Want a fun, easy STEM Halloween-themed activity to do with your kids? Try this Witch's Brew! What you need:
What to Do:1. Place your cauldron on your cookie sheet or plate. Add about 1 tablespoon of baking soda to the bottom of your cauldron or cup. 2. Add a few drops of food coloring to the baking soda in the cauldron. 3. Fill your spoon or eye dropper with vinegar. 4. Drop a few drops of vinegar into the cauldron. Add more vinegar for a faster and larger chemical reaction. 5. Watch the potion bubble over! Why Does It do This? The classic baking soda and vinegar experiment is called an acid/base reaction. Vinegar is an acid and baking soda is a base. The bubbles that are created are carbon dioxide being released from the reaction. Learn more about it here. Check out our Instagram reel of this!
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Instant Pot - Is it WOrth It? (Spoiler- kind of). And if it is worth it, What should I make in it?8/21/2023 Is there really such a thing as kid-friendly, easy, minimal prep, healthy weekday meals? In general, I know my strengths and weaknesses in the kitchen. Strength - cleaning (all day, every day. I would eat off our kitchen floor because I wash it so much). Weakness - cooking (basically anything). I’ve tried so hard to get better at cooking for my family. Since I am very Type A, I wanted to get more organized around meal time. I like to plan my meals out for the week every weekend and get my groceries prepped and ready. Sunday morning is definitely grocery morning in the Smith household. Since COVID hit, we’ve been using the Fry’s Drive-Up/Pick-Up option. For those of you saying you like to pick out your own produce, I do too. I also like to pick out my own meat and check expiration dates on my yogurts before buying them. If given the option, I’d prefer a non-dented can as well. In reality though, the drive-up/pick-up option has saved us countless hours that I will throw out the occasional moldy strawberry or have to cook expiring meat before I planned to use it just for the peace of mind of having groceries and not having to drag two young children around the grocery store. The Fry’s Drive-Up option is great. I can schedule my groceries to be picked up during an hour time frame on Sunday morning. (Not my favorite drive-up option, but we’ll save that for another blog post.) In the spirit of getting more organized in the kitchen, I bought one of the magnetic meal planners for the front of the fridge. It helps keep me organized for the week. I also strategically schedule easier meals on days where we have after school activities. And like I said before, I might have to move around a few meals based upon the freshness of certain groceries. They have some really cute magnetic planners on Amazon. I got mine at TJ Maxx for a few dollars. Not only do I use it to plan out the meals, but as we run out of different items, it also acts as my running grocery list. So here’s the summary so far - I am not good in the kitchen, but am trying to be. I bought myself a planner to help get organized. Now the problem is that after a while, I get bored with the recipes. I think my family gets bored with the recipes. Let’s face it, there are only so many kid-friendly, easy, minimal prep, healthy weekday recipes, Furthermore, there are only so many non-crockpot versions of these. Yes, I have tried probably every crockpot recipe out there. That being said, we needed something new in our kitchen lives. Remember when the Instant Pot was the latest craze? I got mine on Black Friday with an extra-off coupon at Kohls. I was so excited to use it…until I wasn’t. My Instant Pot spent a lot of time gathering dust and many months of non-use. I was terrified of my Instant Pot. I had always heard how pressure cookers were really dangerous to cook with. We already know I’m not the best chef in the kitchen, so why are we trying to complicate things? The first time I tried to use my Instant Pot - not even sure what I was making - I was so afraid of the shooting air from the pressure release valve, that I threw my phone out of my hand and cracked the screen. It was like this semi-permanent reminder of how I shouldn’t experiment more in the kitchen. Naturally, the pot sat unused for a while after that. I don’t know how, but months later, there was a time period where I seemed to be confronted with unending, amazing success stories of the Instant Pot. Had I deemed it unusable too soon? Friends were talking about how easy it is to throw dinner in the instant pot and it’s done. Instant Pot chicken breast? No problem… Instant Pot pasta? Of course! (This is all them talking because I still hadn’t mustered up the courage to use my Instant Pot again). That is until one day, I decided to try a recipe. I worked up the courage to use the pot by watching YouTube videos of others pressure releasing their Instant Pots. I even Googled how safe Instant Pots were. My very best friend is not a chef either and she started telling me about a recipe she does in her instant pot that her daughter absolutely loves. She sent the link over to me. I worked up to it for a few weeks, but when I made it, it was like striking gold. My son even still calls it his favorite meal to this day years later. It’s part of our weekly rotation. My hatred against the Instant Pot started to diminish. After this amazing recipe though, I became a little overly confident in the Instant Pot and my cooking abilities with the Instant Pot. That is until I realized that like all cooking recipes, the Instant Pot has ones that are hit or miss. There are some that are going to be amazing, instant favorites like the chicken-pot-pie pasta recipe my friend shared with me. It’s also a little like all the trial and error I did with the crock pot. We had some *a lot* of misses there too. That being said, is the Instant Pot worth it? Maybe. We make some good recipes now in it. Is it my favorite kitchen tool? No. Does it have so many different functions that it can technically save some kitchen space and replace other appliances? Yes. Have I tried all these functions? Of course not. Here's the deal - if you invested in an Instant Pot like I did and need some easy recipes to try, I definitely recommend these ones. The Instant Pot isn't doing you any favors sitting on the counter or inside the cupboard or pantry. If you invested in the hype of the Instant Pot, then it is worth giving it a shot. Here are our family’s top uses for the Instant Pot (click the images to be redirected to the recipes): 1. Instant Pot - Pot Roast2. Chicken Pot-PieThis is it! This is the recipe that started it all. It was the one that got me trusting my ability to use a new appliance a little bit more. The recipe is SO EASY. I cannot emphasize that enough. Both my kids love it and I could probably make it in my sleep now, I've made it so many times! 3. Instant Pot SpaghettiIf you're wondering like I did if spaghetti can get easier, the answer is yes. Spaghetti can get much easier. It can be made in a single pot in a little amount of time. And it can be pretty darn tasty too! 4. Instant Pot RiceI was definitely late to the game to try the rice cooking function on my Instant Pot. I was about five minutes away from pushing "Buy" on my Amazon cart for a rice cooker, when I thought I had seen a post before about cooking rice in the Instant Pot. This has been a GAME CHANGER for us. We now can easily incorporate rice into our meals. The kids love rice with some vegetables and coconut aminos sauce for a quick and easy meal. So is the Instant Pot worth it? Maybe. It's definitely a large kitchen tool to store. It also usually comes at a hefty price point. However, for our family, once I found out HOW to use it and what recipes worked with my skill-set, it semi-quickly became a household staple for us. My next action item though is using the crock-pot function and attempting to get rid of my actual crock pot to save some space. (To be continued there!) I was SO NERVOUS to, what I assumed would be, wasting a roast on this recipe. However, the Instant Pot roast comes out more moist and tender than my regular roasts ever did. It IS a bit more prep than I would like with an Instant Pot, but it's mostly cutting and prepping vegetables which is really an added bonus to the recipe. It's a well-rounded dish overall.
Yes, we are talking all things dog birthdays today. Small scale birthdays. Some people like to go all out with invitations, dog guests, and doggy bags (see what I did there), but we are talking small scale family birthdays for our favorite four-legged friends. Fitz, our Golden Doodle turned 7 this week, so we had to make sure to celebrate him in style! 1. Make a Dog-Friendly CakeThey sell some dog friendly options at pet bakeries or even PetSmart, but we prefer to bake our canine friends their special treats. The boys love to get involved. I am much less stressed about the accuracy when they measure and they really feel like they've contributed to the party. Pinterest has all sorts of dog friendly cake recipes. This year's cake was: a pumpkin dog cake from Busy Little Kids. Ours didn't turn out quite as picture perfect as hers (below), but we had so much fun putting it together. Teddy is allergic to peanuts, so we have to be extra careful with recipes involving peanut butter. In my experience, dog cakes are notoriously dry. Fitz loved his cake though. We've made this Crazy for Crust cake before. Or even these banana nut dog cupcakes. Usually Fitz isn't too picky on his treats. The smaller, shihtzu Cash tends to be much pickier on what he will eat. 2. Make Kid-Friendly Treats tooI usually go to the Dollar Tree and buy a small cake mix and frosting combo. They usually sell a Pillsbury Funfetti cupcake mix for $1.25 and a small container of Vanilla or Cream Cheese frosting. Trust me - the kids will NOT want to eat the dog cake. Dogs can't eat much sugar, so it's not very sweet. They will want treats of their own to celebrate the big day. We always make sure to make some sort of special treat for the kids. Even if it's not a cake or cupcakes, think ice cream, candy, or even banana bread. 3. Dollar Tree DecorationsWe always decorate for birthdays and I always save EVERY. SINGLE. DECORATION. The kids have a tub of decorations to pull from. The generic birthday decorations (most from the dollar tree) are all in a tub. They get to choose from streamers and signs to hang up. (Any decoration that is too little, I hide it away so as not to tempt them to decorate too much). Even for this last birthday, I stopped by the Dollar Tree to see what other birthday decorations they had in stock. I picked up an extra banner. They even have birthday number candles and small blow-up number balloons. For whatever reason, they were out of the number "7" in everything, so I had to settle for no number decorations this year. 4. Presents!Finally the kids have an excuse to wrap presents and I don't care what they look like! They get so excited to grab some scraps of wrapping paper and cover a chew toy or two. I always pick up a dog toy here or there at TJ Maxx or Marshalls and store them for later. On some birthdays, I've even let the kids come with me to choose the dog birthday toys. Honestly, I think we could wrap some of Fitz's hardly used toys and he'd be just as happy. Teddy got so into the present experience this year, that he even made his own present for Fitz - a dog picture to hang about his water bowl! 5. Have Fun!It's easy to sound overwhelming, but we hype up the dogs's birthdays as they approach every single year. Our Alexa Echo sings happy birthday with us. We even bought Fitz his own cake hat for the occasion. The kids get so excited. I know the magic of a dog birthday is only short lived, so we are enjoying them while we can!
Lasagna Roll UpsWe love our pasta. Yes, we do. We love our pasta. How about you?
Seriously though...some days, I feel like all the kids eat is pasta, chicken nuggets, and hot dogs. Now I know why kids' menus lack lots of creative options. My husband is not a spaghetti fan. He's even less of a spaghetti fan when I make it with the protein packed pasta for my kids. So, I've been trying different pasta recipes to find ones that we love. I LOVE everything about this recipe except that it has "easy" in the title. It is a little bit more labor intensive than I would like, but you can definitely make it ahead of time if needed and the leftovers are just as delicious as the first time you cooked it! Here's the recipe site (Natasha's Kitchen): https://natashaskitchen.com/lasagna-roll-ups/ Here's the result: Need a fun, easy Easter activity to keep your preschoolers or even elementary schoolers busy?
We LOVE making gingerbread houses around Christmas time, so we've converted this idea to Easter time for a couple years now. We've made bunny/chick houses for our Peep candy friends. I was at the store the other day and saw that they make kits for these now. We've been using different ingredients around the house (looking at you leftover Halloween candy bag) to decorate and graham crackers for a cheap, fun Easter activity! The kids LOVE to eat all the candy as they decorate (in moderation, of course). However, once the candy is on the house, they can't eat it. I've found that the houses/crackers don't stay too well together with just icing. I've been prepping the activity by doing the following steps to make it run smoother: 1) Hot glue the crackers together to eliminate any frustrations of them continually falling down. 2) Pre-make any colored icing options - eliminates meltdowns and messes with food coloring 3) Have all the ingredient/candy/sprinkle options all out and ready 4) We use plates or cookie sheets, but always make sure to cover them with foil first for easy clean up at the end! These Easter Bunny Houses are always a fun success and easy activity the kids look forward to each year! We decided to try out a no-bake Easter cake pop recipe.
First, we got some silicone Easter molds from the craft store. In hindsight, I'd buy smaller, bite-sized molds. Our large rabbits had a much harder time forming than the traditional round cake balls. Also, it was A LOT of cake for my toddler to eat at once. I always opted for the smaller sized treats when they were available. Ingredients: 1 Dozen frosted grocery store bakery cookies (the kind with the pink frosting and sprinkles) 1 brick of cream cheese 1. Lightly spray silicone Easter molds with cooking spray. Wipe out any excess. 2. Add the cookies and cream cheese to a mixer and mix until well distributed. 3. Add the mixture to the silicone molds. Add a cake pop stick if you have them. I had to order special ones on Amazon, but I bet some speciality baking-type stores would have some! 4. Add to the fridge for 30-60 minutes to harden. 5. Enjoy! Need an Easter brain break for your preschooler or toddler? We were trying to think of ideas that weren't necessarily crafts, but would keep us entertained. We found a great themed Easter sensory bin thanks to a trip to our local dollar store!
1. Easter Grass (can be fancy and get scented or different textures/colors) 2. Different shaped Easter eggs (we have shells, animals, traditional) 3. Small bunnies (ours happened to be cloth and stuffed) 4. Small carrots (toys) 5. Small bunny and Easter themed erasers Pour into a sensory bin! The kids loved stuffing the eggs with the grass and trying to close them in. They also loved just opening and closing the eggs and reconfiguring them. It always surprises me how much fun the simplest activities can be and who doesn't need an Easter brain break? Easy DIY Valentines Toddler Activity - Headband. We got the cute heart stickers at the DOLLAR STORE!
1) Cut white cardstock paper into two strips to fit around the toddler's head. 2) Lay the cardstock strips flat and decorate with heart stickers, markers, paint, etc. 3) Staple or tape together to the correct size to fit the head. I staple because it seems to stay better, but you can definitely tape if you'd like! 4) Wrap pipe cleaners around a pencil to get the coiled look. Tape them on the inside of the headband.
2 Year Old Gift? Not sure what to buy? We have soooo many ideas. These are 5 of our absolute favorites!
Easy Holiday Activity - Reindeer Toss Extra Amazon boxes sitting around from Christmas present deliveries? Turn them into a reindeer toss game. The rings are wreath styrofoam rings from the Dollar Store. I traced Tupperware containers for the eyes and nose to get those nice circles. Super easy activity and a fun way to use those boxes while you wait for recycling day! (Because if you're holiday shopping habits are anything like mine, you're recycling bin is consistently too full each week!) |