Family Fun

  • Free Tickets to Six Flags (Students & Teachers)

    Six Flags is offering free tickets to students and teachers.  Six Flags and Discovery Education are encouraging students to read through their Read to Succeed Program.   More details about the program below:

    Read to Succeed is a free educational program sponsored by Six Flags to inspire kids in grades K through 6 to engage in recreational reading. Students who complete six hours of recreational, nonschool-related reading are eligible to earn a free admission ticket to a participating Six Flags theme park. Teachers whose classes participate and complete the program are also eligible to earn a free ticket. Schools must be within a 250-mile radius of a participating Six Flags theme park in order to participate.

    Check to see if your school is participating.  It looks like even those homeschooling can participate in this program.  They are starting this program in January 2011, but you can go ahead and sign up now. It is wonderful seeing companies rewarding students for reading. 

    Thanks Money Saving Mom and The Freebie Blogger!

  • Recipe: Super Chocolate Cookies

    We made these delicious Super Chocolate Cookies during our Saturday Christmas Baking Day .  This recipe was from Favorite Brand Name: Cooking for Kids, Kids’ Party Food.  The recipe has a delightful mix of chocolate, peanut, raisins, and crunch.    Our girls enjoyed them for their taste and color.  I doubled the recipe and it was a huge batch, probably around 60 cookies.  Our family, friends and neighbors all got several of these cookies to enjoy.  The recipe below is for the regular amount if you want more like I did for sharing than just double it.

    Super Chocolate Cookies

    • 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
    • 1/3 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
    • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
    • 1/2 teaspoon Salt
    • 1 1/3 cups packed Brown Sugar
    • 1/2 cup Butter, softened
    • 1/2 cup Shortening
    • 2 Eggs
    • 2 teaspoons Vanilla
    • 1 cup Candy Coated Chocolate Pieces (M&Ms)
    • 1 cup Raisins
    • 3/4 cup salted Peanuts, coarsely chopped (I did not chop the peanuts and it turned out well)

    1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl; set aside.

    2.  Beat brown sugar, butter, and shortening in large bowl turn on electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs and vanilla until well blended.  Gradually add flour mixture, beating at low speed until blended.  Stir in candy pieces, raisins, and peanuts.

    3.  Drop dough by 1/4 cupfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets, spacing 3 inches apart.  Flatten slightly with fingertips.  Bake cookies 13 to 15 minutes or until almost set.  Cool 2 minutes on cookie sheets.  Transfer to wire racks.  Cool completely.

    Makes about 20 (4 inch) cookies.  Our cookies were slightly smaller and we made a double batch so we had closer to 60 cookies.

  • The Kids Christmas Tree

    When Jake and I were first married we didn’t have a Christmas Tree so his Mom gave us a small one that she had and wasn’t using anymore.  We used that little Christmas tree for several years!  It was easy to put up and take down.  Plus, a lot of the Holidays we were traveling to visit family so a real tree didn’t work well for us.  We were in an apartment at the time and the tree was perfect.  When Jake’s Mom moved to Seattle she gave us their family tree.  It has been nice being able to decorate a full tree for the Holidays, especially now that we have kids, even though it is more work we have a grand time.

    Since we no longer use the smaller tree as our main one we have let the girls adopt that tree to put up in their bedroom.  We put the tree up on a small folding table and they do all the decorating.  The ornaments on their tree are wooden or plastic so if they should fall off they will not break.  It has been a lot of fun seeing them decorate and re-decorate their cute little tree.  Every year they have gotten better at spreading out the ornaments and decorating. They love falling asleep with the Christmas lights glowing on their tree.  It has been a fun Holiday tradition we started three years ago that has really been a hit for the girls.

    Do your kids decorate their rooms?  What do they do to get their rooms ready for the Holiday season?

  • Recipe: Sour Spiral Cookies

    Here was a fun recipe we made during our Christmas Baking Day on Saturday.  It was a good one to do in between recipes because several steps required some time in the refrigerator.  Although it does not take up a huge amount of room you’ll need space in your fridge and freezer to complete this recipe.  I doubled the batch so the cookies came out pretty big but they were a huge hit with everyone.  This was my favorite recipe that we made from Favorite Brand Name: Cooking for Kids, Kids’ Party Food on our Saturday baking day because it was unique and tasty.  I made my cookies with red and green spirals for the Christmas Holidays but you can do any two flavors of gelatin.  These are colorful, fun, and have a mix of sweet and sour all mixed into one delicious cookie.

    Sour Spiral Cookies

    • 1 package (18 ounces) refrigerated Sugar Cookie Dough (Here is our recipe for Sugar Cookie Dough if you need one)
    • 2 tablespoons plus 1 1/2 teaspoons Lime flavored Gelatin (original recipe called for Blue Raspberry, I did Lime for the Christmas Holiday, however you can do any flavor)
    • 1/4 teaspoon Gel Green Food Coloring (match the color your gelatin mixture)
    • 2 tablespoons plus 1 1/2 teaspoons Strawberry flavored Gelatin
    • 1/4 teaspoon Gel Red Food Coloring
    • All Purpose Flour

    1. Remove dough from wrapper; divide in half.  Reserve 1 dough half.  Place remaining dough half in large bowl.  Let dough stand about 10 minutes.  Add lime flavored gelatin and green food coloring to dough in bowl; beat at medium speed until well blended and evenly colored.  Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

    2.  Combine reserved dough half, strawberry flavored gelatin and red food coloring in large bowl.  Beat at medium speed until well blended and evenly colored.  Wrap dough in plastic wrap; refrigerate 1 hour.

    3.  Roll green dough to a 10×6 rectangle on lightly floured waxed paper using lightly floured rolling pin.  Repeat with red dough.  Refrigerate both dough rectangles 1o minutes.

    4.  Place green dough rectangle over red dough.  Remove waxed paper from green dough.  Starting at 10 inch side, roll up jelly-roll fashion into tight log. Wrap in plastic; freeze 30 minutes.

    5.  Preheat oven to 350° F.  Grease cookie sheets.  Cut log into 1/4 inch slices.  Place on prepared cookie sheets.  Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until cookies are firm.  (Do not let cookies brown.) Cool on cookie sheets 2 to 3 minutes.  Remove to wire racks; cool completely.

    Makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies.  I doubled my batch of cookies since we were sharing them with family, friends, and neighbors.  It is a great cookie to make while you are doing other baking since it has time in the fridge and freezer.  The girls helped me make this one a little bit but with all the steps they will need to be older before doing this one on their own.  These cookies were a hit with my kids.

  • Family Recipe: Sugar Cookies

    Sugar Cookies are a great treat to make around the Holidays.  They are versatile in that they can be made into a variety of shapes and decorated a lot of different ways as well as they are the base for many of other wonderful cookies.  The kids enjoy them and always love helping decorating the sugar cookies with frosting, sprinkles, and more around this time of year.  Sometimes I will make up several batches of Sugar Cookies then freeze the dough so I can pull them out when I need it which helps speed up the process for several other recipes our family enjoys eating and sharing with others.

    Sugar Cookies

    • 1/3 cup Butter or Margarine
    • 1/3 cup Shortening
    • 3/4 cup Sugar
    • 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
    • 1 Egg
    • 1 teaspoon Vanilla
    • 2 cups All Purpose Flour

    1.  Beat butter and shortening on medium to high speed for 30 seconds.  Add sugar, baking powder, and a dash of salt.  Beat till combined, scraping the bowl so everything is well blended.  Beat in egg and vanilla.  Gradually add the flour into the mixture.

    2.  Cover and chill dough for 1 to 3 hours to make it easier to handle when making cookies or cutouts.

    3.  Lay down wax paper and lightly flour.  Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thickness.  Use a variety of cookie cutters to make the shapes you want.  Place on lightly greased cookie sheet.  Note: if you will not be frosting but want sprinkles on the cookies do it once the cookies are cut out and ready to be baked.  A lot of times I will do it once they are on the cookie sheet because it catches some of the extra sprinkles. Bake at 375° for 7 to 9 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are firm and light brown.  Cool on rack and decorate.

    Many times I just do steps 1 and 2 so I can use the Sugar Cookie batter base to make a variety of different cookies.  Whether you do sprinkles, frosted, swirls, cups, or whatever enjoy the quick and easy recipe that allows you to share many delicious treats with your family and friends.

  • Gift Giving: Christmas Baking Day

    I spent several hours on Saturday, December 11th doing a Christmas Baking Day with Ashley from Reflecting on the Simple Things in Life making treats to give to family, friends, and neighbors.  We started about 3:30 PM and were finished around 10:30 PM that night with another hour added for cleaning and packing up the goodies.  Ashley was kind enough to open her home up so we could get the baking done. The house smelled amazing with all the delicious treats we made throughout the evening.

    Ingredients Table
    (You can tell we shop some of the same sales based on our ingredients table)

    Ashley was organized with several tables full of specific items which helped us keep the clutter off the counter tops and island as we were each working on recipes:

    • Baking Ingredients Table for the recipes we had a picked out
    • Cooking Pans, Bowls, and Utensil Table for easy access to items we need
    • Cooling and Packaging Goodies Table
    • Finished Products Table which was full of treats by the end of the evening

    We would pick out ingredients and utensils as we needed them from the necessary tables.  The goodies got bagged in between baking items.  It was a very efficient system and we were able to accomplish a lot in a relatively short amount of time plus we were able to talk, laugh and enjoy each others company in the kitchen.

    Cooking Pans, Bowls, and Utensil Table

    The kids popped in and out, occasionally helping with recipes that intrigued them.  Our husbands had fun hanging out too.  They were kind enough to pick up the pizza for us and an extra bag of powder (or confectioner’s) sugar for us at the grocery store.  Thankfully that was the only ingredient that we really seemed to go through more than expected.  We were both prepared with the ingredients and items for the day which allowed the event to go smoothly.

    Cooling and Packaging Goodies Table
    Ashley packaging the Cinnamon Rolls! Yum!
    Her smashing sticker is compliments of my daughter, Brina.

    Honestly, despite it being really busy and standing on our feet for a long period of time everything went pretty smoothly. Only one minor casualty, my small Christmas Tree cookie cutter managed to work it’s way down to the garbage disposal.  It made a loud noise when it was turned on so nothing was broken and the tree was able to be bent back into a tree like shape.  The only thing that would have made it a little more efficient would be to have two ovens but since neither of us have that we were able to work everything out fairly well.  Her oven was probably ready for a break by the end of the evening, but I am sure it felt very loved.

    Baked Goods Table
    (Starting to fill up)

    It was our desire to accomplish as much as we could in the time table allotted and we did it.  We had up to 17 recipes prepared to make for the event.  We were able to complete 12 of the recipes which is pretty amazing especially since majority of the items were baking ones and we had only one oven. I will posting the recipes for the ones that we accomplished throughout our baking adventure throughout this week.

    The following are the recipes that we accomplished that evening:

    Below is a picture of all the goodies we were able to make over the course of just a few hours.  I am thankful for the opportunity to share in this event with Ashley.  It was a lot of fun, enjoyable and rewarding.  I look forward to doing it again!

    We DID IT!
    I think we were two very tired Momma’s by the end but we had a lot of fun!

    Table full of Baked Treats to Share with Others

    It was so full we almost didn’t have enough room to squeeze everything on it!

    The recipes that we didn’t get to during our baking day I plan to make over the Holidays as well since I have all the ingredients for them already in our kitchen.   I will be posting the following recipes for you next week:

    • Chocolate Crackle Tops
    • Oreo Truffles
    • Orange Dreamsicle Cookies
    • Berry Shortbread Dreams
    • Sugar Cookies/Bears

  • Gift Giving: Baking Christmas Goodies

    It has been a busy week!  Tomorrow I am very excited to have the opportunity to get together with Ashley from Reflecting on the Simple Things in Life and cook up some yummy recipes to share with friends, family and neighbors.  It should be a lot of fun and I am sure we’ll have some funny stories to tell and pictures to share.   I have all my recipes marked and a table full of ingredients to pack.  The girls are licking their lips thinking about all the amazing goodies that are going to be created tomorrow.  They have been asking for two weeks if the “baking” day was here yet.

    Here is what we are looking forward to baking tomorrow:

    Several of the recipes I have never tried, however, they all appear to be fairly easy to make.  It will be interesting to see what we can accomplish in a few hours and if we have any hiccups along the way. No matter what happens it will be a day full of fun and memories.  Since the oven will be full of baking goodies we decided to give ourselves a break from cooking a meal for everyone and will be ordering pizza for dinner.

    While we are busy in the kitchen cooking the men will be helping entertain the kids, enjoying some time gaming together among other tasks I am sure they will be delegated to do.  They don’t get together as often now with all the busy family schedules so they are looking forward to some fun time too.   The kids are really excited about having some time to play together while we cook.  Although I have been told from my girls that they want to taste every recipe to make sure it is good before we give it to anyone else.   So now I am off to pack up the ingredients, sprinkles and all, so we can eat dinner at the table tonight.  I look forward to sharing our adventures with you next week!

  • Recipe: Mom’s Hot Chocolate Mix

    My Mom made the most delicious homemade Hot Chocolate Mix as kids.  Once it started turning chilly she would make a big batch for the family.  It was one of the best things to drink on a chilly winter day!  If you don’t want a large batch of Hot Chocolate cut the recipe in half.

    Mom’s Hot Chocolate Mix:

    • 8 quart Powder Milk
    • 1 pound Powder Sugar
    • 1 pound Instant Cocoa
    • 1 1/2 pound Coffemate
    • 6 tablespoons of Cocoa

    Mix all the ingredients together and put in an airtight container.  Add 1/2 cup of mix per mug of warm water or milk.

    Optional: You can add marshmallows and / or cool whip for an added touch.

    We’ll be making this great recipe to share with family, friends and neighbor during our Gift Giving: Baking Christmas Goodies day!

  • Smiles Spread Cheer

    I enjoy making smiley snacks for the girls especially when they are not expecting the fun surprise.  They were outside playing last week and I decided to make something healthy for them to munch on.  Smiles spread cheer and excitement when they are delivered.  They ate their smiles at the picnic table while talking and giggling. You can make a smile snack with anything that you have at home.  Both girls had a big smile matching their plates when I handed them over.

    Here is what was on each smile snack plate today:

    • 1 Banana
    • 6 Chocolate Covered Almonds
    • 1 Cherry Tomato (from our garden, one of the last few)
    • 2 slices of Zucchini
    • 2 Raisins
    • 4 Baby Carrots
    • 1 Mozzarella String Cheese Stick (cut up)

    Add a smile to your kids food today and see how excited they get over it.  Life is short, have some fun.