Kids Halloween Party

Kids Halloween Party

I hosted a Halloween party and invited everyone from my daughters Daycare. She goes to the University daycare and most of the parents are professors which makes me nervous since I'm just a student. However we are all parents. 

Here is what my table looked like with all the food laid out. and the smaller table in the left hand corner is the craft table. I bought the table cloth from fabricland. Just bought some fabric and draped the table. I also had more pinned up on the wall.

When the guests came to the door I had the remote controlled fog machine shoot fog at them (which some of the little kids were afraid of) The had them come in and get settled doing a craft.

I had a craft table set up with construction paper, coloring sheets, stickers, crayons, scissors and glue. They could do whatever they wanted, there was also a big bowl on the back deck with apples in it to bob for apples.

 I thought this would be cool but then I was worried that I would scare the children so I opted not to do the shrunken heads.

Next I had them pick up little cut outs with straws by sucking on the one end. They loved this game. I tried a version of duck duck goose. It did not go over well. I didn't have enough space and they didn't really get it. I moved on, hiding candy and playing the dance freeze game. I really should have planned more games. I ran out too quickly and didn't know how to occupy them.





I also made monster cupcakes! The eyes are from Micheal's.


I tried a ton of things off of Pinterest so I thought I would share the successful and the not so successful ones.

 These turned out fantastic, everyone loved them. I had tons of gloves around because my huni and I both work in healthcare.

 Everyone loved the ice hand in the juice as well. I don't know how they got a wrist on this hand actually, I just used a plastic glove and tied it. It was solid in a short amount of time and looked so creepy. If I was worried about diluting the juice I could have frozen some juice in there but it was pretty sweet. I just poured a jug of orange juice with a bottle of sprite and a can of fruit juice in a bowl. I added a smidge of cotton candy on top too. It changed the color and made it kinda eerie.

This I put on the bathroom door. It worked out great. I liked how cute it was and not scary, I didn't want to scare any of the children.  They were mostly 3 and 4 year olds with a few babies mixed in and one 7 year old.

These did not turn out!!! at all!! It was absolute crap. I don't know what I did wrong. They stuck to the straws, they weren't solid, they were just a gooey mess.
 

Mummy hot dogs turned out fantastic! So easy. I just bought hot dogs and Pillsbury wrap. Easy as can be.

I thought this one was so cute too. So easy, just some construction paper, could have even used googly eyes.



Everyone had a great time! I would say it was a success!

Pumpkin Cupcakes

 For my daughter's daycare they needed a snack for shared snack day, I thought cupcakes would be fun. Mini ones are the perfect size for little ones! I bought eyeball cupcake liners from Micheal's.

 So cute!

I found the recipe at The Joy of Baking

Vanilla Cupcakes:

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter room temperature

2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated white sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Zest of 1 large lemon (outer yellow skin)

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup (60 ml) milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl whisk together the lemon zest, flour, baking powder, and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 17 - 20 minutes or just until set and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. (Always check a few minutes before the stated baking time. Do not over bake or the cupcakes will be dry.) Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once the cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with icing.

Cupcake Apron

We needed an apron for printmaking class and I debated buying one. Then I went to the fabric store, and bought this cupcake fabric that is used for lining diapers (it's plasticy - but really soft) Perfect for an inky class, so the ink won't soak through to my clothes. I made the apron pretty big because I wanted a lot of coverage. If I make it again, I'll make it smaller on the bottom (maybe I'll make one Christmas cooking)

I like how it turned out, it really stands out in my class.

3rd Birthday Party

My daughter's 3rd Birthday Party was themed around Dora the explorer. A TV show that teaches children Spanish. She has learned several words from the show. Sometimes I'm not sure if she's speaking Spanish or just saying gibberish so sometimes I need to look up words too. Guess it's educational for me too ha ha. 

I had a great time working on it and honestly I'm really proud of my swiper.  He's a character on the show that steals things. 

I thought I had pictures of my cupcakes, they turned out great... expect they melted a bit in the hot sun (next time I should bring them in a cooler)

 I just wish that I had taken more pictures. I thought I had several but apparently not.

 I made Swiper out of the box that the trampoline I bought my daughter came in. I printed a picture of him and then drew a grid and used it as referance, if I made him exactly to scale I would have needed a wider box becasue he has an extrodiany long nose and huge tail, but he looked just like him when I finished painting him. I used white spray paint and little acrylic paints I bought at the dollar store. Then I outlined him with markers with matching colors.
Contrary to the picture I cut off the top section. It was just about the height of my toddler. The kids actually really liked it and two of the girls were trying to feed swiper cookies ha ha.

 

Swiper the fox!

We made rings in the colors of the show. Strung them up in the trees at the party. We also had streamers in the same colors. A purple table cloth, pink cutlery (which they used to try and "cut down a tree"), and tons of balloons. 21 filled with helium, more filled with air and even more filled with water. Yay for water balloons (they kept drinking the water from the balloons)

Another key character on Dora is Backpack. So I made everyone little backpacks. I bought sheets of felt and cut them out and sewed them together and then hot glued the faces on, made with other bits of scrap felt. Finally I hot glued little bits of velcro on to hold the backpack closed. Stuck a "map" in the side pocket. I filled the backpacks with Dora shaped fruit snacks and Dora tattoos.

 

Here's my little princess at her birthday party!

(The other pictures have other kids in them and I don't want to post them online without permission from their parents)

Watermelon Pops!

Ok here's what you need to know: I LOVE watermelon. It's an addiction really. A secret addiction. As in everyone knows but no one really knows ecstatic I get about watermelon things. I have been more and more open about my watermelon love as I get older. As I get more open about it however, I feel like I actually care less about watermelon. I like anything to do with watermelon, but watermelon flavored thing are generally yucky. Actual watermelon is hard to like all the time, you never know what your going to get. It's kinda a crap shoot, maybe you get a good one, maybe you don't. 

There is 2 things to look for when buying a watermelon:

1) one nice yellow spot, that means it's been resting on the ground and absorbing water (which is a good thing)

2) It's really heavy for it's size - which means it's got a lot of water. 

You can also knock, but from my experience unless you knock and eat and knock and eat how do you know what a good knock sounds like? Anyways you can also look that information up on the internet. 

So food that looks like watermelon I also love. So cute, so fun. Now you see where I'm actually going with this. 

This is what I made.

Here's what they look like according to Kraft.

As you can tell I choose not to add chocolate chips. I think that's weird to have random chocolate in your frozen treat. (unless it's ice cream)

Also it calls for some weird cream cheese mixture, which I'm sure is delicious to some people.

Not I, I find that so gross. So I substituted whipped cream.  I was worried that it wouldn't hold up becasue cream doesn't freeze exeptionally well. However as you can see it held up quite well. 

The only problem I ran into is the molds. I used my regular molds for popsicles, what would have been nicer is one with a longer handle that went farther into the popsicles to support it better. As when I pulled a few out the red part got stuck in the bottom because the stick didn't reach that part at all. As long as I ran it under warm water long enough to really unstick the top it was fine. Also the molds I used were skinny and it was harder to make each layer smooth and fit as a clear layer - I ended up wiping the container after I filled each layer. It did't take long but if my molds were wider it would have been easier.

Banana Cream Pie

Bananas! Cream! and Pie!

 

This is the recipe I used

Next time I think I would prefer one that the bananas and the cream are together rather then separate.

Should have cooked the pie crust longer - still tasted good, just could have been crispier. 

and the bananas on top didn't add to the flavor or taste. Looked good, so maybe put them on top of the cream.

This one was alright - coconut cream pie was better in my opinion.

Soft Onion Sandwich Rolls

Soooo good. And super easy to make. Make themmmm. Here's the recipe.

Done that's all I have to say!

Shocking I know. Ya right, Im going to keep talking..

They call for potato flakes, WTF? who has those on hand? Or can even find them in the store. 

I bought plain instant mashed potatoes. That's the same thing right?

lots of onion in them, but they aren't crazy onion-y. Just right.

So easy little one could help too! She loved it.

 Ready for the oven

Done! Boy that was fast. 

So proud!

I ate one right away. It was so good. (actually I ate 3 right away... )

Yummy!

You might want to eat them all in one sitting! I can't wait to make them again!

Good for sloppy joe's or pulled pork or ham and cheese...