, I don't really care for them so I went looking for other great choices.  This is when I found Back to Nature brand and their "Crazy Bugs" mac and cheese.  I really like the taste of them and the shapes are awesome too!  There are beetles, moths/butterflys and caterpillars...so much fun!

Easter Cake Pops

For our Easter in Hannibal I made some yellow chicks, white and pink bunny, and Easter basket cake pops!

Baby Shower Cake Pops

I made some jungle themed cake pops for Kathleen's baby shower. I did lions, tigers and monkeys (oh, my! LOL) and I used both short and long sucker sticks. The all traveled safely in "the box" and only a few of them touched into the walls making small marks on them. The display I made was a diaper cake and it worked wonderfully!

Baking Wil's Birthday Cake

Wil got to help me make his birthday cake pops cake. He got a grover cake and football cake pops...yum!

Choclate Covered Strawberries

Reagan dipped strawberries in chocolate while Wil was napping. We had a great dessert to last us 2 nights! She did a great job, only dipping a few leaves in chocolate along the way!

Valentine Cake Pops!

Had a success with strawberry cake and strawberry icing red heart shaped cake pops. Didn't have any of them crack this time and all of them stayed on the sticks...success!

The Turkey Cake Pops

I was inspired again by Bakerella (http://www.bakerella.com/) to make turkey cake pops for Reagan to take to class for her birthday snack time. It was a long process, but it was worth it to see the kids eat them up. Here is a sampling (these went much better than the apples and pumpkins I had done the last time)...I used chocolate almond bark, stick pretzels, pretzel M&Ms, and candy corns to complete the look.

Channeling my inner Bakerella

If you have never checked out the Bakerella blog site, I urge you to. There is a link to her blog page ont he right-hand side of the page. She does the cutest cake pops ever...what a labor of love they are! I decided I would try them for Reagan's fall festival at her preschool. I made orange pumpkins and red, yellow and green apple cake pops. I started with the orange and worked my way through, green, yellow and then red. I think you can tell by my pictures that my dipping technique improved (as did my refreezing after putting the stick in...this was missed with the pumpkins which is why we had some causualities there). Enjoy!

Soup to Share

Reagan finally got to make her soup to share project from her Highlights High Five magazine.

The fall theme one she took for show and tell and gave to her teacher as a gift and the winter theme one we put in her class's fall festival "snow day" basket at school. I used my cricut and my new Stretch Your Imagination cartridge for the cards on the jars...love it!

Baking projects

Here are some pictures of Reagan and I working on our Oreo Truffles (inspired from the www.Bakerella.com blog) and Wil is watching us work. The best part is that Shane came home from work with some chocolate covered strawberries for V-day and didn't realize that Reagan and I were making our own.

Here too are the vehicle cakes I made for Wil's birthday. He received Chuck and Friends Tonka trucks for Christmas and that was my inspiration along with wanting to do something really great and original :)