September 2nd, 2010
CheezWaster received this My First Dino Kit for his birthday.
My First Dino Kit
I had been saving it for a rainy day or wicked hot day and yesterday turned out to be the perfect day to try it (since our Board of Ed screwed up my plan for the day by altering the time of pre-school orientation without notifying the parents). This kit includes 3 activities – a real dinosaur dig for bones, a build your own glow in the dark dinosaur and a grow a dinosaur. The kit also includes a pair of safety goggles and 2 tools – a brush and a digger’s pick – for the dinosaur dig activity. We started out with the grow a dinosaur activity. I mean who doesn’t love these little things that grow in water. I know I do. Ours is still “growing” in the cup at home. Tonight we will measure to see the difference in size. Then, we moved onto the dinosaur dig. Safety goggles are a MUST!
Safety First!
Then, we began our intense hunt for dino bones. I grabbed an old cardboad box for this, as it was quite messy. You definitely want to keep this contained. My one negative comment about this set was that it only came with one digging tool. 2 kids – 1 tool = major problems! The Destroyer was only happy so long using the brush before he, too, wanted to dig. We improvised and I gave him a wooden chop stick which worked great! Conflict successfully avoided!
Digging for Dinosaurs
We dug on this thing for a while and it really kept the kids’ attention. We’re still not done, so big plus for mom that this activity will spill over into another day!
Is that a dinosaur bone I see???
Eventually, we put the glow in the dark dino together, too. And when I say “we”, I mean my husband. Given my limited engineering skills, I had to call the man in for this one.
All in all, I think this kit is great. It is reasonably priced AND educational. AND it was great fun for a toddler and pre-K-er.
It would make a great birthday or Christmas gift, especially if you’ve got a dino lover! This would also make a great dinosaur birthday party activity…hmmmm….this has got me thinking. I do have 2 winter birthdays coming up!
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Dinosaur Dig has been posted in Crafty Mamamamahoney, Kiddie Mamamamahoney and Tagged: dino dig, dinosaur, dinosaur dig, dinosaur dig kit, dinosaur kit, dinosaur party, gifts for boys, gifts for pre-K, gifts for toddlers, great toddler birthday gifts.
August 17th, 2010
Working hard on our Dora Cupcakes
On Sunday, we celebrated Dora’s Big Birthday. We invited some friends over to watch the new Dora birthday special. Once everyone arrived we all made Dora cupcakes, using the instructions here at NickJr.com. The cupcakes are simple to make and would make a great activity for a Dora birthday party and it doubles as dessert!
Making Dora Cupcakes
I made regular cupcakes from cake mix and frosted them using light pink Strawberry frosting. The kids started with the Dora hair that I made out of melted chocolate using the template that is part of the NickJr. instructions. Then, they piped on white Betty Crocker cookie frosting (in a tube) for the outer part of the eyes. The inner part is a chocolate chip. We then used a black gel frosting pen to make the nose. The mouth is the corner of a Target Archer Farms Strawberry Fruit Strip.
Dora Cupcakes
WHA-LA! Dora Cupcakes!
Dora Cupcakes
Even my husband wanted in on the action! Look at his focus!
Making Dora Cupcakes Takes FOCUS!
There are so many uses for these cupcakes – birthday party activity, birthday party dessert, play date activity, play date snack, girls get together activity, rainy day fun!
Now if only NickJr. would put out a Diego hair template. Hmmmm….let me get out my art pens!
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Dora’s Big Birthday has been posted in Crafty Mamamamahoney, Kiddie Mamamamahoney and Tagged: birthday party cupcakes, cupcakes, dora, dora birthday party, dora cupcakes, dora's big birthday.
July 27th, 2010
This past weekend, we went peach picking with the full intention of making jam (and other holiday food gifts). I started out with this Vanilla Peach Jam recipe. I swear I have the “You must cook your jam twice” curse. Because yet again, I followed a 5 star internet recipe to the T and my jam did not gel on the first try. I then went and read ALL of the reviews (not just the first 5) and found that I needed to add more pectin – 2 more packets to be exact. That is a BIG difference in the consistency. If you make this recipe as it is written, you will have a very nice thick syrup for ice cream – also not a bad holiday gift! I got 8 1/2 pint jelly jars out of this, but will probably lose another tonight when I have to AGAIN recook the jam that still hasn’t quite fully jelled. I actually at this stage have only used 2 1/2 packets of pectin. 2 of the jars jelled quite nicely – obviously those were the last to be filled and contained the most pectin. The other 6 are much thicker, but still not at a jam stage with which I am happy.
Cooking the Jam - Sterilizing the Jars (the first time!)
I then moved onto this recipe for Honey-Spiced Peaches. I would think that Ball would know to tell people in a recipe that you need firm peaches. Now, maybe a seasoned cook/baker/canner like me should know that, but apparently not. Not to mention, my peaches are getting insanely ripe, insanely fast! Anyway, I peeled, pitted, and sliced the peaches and made the honey sugar syrup. These smell heavenly and the mix of white and yellow peaches in the jars makes them look even more tasty! I opted to use pint jars instead of quarts. I got 6 pint jars and 1 1/2 pint jar out of this recipe. My husband already asked if the 1/2 pint jar could be the tester jar. I think it is going to have to be because I, too, want to try these before I gift them!
Honey Spiced Peaches
As I was reading the group of blogs I frequent this morning, I was even further convinced that someone up above wanted to stick it to me because I found these jumping out at me on the first 2 blogs I checked!
How to Peel a Peach - where was this last night when I had peach peel squishing all over my hands! Actually, I knew how to do this already, but was afraid the already very ripe peaches would not stand up to the boiling process very well.
Peach Pitting Tool - this just about killed me this morning. I SO wish I had had this tool last night. Oh and did I mention that I have an apple corer and a mango corer that look just like this sitting in my kitchen tool drawer? Why didn’t I think of busting out that mango corer?! It probably would have saved me hours! Live & Learn!
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Peaches! has been posted in Crafty Mamamamahoney, Disasterous Mamamamahoney and Tagged: canning peaches, honey spiced peaches, peach jam recipe, peach jelly recipe, peaches, spiced peaches, summer fruit canning, vanilla peach jam, vanilla peach jelly.
July 15th, 2010
For Father’s Day, the boys and I had full intentions of making my husband Star Wars cookies with these cookie presses that we purchased at Williams-Sonoma. However, we never got around to it (primarily due to the massive heat and my aversion to turning on the oven in said heat) and decided to make them post Father’s Day a few weeks ago. At the advice of the cashier at Williams-Sonoma, we opted to dye our dough, rather than flood the cookies with icing.
Cutting Out Yoda Cookies
I used my ice pack inside cookie board and my metal rolling pin (that my husband gave me for Xmas a few years ago after giving me crap for not making him gingerbread cookies at Christmas time) to ensure that the dough (Mamamamahoney baking secret – I used store bought sugar cookie dough!) stayed cool enough. To dye the Yoda dough, we used Icing Dye from Wilton (found at AC Moore) in the color Juniper. I think this color would also work well for the Boba Fett cookie cutter included in this set.
Cutting Out Darth Vader Cookies
We used the same Wilton icing dye in Black for the Darth Vader cookies. The dough really looked like a deep, dark violet rather than black, but none of my cookie testers (ie the kids and my husband) seemed to care.
Cookie Testers
As you can see, the dough holds the print of the cookies press quite nicely after baking. If you are really lazy, you don’t even have to ice them.
Yoda Cookies without Icing
Darth Vader Cookies without Icing
I opted to do minimal icing on the cookies mainly because I’m not too into frosting and icing. I used the Better Crocker White Cookie Icing that comes in the squeeze tube with the tip already attached and a black cookie/candy icing pen that I purchased at Williams-Sonoma.
Iced Yoda Cookie
Iced Darth Vader Cookies
Even the professionials decided to do minimal icing on these!
These would make AWESOME birthday party favors, cupcake toppers, birthday treats, Father’s Day gifts, geek birthday gifts, rainy day treats! The options are endless!!!
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Star Wars Cookies has been posted in Crafty Mamamamahoney, Kiddie Mamamamahoney and Tagged: Boba Fett cookies, clone trooper cookies, cookie press, darth vader cookies, star wars, star wars cookie cutters, star wars cookies, yoda cookies.
June 24th, 2010
For the past few parties I’ve attended or hosted, I’ve made a Tres Leches Cake (3 Milks Cake). Not the complicated recipe the Spanish lady at work gave me, but the Betty Crocker recipe. And you know what? IT ROCKS! And I can’t even show you a picture of it because once it is frosted, it is G-O-N-E!!! I started making this for a Cinco de Mayo party and now it has become my go-to cake for all parties. 1) It is simple! 2) It is refreshing! 3) It is tasty! (and you wonder why I can’t get past those 2 pounds at WW???)
THIS is the recipe I use – with some modifications which I have detailed below. I’ve also included some helpful tips.
Ingredients:
| 1 |
box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® yellow cake mix |
| 1 1/4 |
cups water |
| 1 |
tablespoon vegetable oil |
| 2 |
teaspoons vanilla |
| 4 |
eggs |
| 1 |
can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk |
| 1 |
cup whole milk or evaporated milk (I use evaporated) |
| 1 |
cup whipping cream |
| 1 |
container Betty Crocker® Whipped fluffy white frosting |
2 Tablespoons coconut rum
Homemade Whipped Cream – 2 cups heavy cream, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 2 tspn vanilla
Directions:
| |
Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pan). Grease and flour or spray bottom and sides of 13×9-inch pan. |
| |
In large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil, vanilla and eggs with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, then on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pan. |
| |
Bake 29 to 35 minutes (mine is done at about 30 mins) or until edges are golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let stand 5 minutes. Poke top of hot cake (I wait until it is warm – if it is too hot, the cake comes out with the fork or knife and makes a mess) every 1/2 inch with long-tined fork, wiping fork occasionally to reduce sticking. |
| |
In large bowl, stir together sweetened condensed milk, whole milk and whipping cream. Carefully pour evenly over top of cake. I then also pour 2 tablespoons of coconut rum over the cake. Cover; refrigerate about 1 hour or until mixture is absorbed into cake (I refrigerate overnight). Frost with frosting. (I use homemade whipped cream). |
MY TIPS:
- Wait until the cake is warm to poke the holes. I use a knife – not a fork. Less mess.
- Use the rum. You won’t really taste it, but it makes a difference. Trust me!
- Don’t freak out when pouring the milks onto the cake. Do it slowly as to not overflow your pan. It will all absorb.
- Refrigerate your cake overnight so the milks have a chance to absorb into your cake. Take it out an frost with homemade whipped cream RIGHT before you serve it.
- Make the whipped cream!!! Frosting will be too sweet and this cake is far too good for Cool Whip!
- If you want, sprinkle the whipped cream with toasted coconut when frosting. I like it both ways, but my husband thinks the toasted coconut is a nice touch!
- Put a piece of cake aside for yourself for later when cutting it, because once word gets out, this cake goes fast!
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Tres Leches Cake has been posted in Crafty Mamamamahoney and Tagged: 3 milks cake, betty crocker, cake mix, cake mix cakes, cake recipes, easy cake recipes, recipes, tres leches cake.
