Chocolate Egg Nests

This is a SUPER simple recipe. Perfect for a preschooler to help make them and a wonderful treat around Easter time and Spring!

Ingredients:

• Chocolate Flavored Almond Bark
• Chow Mein Noodles (Kinda tricky to locate at the store...I found them at Publix in the ethnic food aisle)
• Jelly Beans

Directions:

1. Use a double broiler to melt half of the chocolate (or you can melt in the microwave)
2. Pour melted chocolate over 1/2 the bag of chow mein noodles. Stir really well to coat the noodles with the chocolate
3. Grab handfulls and put on wax paper then place three jelly beans on each "nest"
4. Repeat the process with the other half of the chocolate and noodles
5. Once dry transfer to serving platter

The kids all LOVED these as well as many of the adults! Simple, inexpensive and cute!

DIY Fruit Snacks

This is a GREAT preschooler activity and results in a decently healthy snack too!

Ingredients:

• 1 (3 oz) box of any flavor of Jello (Kye and I did orange bc I happened to already have a box of it in the pantry!)
• 2 (0.25) envelopes of unflavored gelatin (this was a tad tricky to find...it was on the VERY top shelf of the Jello aisle!)
• 1/3 cup juice (I used V8 Fushion for added nutrition) or water
• Ice Cube Tray (I've had these since I lived in a house with no ice maker in college)

Directions:

1. Put juice or water in a small saucepan and pour in all the gelatin packets (pouring in all the ingredients makes a great task for a small child)
2. Have burner on medium and stir until gelatin is completely dissolved (I did let Kye do the stirring!)
3. Pour into ice cube tray and let sit for at least 20 minutes

Result:

• This entire recipe cost hardly anything, was simple to do, took like 5 minutes to make and ended up being a yummy treat! I did not try one but Kye LOVED them as did his little sister :) We stored them in a ziploc baggie and they lasted a couple days, after that they got REALLY hard so this is something you want to make and eat pretty quickly. We will for sure be doing this again in the future!

Original Source: http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/06/homemade-jello-fruit-snacks-recipe.html

Ultimate Sugar Cookie Recipe!!!

This is my favorite homemade cookie recipe! I learned the recipe in my foods class in high school and it still remains a favorite even 10 years later :)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup shortening
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup pancake syrup (it's the "secret" ingredient!)
• 1 tbs vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 3/4 tea baking soda
• 1/2 tea salt
• Sprinkles or other decorations if desired

Not the prettiest picture, they are MUCH tastier than they appear haha

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Combine sugar and shortening in large bowl. Beat at medium speed with mixer.
3. Add eggs, syrup and vanilla. Beat until fluffy.
4. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl
5. Add gradually to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix until well blended
6. Bake one baking sheet at a time for 6 minutes, makes roughly 40 cookies

Tip: I like to flatten mine with the back of a spoon prior to baking...it makes them extra soft :) 

DIY Jessie Costume

Here's the SIMPLE, no-brainer instructions for how I made Brittlynn's Jessie from Toy Story Halloween costume :)

Supplies:

• 2 sheets of yellow felt
• 1 sheet of brown felt (each sheet of felt was only 22 cents)
• cow print fabric (i bought 2 cow print bandanas for 99 cents)
• red fabric marker (you could just use a red sharpie too but I wanted to make sure it'd work!)
• 2 large sized round jewels
• white long sleeved onesie
• jeans (I'm proud of myself for asking around to get some for free! thanks to Crissy for the donation!)
• boots (found at a kids sale for $3!)

• You'll also need scissors and a glue gun!

Instructions:

1. I cut out the yellow felt to fit in the collar area of the onesie as well as two yellow pieces to make cuffs around the arms

2. Then I took the marker and drew loops on the collar piece and cuff pieces. In the past I would have stressed out over making them perfect. But as I add more children to my life, my need for perfection becomes less and less. Haha!

3. I cut an oval out from the brown felt to look like a belt buckle on the jeans. I also cut the cow print fabric to look like chaps.

4. I placed the jewels on the chest to look like buttons then used a hot glue gun and glued it all on the outfit!!! NO SEWING! :)

Having an infant meant not even attempting a cow girl hat so I used a bow I had that matched the theme! Looks like a good match to me :) A cute, simple Halloween costume costing me under $15 total!

Quick Yummy Corn!

This is THE easiest recipe EVER and so, super delicious!!!

Ingredients:

• Corn in the husks. That's it!

 Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. DO not do ANYTHING to corn (not even rinse it)
3. Place corn directly on oven rack
4. Let cook for 30 min
5. Take out and let cool some then the husks come off SUPER easy!
6. Add some butter and EAT!!!

Seriously...best corn EVER!!! Try it and let me know how much your family loves it. It's a new Parker Family staple!

Ice Cream in a Bag

This original recipe was taken from Family Fun Magazine!

This is a SUPER easy, quick and fun family activity. Great for preschool age as the reward is quick :)

Ingredients:

• 2 tbl sugar
• 1 cup half and half
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup salt (the bigger granules the better. Rock salt or Kosher work best...we used sea salt)
• Ice Cubes (enough to fill a gallon-size bag about half full)
• 1 pint-sized ziplock bag
• 1 gallon-size ziplock bag

Directions:

1. Combine the sugar, half and half, and vanilla extract in the pint-size bag and seal it tightly
2. Place the salt and ice in the gallon-size bag, then place the sealed smaller bag inside as well
3. Seal the larger bag and shake it until the mixture hardens (about 5 minutes). You can feel the smaller bag to tell when it's done
4. Take the smaller bag out of the larger one and eat away! You can eat straight from the bag for easy clean up!

Orange Party Punch

Finding a YUMMY punch is so important for any party! I like to have my punch match my color scheme so I recently needed to find an orange punch. I found this recipe from Taste of Home and it was super tasty so I thought I'd share!

Ingredients:

• 1 can (12 oz) frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
• 2 liters lemon-lime soda, chilled
• 1 can (46 oz) pineapple juice, chilled (they were out of the can at Publix so I bought a big bottle of it and guesstimated how much to use)
• 1 quart orange or pineapple sherbert (I used orange to match my color scheme)

Directions:

1. Prepare orange juice according to package directions; pour into a punch bowl.
2. Stir in soda and pineapple juice
3. Top with scoops of sherbet (we didn't worry with making them pretty scoops as you can tell haha)
4. Serve immediately