• Fresh & Healthy: Lunch Box Meals

    Lunch box goodies

    About once a week I pack a special treat for the girls.  This week in their little container I put two Hershey Bliss Milk Chocolate Meltaways and one of each color of M&M’s. The girls love getting these goodies and enjoy sharing with their friends as well. Here’s what they had today:

    • Peanut Butter & Homemade Strawberry Jam
    • Fresh Red & Green Peppers
    • Fresh Strawberries
    • Pita Chips or Quaker Granola Bar
    • Yogurt
    • Banana Muffin
    • Juice Bag or Container
    • 2 Hershey Bliss Chocolate Meltaways
    • 5 M&M’s

    Special treats in their lunch today

    Fresh fruit & veggies

  • Gift Giving: 12 Days of Christmas Appreciation

    12 Days of Christmas Appreciation

    Last year I did the 12 days of Christmas for the girls so this year as I was putting together the 12 Days for the girls I was thinking about ways I could be a blessing for my husband as well.  I wanted to do the 12 Days of Christmas for him but the problem is he is traveling for work several days prior to Christmas.  He travels pretty lightly so for me to squeeze in an extra few gifts into his suitcase would be difficult.  I thought about doing 12 Days of  “Love Notes” but I already send him a folder when he travels with “I Love You” notes from myself and the girls.  I eventually came up with 12 gifts and  “love notes” for my husband’s 12 Days of Christmas Appreciation that would easily fit into his suitcase.

    Here is what my 12 Days of Christmas includes:

    Day 1:  You stole a “Piece” of my heart! (Reese’s Pieces)

    Day 2:  We are “mint” to be together! Love You!  (Junior Mints)

    Day 3:  Thanks for being my “lifesaver” so many times! (Life Savers)

    Day 4:  We know how to have a “jolly” good time together! (Jolly Rancher)

    Day 5:  You are the brightest “star” in my sky! (Starburst)

    Day 6:  I call you “sweet”pea because you are the “sweet”est part of my life! (Sweet Tarts)

    Day 7:  You are an amazing Daddy to our “kids”! (Sour Patch Kids)

    Day 8:  You have o”fish”ally stolen my heart! (Swedish Fish)

    Day 9:  You are my “M”agnificant & “M”arvelous life partner! (M&Ms)

    Day 10:  You are my “Baby”love and my “Baby”cake!  (Sugar Babies)

    (“BabyLove” & “BabyCake” are two of the nicknames I have for my man, just ask the kids!)

    Day 11:  You are my smokin “hot” man! (Hot Tamales)

    Day 12:  I love traveling and going to “Charleston” with you handsome!  (Charleston Chews)

    Once that was done I wrapped the boxes, put a bow on top, and set it up for him.  The neat part about using these boxes is they are all fairly uniform in size so they make putting your 12 Days of Christmas Appreciation stack together really easy.  You can put together this entire stack of gifts for under $12 if you paid full price for everything.  Walmart sells these boxes for $0.98 each everyday so if you can find some of them on sale at another store or use your Extra Care Bucks at CVS or Register Rewards at Walgreens you could easily put this together for less than $5.  If you don’t have time to put this together for Christmas consider doing it for Valentine’s Day (for your “sweetheart”), the month of your anniversary, your spouse’s birthday, or another special occasion.  The point is to express your love and appreciation for your spouse.

    The girls helped me pick out a couple of the boxes of candy.  They were excited about his gifts and told me that “Daddy is nice so he will probably share some of his candy with us.”  You know what, they are right!  Their Daddy is sweet and generous which means the girls will most likely get a taste of his 12 Days of Christmas Appreciation.  Here’s a picture of the wrapped stack:

    12 Days of Christmas Appreciation Stack

    I am grateful for a loving, caring and hard working man that loves me despite all my craziness.  This is just one way to share my love with him not only for the Christmas Holiday but remind him even when he is away from home that I love him dearly.  It was a lot of fun putting together the sayings, wrapping the gifts and giving them to my man to put into his suitcase. It is my intention to show appreciation to my husband at least once a day.  Thankful for an extra opportunity to say “I love you” to my best friend and life partner!

    I received my inspiration from The Dating Divas after seeing her “You stole a “Piece” of my heart!” and “You have o”fish”ally stolen my heart!”   After the jump start on the idea I came up with the other goodies and sweet sayings for my hubby.

  • You know I do a lot of smiley faces for the girls when…..

    The girls start coming up with food smiles on their own.  I was baking the Beary Cute Cookies and asked Brina to help unwrap and sort the candies.  This is the plate of goodies she handed to me.  Yes, it made me smile.  I am thrilled to see her willingness to participate in the kitchen and love  the creative side coming out as well.  Thankful for some extra cooking time with my sweet Brina.  Everyone has been enjoying the goodies that we baked together this weekend.  Hope you are having a wonderful time celebrating the last day of 2010 too!!!!

  • 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.