Twinkie-like fun :)

Last week we had back to school night at work. The tricky part about back to school night is it takes place after the required pick up time for my own kiddos. Some of the teachers I work with have children in middle school--we set them up in a classroom that wasn't being used to watch a few of the younger children and they all had a blast. I wanted to do something to say thank you, so I took Fun da-middles and made them using my mini bread loaf pan. They came out very Twinkie-like and were a hit! And sooo easy to make :) 

I used the directions on the box cooking them just a couple minutes longer than suggested because they were slightly larger than the typical cupcake.

I got the mini bread loaf pan from Amazon. (I noticed it's on sale!)

1 Box of Fun da-middles made 6 cupcake-twinkies and it was a hit. One of my co-workers came to ask me what my recipe because her family had enjoyed them so much!

Hope you're able to give this a try. My next feat is to try and recreate it using cake mix and using different cupcake filling recipes I found online...when I get around to trying it out I'll let you know how it turned out :)

Flashback: Girls just wanna have fun!

I'm a little late on this one. I've finally getting around to writing it.--A few weeks ago my daughter and I had a girls afternoon and it was a blast. She's old enough to appreciate the activities we do on a deeper level which is very cool to see. She also appreciates the one on one time without her brother which is also neat.

So, what do you do on a girls afternoon with a preschooler? After lunch, you need to make sure your nails are pretty

Purple is one of her favorite colors...and we had to match :)

And you can't have a girls afternoon without some ice cream...especially on a day the car thermometer got over 100 degrees

We had a great time, confirmed by the nap she took in the car on the way home :) I need to work more of these "dates" in...and I need to have a few with little man too.

Friday Night Fun

Dinner time can be a challenging time, especially at the end of the week. My kiddos are tired from a busy week of school and Mommy's tired from the weekly juggling routines. Lately my oldest gets particularly cranky at dinner time and just about any "normal" dinner will reduce her to tears for one reason or another...there are red things...it is spicy (not really)...she doesn't like ____(insert name of food she typically loves)_____. Today I decided that I would try something different. I wanted to get through dinner and to bedtime with as little tears and arguing as possible, so we made pancakes! BIG pancakes :)

I used the easy pre-made pancake mix where you add water. I made a lot of batter because I knew I wanted to make a few big pancakes. 3 cups of mix and 2 cups of water is what I used with my store brand mix. We sat at the kitchen table and took turns stirring and counting to 10 (can't pass up a teachable moment!).

Once we were satisfied with our batter, the kiddos went to play while Mommy worked on figuring out exactly how she was going make these pan-sized pancakes...As you can see, the first one wasn't pretty...

 

But I got better each time!

And by the 3rd pancake I was a pro! I knew that I needed to be patient and let it cook really well on the first side before flipping. It was just a matter of learning how cooked it needed to be :)...and the fact that the pan was hotter probably helped a bit too.

  

Then the real fun began! I put wax paper down on the table and got out some cookie cutters (shape recognition). The pancakes weren't easy to cut through but with a little help from Mom we were good to go.

We got out the mini chocolate chips to decorate (fine motor!) and practice counting (the preschool teacher in me couldn't resist).

Any extra pancakes you have can be wrapped up in plastic wrap and put in a ziplock for the freezer. They will make a great, fast, hot breakfast one morning before school. All you'll have to do is take them out of the plastic wrap, wrap them in a paper towel, and microwave for about 1 minute.

All in all a success...we might be doing this more often. Its an easy, fun dinner that is cheaper than ordering a pizza and easier than making one. An added bonus--the kids loved the fact that they were helping me cook dinner.