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hand

Food For Eat & Food For Play

036For Mother’s Day last week a work colleague gave all of us mommies a giant chocolate bar. I love chocolate of course, but am not a fan of plain chocolate. I  wanted to make some sweet treats with the chocolate, but wasn’t sure what to do. I often refer to myself as a junk cook because I love to just grab random leftover junk & throw it together just to get rid of it. Last night was a good night for that & my daughter loves cooking with mama. The measurements are random because they are leftover ingredients, but my junk bars came out pretty good. My husband says they taste like a Twix bar.

Ingredients:

1 7oz chocolate bar

12 marshmallows

1 /8 cup of margarine

1 1/2 cups of graham crackers (chopped)

1 cup of chocolate cheerios

Directions: Melt the margarine over low heat. Add marshmallow & stir until melted. Add the chocolate bar. Remove from heat & mix until marshmallow & chocolate are melted. Quickly add the graham cracker & cheerios. Press into a pan. I used an 8X6X2 pan. Refrigerate & then cut into squares.

We went through many Cheerios. Mai was having so much fun with them, we used up most of the box.

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Luckily for Mai, an accident the next day kept her in the food fun.

While I was work today, I received a text message from my husband. The text went a little something like this..”Do you know why there was a box of spaghetti open on both ends?”

Do you know why there was a box of spaghetti open on both ends?

Oops! I knew already that this was my fault. Sorry honey. But as the saying goes “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” So that is what we did. Daddy gave her a bowl and a handful of the spilled pasta. Mai was happy playing with the spaghetti while I was at work. When I came home I saw the big bowl of the uncooked pasta & remember something that I had seen before. I had a styrofoam cone laying around & stuck the dry spaghetti into it. We took some of our stale Cheerios from last nights food fun & our little tot had another activity to keep her busy. This is such a wonderful way to teach hand-eye coordination & as you can see my daughter loved it.

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So what else can we do with all that floor pasta?

How about spaghetti art?

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Who knew Cheerios & spaghetti could be so much fun?

Mommy & Me Thanksgiving Crafts

hand & foot print turkey craft for kids - Thankgiving

I think every parent wants & hopes that their children will show interest in things that they are passionate about. Of course they will discover their own talents and passions, but to be able to have something to share and to connect to them with would be amazing. For my husband, who is a marathon runner, he has aspirations of Mai running races with him someday. He also loves to golf. He bought Mai her first toy golf set when she was just starting to walk.

Excuse me, playing through.
Excuse me, playing through.

Since the day my daughter was born, I have been excited for the day that we would be able to do arts & craft projects together. I think I bought her, her first box of crayons before she could even hold one. I started her on finger paints before she turned one. I have been so hopeful that she would love art as much as I do. She likes to color and use her finger paints and she loves it when mommy draws pictures for her. She will often give me special requests by handing me her crayon and shouting “horse” or making an elephant sound. God, is she cute.

With the holidays coming, I have been daydreaming of decorating sugar cookies and making gingerbread houses but since Thanksgiving is only a couple of weeks away, I thought we could do a Thanksgiving Day craft favorite. Who hasn’t made the classic hand turkey as a child? I think most of us, probably have. I wanted to make a special turkey that joined our two hands together. Unfortunately, it is hard to explain to a nearly 2 year old toddler, that she can’t wiggle her hand around in the paint to make a mommy/daughter hand turkey.

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 Instead, Mai finger painted with her Cool Whip paints and had fun on her own, but did let mommy take a footprint.

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I took her foot print and added it to my hand. The foot would be the wing to my  hand’s turkey’s body.056

I added the feet & wattle using paint & here is mommy & Mai’s hand & foot turkey.

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Here is another cute and easy idea.

What you will need…

Styrofoam flower cone

Pipe cleaners in assorted colors

Googly eyes

Glue

Take the styrofoam cone and  cut it to your desired height.  I carved around the top also to give the appearance of a head.

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Bend the pipe cleaners in half to use as the feathers.

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Poke & insert folded pipe cleaners into the back of the styrofoam to form feathers.

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Use an orange or yellow pipe cleaner & cut  into small pieces to use for the feet & beak. Knot a red pipe cleaner to use as the turkey wattle. Glue on the googly eyes and done.

Kids love pipe cleaners.
Kids love pipe cleaners.

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This is an easy project for kids of all ages.

Up next…Things That Make My Daughter Laugh