Colored Deviled Eggs

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I wanted to bring some kind of food with us to my Aunt and Uncle's house. For Easter, we made colored deviled eggs and they were a huge hit, so I thought of Christmas Deviled Eggs as a variation of the same idea. Should the words "Christmas" and "Deviled" go together? Yes they should when you want to make a crowd-pleasing appetizer for a Christmas party.

They are easy and quick (I mean, it took us an hour from start to finish as we realized we were running short on time before the party...oops).

Step 1: Hard boil the eggs. This was the most time consuming part because we had to wait while the eggs cooked.

Step 2: Prepare two bowls with the dye. In each bowl, place 6-7 drops of food coloring, 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar, and 1 cup of cold water. Stir.

Step 3: When the eggs are done, cool them with cold water and peel them.

Step 4: Slice the eggs in half and set aside the yolks to make the filling.

Step 5: Place the egg halves in the dye bowls and let them stay in there until they are the desired color. Mine turned out a little more pastel than I wanted, but we were short on time.

Step 6: Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Use whatever favorite recipe you like for deviled eggs.

Step 7: Let the dyed eggs dry on a paper towel.

Step 8: Once dried, stuff the dyed egg halves with the filling and sprinkle with parsley.

To make Easter colored eggs, I used pastel food coloring to get the results I wanted. They turned out great!

Christmas Squish Sacks

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Low on time and funds (Black Friday shopping hurt my bank account this year - ouch!), I needed a gift that my little girl could give to her cousins for Christmas.

I made a trip to the dollar store for balloons, stopped at mom's to borrow her many different colored sharpies, and came home to make some playdough. What in the world did I make? Meet the Christmas Squish Sacks.

I used my homemade playdough recipe to whip up a quick batch of playdough. I say "quick" because the real time suck of making playdough is kneading in the food coloring. Since no one was going to actually see the playdough, much time was saved by leaving it plain.

Then I slyly asked my husband if he could help me with something in the kitchen. He had no idea what he was in for, but he helped me anyway because he's a good guy like that. I had him hold open each balloon while I shoved playdough inside them. Then he let out as much air as he could and tied them off.

These are awesome! They're little homemade stress balls and very addicting to absentmindedly play with.

Then I grabbed the markers and decorated the red and green balloons to look like ornaments and the white balloons to look like snowmen.

Then I tied ribbon so that the "ornaments" could be hung and the "snowmen" have scarves.

These make great stocking stuffers - and you can use any leftover dough as regular playdough. Just add some food coloring first to try to avoid any "this looks edible" incidents like I had with my little one.

Homemade Playdough

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One of my little Cadybug's favorite activities is Playdough. Of course I sit and play with her to make sure none of it enters any of the holes in her face, but she has been sneaky in the past and tasted it anyway. Was I at all worried? No, because I made it myself and knew exactly what was in it.

It is so simple and takes only about 20 minutes for 4 decent-sized pieces!

Here is what you will need:
* 1 pot
* 1 spoon
* wax paper
* 1 cup flour
* 1 teaspoon oil
* 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
* 1/4 cup salt
* 1 cup water
* food coloring


1. Combine the flour, oil, cream of tartar, salt, and water in the pot over medium heat.

2. Stir constantly until it becomes a ball of dough.

3. Remove from heat.

4. When the dough cools, knead it with your hands to make a big, smooth, round ball.

5. Divide it into four equal pieces (or more or less, depending on how many different colors you want to make).

6. Take an individual piece of dough and flatten it out. Place 3-4 drops of food coloring on it and knead the dough in your hands until the color starts to show. Add more food coloring until you get the desired color. Repeat with the 3 other balls of dough.

7. Put each color in its own container. You can use small, air-tight containers. I typically wrap the dough in wax paper and store in a plastic baggie. It stays soft for several weeks.

8. Play and enjoy!

PS Yes, my hands have food coloring all over them, too.

Pepperoni Pizza Crescents

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One staple in our home at all times: string cheese. It is an easy snack to grab and go, and when I was pregnant, it cured those 1am hunger pains without making me feel like I ate too much. I mean, the baby ate too much.

Over the last few months, I have been experimenting with different uses for plain ol' string cheese.

Today's experiment was a success!

What You Will Need:
3 (4oz) packages of refrigerated crescent rolls (enough to make 12 rolls)
4 string cheese sticks, cut into thirds
1 package of pepperoni (72 pieces - I used turkey pepperoni because I like that it's leaner and not so greasy)
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon Italian seasonings
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

Lay each triangle of crescent roll dough flat on a baking sheet.
Put 5-6 pepperoni slices and a piece of cheese on the bottom of the triangle and roll it up.
Place the seam side down on the baking sheet.

Bake at 350* for 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Mine cooked for 10 minutes on the dot and were perfect.
Meanwhile, melt the butter in a bowl.
Mix in the Italian seasonings, garlic powder, and Parmesan cheese.
Once the crescent rolls are done, spread the garlic butter sauce over each roll. I used a small spoon, but a brush would work, too. I just really hate washing those brushes.
Serve these warm. You could use marinara for dipping, but honestly, they tasted really good without any dipping sauce for me.

These smelled and looked so delicious that I had to taste one...and then another.
Then I took a picture and texted it to my husband to make him jealous.

I set enough aside for his lunch tomorrow and then individually wrapped the rest and put them in a large ziplock and into the freezer for another day.

This recipe was slightly modified from The Girl Who Ate Everything.

3 Ingredient Apple Crumb Dessert

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Looking for some inspiration, I was on Pinterest to find dinner ideas. Instead, that led to about an hour of searching through all of the great "pins" in my Following feed, and I happened to find this recipe for fresh apple cake. Only 3 ingredients? I was sold.

5 Apples (we used 2 red and 3 green), cored and sliced
1 box of yellow cake mix
1 stick of butter, melted


Place sliced apples in a greased baking dish.
Shake the boxed cake mix on top of the apples.
Drizzle melted butter over the cake mix.


Bake at 350* for 35-40 minutes, checking about half way through. If the cake mix looks powdery after cooking for a while, drizzle a little bit of water to help those spots cook.

Serve warm and with vanilla ice cream. It is absolutely delicious! I didn't even have a chance to take a picture of it with the ice cream on top - it was gone that fast!

This recipe makes about 10 servings and is very affordable. It cost me $4.21 (using store brand butter and getting the cake mix and apples on sale), which is only $.42 per serving!

Now...what to make for dinner? Back to my Pinterest page...

Busy Book Activities

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***

I have the sweetest little girl and she does so well sitting quietly and playing with her toys by herself when I need a few minutes to get things done (i.e. the ever-growing pile of dirty dishes on the counter).

And then there are the other times when no matter how many toys she has at her fingertips, she wants whatever is in my hands. I have lost count how many times my laptop has been "accidentally" turned off by little fingers. So I created an activity for her that she can mostly do by herself, but I can sit and play with her (and still have a hand free to finish working on whatever I am doing).

This is Cady's Busy Book. I often create felt activities individually and then seal them in large ziplock bags. This time, I used ribbon to attach 6 unique activities so that it's easy to carry around and bring wherever we need it (the car, a restaurant, grandparents' houses, etc.).

1. Gumball Machine
The gumballs have velcro stuck on the backs. Cady pulls them off of the felt one by one and puts them at the bottom of the page. As she does this, I count with her 1-10. Thinking about this project now, I should've put "10 cents" on the gumball machine instead of "5 cents". Baby girl doesn't care, though, and she is happily learning how to count and developing fine motor skills.

2. Mr./Mrs. Potato Head
I glued the potato body to a piece of felt and then created a pocket on another page to hold all of the pieces. This is a picture of what it looks like "put away" and the other picture is at the top. Cady loves this activity because she can proudly show me that she knows what the "nose", "eyes", "arms", etc. are when I ask her to pick it up so we can put it on the potato head body.

3. Hen with Hidden Chicks
There's not much to actually do on this page, but she likes to lift the wing and then open the eggs to find the chicks.

4. Stop Light
We practice color recognition with this activity. I say "find the red circle", and as she picks it up (or picks up the other circles until I say "there it is!"), I tell her what they mean on the stop light (stop, slow down, or go). Then I show her where it goes on the stop light and she uses her fine motor skills to place it there. I used velcro for this activity, but it really isn't needed.

5. Ice Cream Cone
Cady loves this activity. She picks ice cream flavors and toppings and stacks them to make a tall ice cream cone and then we pretend to eat it. She's learning color recognition and hand-eye coordination. And the joy of ice cream.

6. Pizza
I cut out shapes to look like pizza crust, sauce, cheese, peppers, mushrooms, and pepperoni (not pictured). We like to put all of the pieces on the pizza crust in order and then pretend to eat it. She is learning sequencing and imaginary play.

I guess I did a good enough job for my busy little girl because when I had to put this away so we could eat dinner, she was so upset that she cried.

3 Christmas Crafts for Toddlers

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***

My little girl loves art. If it involves paint, crayons, glue, and/or paper, she is all over it.

I have seen so many adorable Christmas crafts spreading all over Pinterest, but many of them are too advanced for her little, uncoordinated hands.

I was inspired, however, to dig through my Christmas lesson plans from when I used to teach at a daycare. Here's what we have done in the last week.

1. Hand Print Reindeer with a thumb print nose and thumb print Christmas lights
I added the final details after it dried.

2. Candy Cane Rolling Ball Art

I (very poorly) cut out a candy cane and a few other holiday-themed shapes and taped them inside an old baking pan. I added a few blobs of red paint and helped Cady hold onto the outside of the pan and roll the ball back and forth. This works better with marbles, but I have a 1 year old, so marbles aren't exactly lying around here. We used a medium sized plastic ball from one of her toys.

Pro tip: Have a back up activity available while you clean up the mess. Rolling a ball through paint inside a pan is fun and all, but it won't be satisfactory for a toddler who is expecting to get messy. I taped down the leftover paper scraps and let her use her hands and the ball to paint on them while I cleaned up the rest.

3. Puffy Snowman

Mix equal parts shaving cream and Elmer's glue. It dries puffy and textured. I let Cady paint and then added the finishing touches once it dried.
Here is a close up of how puffy it looks. It looks much better in person, and this is one of my favorite projects to do with little ones.

Christmas and winter are my favorite themes when it comes to creating fun activities and projects for kids. There are some great adult projects, too, but my crafting abilities peaked in middle school. So for now, I will gladly shine while doing art projects with a toddler.