{10 Days of Halloween} Ghostly Marshmallows

This is a fun, quick treat to eat while watching Ghost Busters (or your favorite Halloween movie).

I bought the giant marshmallows for this--seriously, they're huge.  They looked so fun to eat!

We dipped the end of a skewer into some chocolate syrup and used that to draw ghost faces on the marshmallows.  Then we put the ghostly marshmallows in the microwave for about 15 seconds and watched our ghosts get VERY large and puffy as they cooked. 

However, the marshmallows don't stay puffy, they end up looking all distorted like this when you take them out of the microwave.

We had our ghost trap ready when the ghosts were done and caught them and squished them between our graham crackers--just like they the Ghost Busters.  Once our gooey ghost treat was ready we watched the Ghost Busters together.

-------------------------------------------------------

Day six of

{10 Days of Halloween} Witches Brew

One of the reasons I love Halloween is that there are so many fun things you can do! I love hot stew with the cool autumn weather. But I wanted to make dinner even more fun by having different kinds of "witches brew."

First, I made a little invite and delivered to each of my family members in the morning. Here's what the invite said:

 
 {click here to print your own Witches Brew dinner invite}

For dinner I made some crock pot "brew" (just regular stew with veggies and stew meat). Then I also made a "caldron" (or big bowl) of homemade root beer with dry ice. The fog from the dry ice made the dinner seem more spooky and mysterious.  Finally, as a yummy treat after dinner, we made our own witches brew.

Here's what we did. I used a muffin tin with liners and filled them with different ingredients for our witches brew. If you were hosting a Halloween party, you could set out the ingredients in cups or mason jars with labels. But for my family, I wanted to keep it fairly simple. I chose six ingredients we had on hand. But if you want more ideas, check out this list of awesome witches brew ingredients (thanks to family crafts):

Earthworm Knots (Miniature Pretzel Twists)
Bloated Ants (Raisins)
Candied Spider Eggs (Dots or Gum Drops)
Ghost Guts (Mini Marshmallow)
Shredded Lizard Gizzards (Coconut)
Witches' Warts (Chocolate Chips)
Baked Skelton Bones (Pretzel Sticks)
Bat Brains (Popcorn)
Boiled Lady Bugs (Red Jelly Beans)
Braised Beetles (Milk Duds)
Cheesy Owl Eyes (Puffed Cheese Balls)
Chocolate-Dipped Houseflies (Chocolate-Covered Raisins)
Compressed Cobwebs (Chex Brand or Similar Cereal)
Crumbled Bat Wings (Blue Corn Chips)
Deep Fried Fingernails (Bugles Brand Snacks)
Dehydrated Dragon's Wings (Doritos)
Dirty Shoelaces (Black Shoestring Licorice)
Dried Seaweed (Chow Mein Noodles)
Flattened Slugs (Corn Chips)
Freeze Dried Drops of Blood (Red Hot Candies)
Goblin's Belly Button Lint Balls (M & Ms, Any Style))
Plops of Pigeon Poop (Yogurt Covered Raisins)
Rat Claws (Shelled Sunflower Seeds)
Roasted Snack Eyes (Peanuts)
Splintered Turkey Bones (Shoestrings Potato Chips)
Toasted Cat's Eyes (Blanched Almonds)
Vulture Toenails (candy Corn)

To make the witches brew, I wrote all the ingredients on slips of paper and placed them in one of our Halloween trick-or-treat buckets to draw from.  (You could also make the labels with pictures for younger children.)

Then each person drew three ingredients from the bucket and that determined their witches brew.  Everyone had fun gathering their ingredients and mixing their brew--there was a lot of cackling and witchcraft going on at the dinner table!

{witches brew of earthworm knots, ghost guts, and candied spider eggs}

-------------------------------------------------------

Day five of

Healthy Fruity Ice Cream

I LOVE ice cream!  So listen to how great this is....milk free, yummy, healthy, with-no-added-sugar ice cream!  Plus it is SUPER EASY to make.  You don't get better then that, right?! 

There is a machine out there called Yonana's and it uses frozen bananas to get the creamy ice cream texture instead of milk.  Then you add other fruits as desired.

So I thought...why buy one more machine to clutter my house just for this one yummy snack?  So I tried it in my ordinary blender and it worked perfectly! :)

So what you need is frozen bananas because they are the key ingredient to give a thick creamy delicious flavor.  Just take a ripe banana and peel off the skin.  Then cut banana into chunks and freeze.  Next you'll also want to freeze the other fruits you will be adding to your ice cream, like mango's, strawberries, pineapple, etc. (I tried a mango-strawberry blend, and it was delish!)

To make the ice cream, simply put 1 frozen banana and other frozen fruit into your blender and blend until creamy.  I defrosted my fruit first for about 30 minutes in the microwave to make it a little easier to blend and less icy.

And...that's it!  Looks just like ice cream, it tastes creamy just like ice cream, but you know that it's so healthy for you!  Amazing!  This is a great family treat and a good alternative rather than just making smoothies all the time.

Have a happy and safe Labor Day!

Tea Party

Today was just a day for my daughter and I.  I considering going out somewhere to do something.  But then I thought, why not relax today.  It feels like we are always going places, rushing from place to place to do things and get things done.  Sometimes my daughter just needs to be home together--and we both enjoy it.  So we kept it simple and played at home.

So, instead of going out...

we hosted a tea party.  A baby doll tea party.

Together we got out the easy bake oven (that my daughter has wanted to use for awhile), found a recipe and baked a mini cake.  We also made some graham cracker cookies with chocolate frosting (one of my favorite treats growing up).  We got out her little card table, spread a table cloth, and then set the table with my nice china dishes.  Instead of tea we filled the tea pot with milk and I sliced a few plums to balance out the sweets.

After the table was set, my daughter collected her baby dolls and we all gathered around the table for the tea party.

After we were done eating we played one UNO--a fun, family card game.  We both had so much fun today--talking, pretending, and laughing together!

Slushies

Slushies...

They are perfect for the hot summer days we've been having!!

To make these simply scrumptious summer treats, you'll need the following:

Ingredients 

Kool Aid

Sugar

Ice cubes

Water

Blender

 Add a Kool Aid packet and 1 Cup of sugar to a quart jar.  Fill the quart jar with water and stir.  (You don't need the full amount of water shown on the Kool Aid instructions because there'll be additional liquid from the ice cubes.)  

Then add the Kool Aid liquid to the blender, add a tray of ice cubes, and blend to your desired slushie consistency.  And, voila!  Your slushies are ready to pour and enjoy!  It's really that easy!

This is one of my favorite treats to make with my husband once the kids have gone to bed.  Slushies and games makes a quick and easy date night. ;)

Outdoor Snacks

My family just took a camping trip to Yellowstone. It was so fun and a much needed break. An important part of any outdoor activity is having good food and water that will keep you and your kids energized and happy.

 

 Here are a couple easy snacks ideas for when you pack for your own hiking or camping trips. Plus, most of these you can have your kids help you pack or prepared. 

{Homemade Trail Mix} Trail Mix is a great outdoor snack. It is easy to put in separate baggies and lightweight to carry. It doesn't require any utensils and usually isn't very messy.  Plus you can get some much needed protein and nutrients to keep your energy up while your enjoying the outdoors. The other fun part is that you can make it however you want!

I was able to use a lot of things that I already had on hand except for the nuts.  I had mixed nuts, craisins, raisins, dried strawberries, and M&M's. I put each of the items in a separate bowl and let everyone make their own bag of trail mix.



{Water & Apple} Whenever you're playing outside, you should bring water with you. We invested in a Camelbak for everyone in our family because we use them so much.  But any water bottle will do. Then grab an apple and your set! The other nice thing about the Camelbak is that you also store your apples and trail mix in the bag so your hands are free for hiking.

{Hot Cocoa & Popcorn} Another one of our favorite snack is hot cocoa and popcorn. After a long day of hiking, this is a fun bedtime snack to help your body relax. We have used campfire and a camp stove to heat the water for the hot cocoa (or hot apple cider) and cook the popcorn.

 

On our last camping trip we used the Jiffy Pop and it was so yummy! You have to be careful when holding it over the fire, if you get to close you could burn yourself. But it was fun to watch the popcorn grow and was so good to have a warm treat.

What are some of your favorite camping snacks?