Valentine’s Day has been hijacked! Moms, remember when Valentine’s Day was a ROMANTIC holiday? You know, before you had kids? You’d get flowers, you’d dress up to look super hot (in my case maybe semi-hot), and enjoy a candlelit dinner. Now that we have kids, Valentine’s Day has become a Family Holiday. It’s more about which character to choose for the tiny little Valentine’s for everyone in the kids’ class, throwing love notes in my daughter’s school lunch box, watching the cats eat the flowers, and begging my son to leave some chocolate for the rest of us.
But, you know what? That’s fine with me. After all, our kids are the result of our hot romance and proof of our love. So instead of getting a babysitter and going out to dinner, we like to celebrate Valentine’s Day as a family and we have fun doing little things for each other all week that say “I Love You.” I hope these ideas inspire you to do the same today and throughout the rest of the year. Why should all the fun be just on Valentine’s Day, right?
1. Have a heart. You can have so much fun with a heart-shaped cookie cutter. I surprised my daughter by cutting out heart into her peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich for her school lunch. I cut a small heart shape into one slice of the bread so you could see the red jelly. You can also make French Toast and cut the bread into heart shapes and throw some cut strawberries on top for color. Or, spread a thick layer of whipped cream out on a cookie sheet, freeze it and then cut heart shapes out while frozen. Drop that creamy heart in a mug of hot chocolate for some fun! Here are some other things you can do with a heart-shaped cookie cutter.
2. Turn dinner upside down. Let the kids eat dessert first on Valentine’s Day. Anything that breaks routine is big fun for kids.
3. The Power of a Flower. My daughter gets 1 rose from her Dad, which puts the biggest smile on her face. Read my post about the Power of a Flower for your little girl.
4. A Night Out, at Home. Can’t find a babysitter for Valentine’s Day this year? No problem. Read about how you can still have a special night at home with the kids by cooking together dinner and having the kids serve you as waiters with a romantic, candle lit feast. Read how to make it happen.
In general, we don’t decorate the house a lot for Valentine’s Day. We usually focus our energy on baking treats instead. But this year, I wanted to put something up as another small way to say “I Love You” to the family. So, the kids and I made hanging Valentine’s Day hearts. It was super easy! We hung the Valentine’s from clothes pins in our family room to add some V-Day flair to the house for the past two weeks. But the best part is, on the back of each heart, we wrote a little love note to Grandma and Grandpa and we’re sending them out as Valentines today.
Here’s what you need:
Foam Hearts (we bought these at Target but you can buy foam sheets in Valentine’s Day colors and cut out your own.)
Heart Shaped Doilies – I think ours were from Wilton and we got them at Michael’s
Ribbon – we used 1/2 inch wide ribbon in sheer pink, red, and purple as well as a solid bright green for contrast
Glue Stick
Decorations – We used small red and pink roses that we found in the bridal section at Michael’s. You can use foam shapes, glitter, or sequins to dress up your hearts
Photos
Assembly is easy. Use your gluestick to glue the doily down onto the foam heart. Then glue the photo of the kids or the whole family on top of the doily. Now add the decorations.
To finish it and add more color, we cut three pieces of different colored ribbon and tied them through one of the holes on the outside of the heart. By putting the three together you get a nice color burst. I like cutting the ribbon to different lengths for more interest, so I cut them anywhere from 8″ to 12″ long. Then we threaded a single ribbon through the top two holes on the heart to make the hanger.
If you want to turn it into a Valentine’s Day card or gift, just write a love note on the back with a sharpie or even a ball point pen. Have fun crafting with the kids!
Here’s a round-up of our top Valentine’s Day posts for more fun ideas.
The kids and I were experimenting in the kitchen again and came up with an easy Valentine’s Day dessert idea. Believe it or not, the inspiration for this dessert came from my son’s science project. We needed to puree Strawberries for an experiment he is doing to see how fast mold grows. Yum! We had leftover Strawberry puree that looked and smelled too good to throw out so we ad libbed, using what we already had in the house, and came up with a fun Valentine’s Day dessert.
You’ll need:
1/2 pint of strawberries
Pre-made pound cake (your choice)
1/2 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
Heart cookie cutters
Sprinkles!
1. Put strawberries in food processor and puree until smooth. No chunks, please.
2. Cover the bottom of a dessert plate with the strawberry puree.
3. Cut a 1/2 inch slice of pound cake and use the cookie cutter to cut out heart shapes. I used a large and small cookie cutter to put both on the plate. You may need to cut the pound cake lengthwise to have enough surface area for your cookie cutter depending on the size of the cutter.
4. Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave, according to the directions on the package. Once melted, frost the top of the pound cake with the chocolate.
5. Add sprinkles, sprinkles, and more sprinkles, then serve. You can also add whipped cream or sprinkle powdered sugar over the top to make it look even more finished.
Last week I was excited to get in to see Gale Gand, host of Food Network’s “Sweet Dreams” and author of several dessert cookbooks, at our local library. Her presentation was fun and she demonstrated how to make Chocolate Mousse. With samples. Yummy! It looked easy enough that my daughter and I decided to make it for Daddy and to jazz it up with some Valentine’s Day accents. (Don’t get your hopes up too high with the “jazz it up” part.)
There are only 4 ingredients in the recipe (nice!) and you get to use the electric stand mixer a lot, which my daughter thinks is the coolest part of cooking. This is a great recipe to teach your kids how to separate egg whites or egg yolks. I generally crack the egg and pass the yolk back and forth between the two shells to separate out the egg whites. Gale showed us her preferred method which was to drop the egg into your hand with your fingers slightly separated and let the egg whites drip down into a bowl between your fingers. It worked great, just wash your hands when you’re done. (As if you weren’t going to figure that part out, but I felt the need to throw in a safety tip.) (more…)
My daughter and I got a little creative this past weekend making Valentine’s Day brownies. Chocolate is a huge hit in my house, as you can imagine, so ooey-gooey brownies were on the top of our baking list.
You’ll Need:
Brownie Mix – We used King Arthur’s Gluten Free Brownie Mix for the first time and I have to say they were so tasty! I highly recommend it.
Frosting – Chocolate and Vanilla
Pink food coloring paste
Large and small heart cookie cutters
Candies – Heart-shaped York Peppermint Patty, Valentine’s Day M&M’s
Gum paste
Sprinkles, sprinkles and more sprinkles
1. We baked the brownies in a large baking dish (9 x 12) since I wanted them to be flatter so we could make a sandwich. I cut down the baking time by about 5 minutes since these brownies were thinner than indicated on the package. Let them cool.
2. Use the large Heart cookie cutter to cut your brownie shapes. Cut some small hearts out of the remaining brownie pan left-overs or cut a small heart out of the center of one of your larger heart brownies.
3. Add pink food coloring to the vanilla frosting. We wanted hot pink so we added quite a bit of pink food coloring paste to get the intensity we wanted.
4. Now decorate. You can frost the brownies and decorate with sprinkles, make shapes with candies, or put two brownies together to make a sandwich or whoopie pie effect. My daughter created the white bear and white heart out of gum paste. While she had fun making shapes with the gum paste, no one really liked it enough to eat it.
My favorite was the mouse. Which do you like best?
No matter how you decide to decorate your brownies, they’ll all taste great.
I was having a hard time coming up with a homemade Valetine’s Day card or even craft to make with my boy. I craft a lot with my daughter but I wanted to put a little macho spin on our Valentine’s Day crafts. After a little searching online, I found some super creative ways to make your little man smile this Valentine’s Day. Click on over to the blog site links below get the free downloads or instructions. These are some creative ladies!
May the Force Be With You
If you have a Star Wars or Clone Wars fan at home, he is going to love these cards from Cute as a Fox Creations. Download the cards for free and assemble them with your son to hand out to the whole class.
This Treat’s for You!
Jen over at the Smile Report had a cute way of incorporating a photo of your little boy into the Valentine’s Day card. Add a lollipop, pencil or glow stick to make it 3D and extra cool.
Which one are you going to make? I can’t decide yet. If you have an idea for a Valentine’s Day card or craft for boys, please shoot me a link in the comments box and I’ll add it to the post.
Groundhog’s Day is next week and I was racking my brain for something fun to do to celebrate with the kids. Since all of the fun occurs in the morning – Punxatawney Phil gets up pretty early to see his shadow – I thought a breakfast treat would be ideal. So, I came up with these Groundhog’s Day Pancakes and I think they came out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. You can make them and surprise the kids when they come down for breakfast or have fun cooking together.
Here’s how to make the the Groundhog and his Shadow.
You can use any Pancake recipe you like. Here’s a good, basic pancake recipe from MarkBittman.com. However, I used a Whole Wheat Pancake Mix for this project. Whole wheat flour made the pancakes a little more brown in color which was perfect for a Groundhog. I made a double batch of pancake mix, split it in half into two separate bowls, and added black food coloring to half of the mix for the shadow pancakes.
I used my Pancake Dispenser Pen to pour out the batter into a circle head shape and then added little ears. (I have to say, of all the weird kitchen gadgets I’ve bought, I use my Pancake Dispenser Pen a lot.) If you don’t have a pancake pen, it’s no problem, just use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to pour the mix onto the griddle making one big circle and then adding to little circles to the top for the ears. I made the “brown” Groundhog pancakes first and kept them warm in the oven. Then, I made the black batch of pancakes and tried to make them about the same size as the brown pancakes.
For the face, I used sliced bananas for the cheeks, strawberries for the ears and tongue, a blueberry for the nose and finally two chocolate chips for the eyes. To assemble, put the shadow pancake down on the plate first, the brown pancake on top and then decorate the face.
My daughter and I played around with two other design versions to see which we liked best. What do you think?
Shadow or no shadow, your kids will love this fun breakfast idea to help celebrate Groundhog’s Day next week.
Here’s even more ideas on how to celebrate Groundhog’s Day with the Kids. If you are on Pinterest, you can follow my Groundhog’s Day Fun Board or any of the other boards I’ve created to have more fun with your family. Need an invitation to join Pinterest? Shoot me an email at sue (at) chocolatecakeclub.com and I’ll invite you.
Egg Carton Dragon Craft
With an empty egg carton and some paint, you can make a very cool-looking dragon.
Dragon Parade
Make some paper dragons and start a parade around the house.
Paper latern
During the Festival of Lanterns, children carry candle-lit lanterns in the street. Here’s an easy way to make a paper lantern.
Firecrackers
Using some household cardboard tubes, your kids will love making these red firecrackers to decorate the house.
Dragon Costume
This traditional Traditional “Chase the Tail” Game is so fun with this easy Dragon Costume for kids.
Tutorial on How to Draw a Chinese Dragon Head
I love Chinese Dragons. They are so magestic looking. If you have some little artists at home, see if they can draw you a Chinese Dragon from this tutorial.
Make a Good Luck Red Envelope
During Chinese New Years, it is traditional for parents and grandparents to give kids red envelopes filled with money or trinkets for good luck. It’s easy to make your own.
Chinese Tea Party
While this isn’t specifically a Chinese New Year celebration, Amy at LivingLocurto.com shared a very fun idea for a kids’ Chinese Tea Party. There are a few fun activities and snacks you can adapt for your celebration.
Tell me which craft are you going to make with the kids? If you have any other craft ideas, please share in the comments section. I’d love to see them.
Looking for a reason to celebrate this weekend? Want to try something fun and new with the kids? Try celebrating the Chinese New Year and learn all about a new culture.
I did a little research online and learned that Chinese New Years celebrations last 15 days and end with the Lantern Festival. Each of the 15 days has a different tradition or activity as part of the celebration. According to several sites, New Years is the most festive holiday of the year in China and it is a time to be home with family and fiends. A time to cook and enjoy food together. So, I’m in!
I was very excited that a friend of mine, who is very active with the Chicago Chinese Cultural Institute, invited my family to join hers at the Institute’s 8th Annual Chinese New Year Family Dinner. We are going to learn how all about the Holiday, learn how to make dumplings, and enjoy a Chinese Lion Dance. My kids are thrilled! My son loves Chinese dumplings as much as he does donuts and they always have a blast in Chicago’s Chinatown. I don’t know if the dinner is sold out but if you live in Chicago and are interested, here’s the link to register.
Chinese New Year starts next Monday, January 23rd. Their calendar is different from the traditional western calendar because it is based on the lunar cycles of the moon. So, the date of the New Year changes every year depending on the moon’s cycle. 2012 is a special year because it’s the Year of the Dragon, supposedly the mightiest of the Chinese Zodiac animal figures. The Dragon stands for power, good luck, success, and happiness. My son was supposed to be born in the Year of the Dragon way back in 2000 but he missed it by about 10 days and ended up as a Rabbit. Story of our life.
In Chinese Astrology, every year is represented by an animal, within a 12 year cycle. The animal is said to represent certain qualities and depending on what year you were born or under which animal, it is believed that you exhibit the same characteristics. Here’s a good description of the Chinese Zodiac and the characteristics of each animal. For more information on Chinese New Years, Hellokids.com has some great kid friendly explanations.
Have you thrown out the Christmas cards you’ve received yet? Don’t! There is still joy and fun to be had with them. In our house we tend to be so busy during the Holiday Season that I save all of the Christmas cards we receive in the mail and read them after New Years when I have time to sit, relax, and catch up on the news our friends and family share in their cards. After that, I mark down in an address book who we got cards from this year so I don’t forget anyone next year. (There are always people to add and subtract from the card mailing list each year, right?) Finally, I throw them in the recycle bin. But, I learned a new idea last year to have one more round of fun with the cards.
Last year, a gentleman came up to me after one of my speaking engagements and told me about a great tradition they do in their house with their Christmas cards. They have an art show. He said his family tapes all of the cards up on a wall in their house and then they vote on their favorite card for the year. I know I tend to open the cards quickly and say “Oh, that’s cute” but I don’t really stop to look at the cards as a piece of art and I should, because some are amazing. Even the photo postcards can be admired for the composition of the card or the photography itself. He said that the winning card gets put in a box with the other year’s winners so you have a showcase of the “best-of-the-best” in Christmas-themed art. You could also make a scrapbook or my daughter had the idea of making a story book using the winning cards as the illustrations. I’m totally digging that idea and she is working on it.
Here’s an idea to make the voting easier. Have everyone in the family pick their top 3 favorite cards. Take down all of the rest off the wall. Now you have a smaller selection. Then have everyone choose 3 favorites again. Keep whittling it down until you have 3 cards total on the wall. Have everyone explain what they like best about their favorite card and why it should win. For the final vote, have everyone write their favorite on a piece of paper so it’s an anonymous vote and crown the winner. If it is a tie or no one can agree, then Mom’s pick wins. Why? You shouldn’t even have to ask.
Here’s another great idea to recycle and get more out of your Christmas cards. Aubrey at The Mother Huddle blog had a great idea for making a Christmas card photo collage. Read her post on how to do it.
Any other ideas of what to do with your Christmas cards? Leave me a comment because I’d love to hear about them.
Christmas is over but are you still in the mood to party? Looking to ring in 2012 with some fun for your family? Personally, I prefer to go to bed early and sleep in on New Year’s Day to recover from the Holiday season. My kids however, like the idea of celebrating the arrival of the new year. So, we will PARTY. Since I’m usually running on empty, I’ve put together some fun but easy ideas for staying home and celebrating in your family room with the kids.
GENERAL TIPS:
Keep it low-key.
You don’t need to go crazy cleaning the house, buying party favors, and cooking to have a fun New Year’s celebration. Keep the party ideas simple. Even if you just end up watching the countdown shows on TV with the kids, they’ll appreciate it.
Make it a party.
Definitely invite neighbors, family and friends with kids about the same age over to help celebrate. This keeps everyone off of the road, you can all watch the kids together, everyone can ooh and aah over your Christmas decorations one more time, and it saves on babysitter money. To keep it casual and easy, have everyone bring a dish to share. Start the party later so you don’t need to cook dinner, just have snacks and desserts. Invite the kids to come over in their pajamas so it’s casual, and parents won’t have to change their kids’ clothes if they fall asleep before going home.
Time is all relative.
Even if you have small children, you can still ring in the new year together. Here’s a trick. If you have small children who might not make it to midnight, change the clocks in the house so that “midnight” hits around 9 or 10 p.m. The kids will feel like they got to stay up and celebrate and you will still be able to put them to bed at a decent time. Or have the kids at the party bring sleeping bags so they can go to sleep while the parents still stay up and party a little more.
Pop in the Fun
Kids love to make noise and New Year’s Eve is all about loud noise. Grab some inexpensive noise makers at your local Dollar Store or buy a roll of large bubble wrap. Give each kid a piece and let them “Pop it Up” at midnight while the adults pop open the champagne. Skip any confetti or streamers unless you want to spend the next day cleaning. Remember, we said keep it simple.
Balloon Drop
Another fun idea is to blow up balloons and “drop” them at midnight. Rig up a net in a corner of the basement or drop them over the balcony stairs. Kids will have fun popping the balloons and chasing them around.
Re-Decorate Your Christmas Tree
I loved this idea from a Mom who wrote in to familyfun.com a few years ago. She had her children help her take the ornaments off the Christmas tree so that they could make a “New Year’s Tree.” They took all of the Christmas ornaments off of the tree but left the lights on. They then added curled ribbon, party horns, balloons — basically everything needed for a New Year’s Eve party for the children. What a fun and festive idea and you get a second use out of your Christmas tree! If you are planning on having people over to help celebrate New Year’s Eve, this is a perfect idea on how to decorate.
ACTIVITIES:
It’s easier to plan a party if you have a theme. Here are 3 easy themes and activities to keep the family occupied and laughing while you wait for midnight.
Game Night
Get out those new board games you got for Christmas or Hanukkah, find your old favorites in the closet or fire up the Wii for a little family competition. Definitely grab prizes like big boxes of movie theater candy, large chocolate bars, or my favorite, win coupons to get out of household chores. Click here for more ideas on planning a Family Game Night. Here are a few of my family’s favorite games:
Why not have fun cooking together and sharing some laughs in the kitchen by making homemade pizza? If you have a great pizza recipe and a pizza stone, you are good to go. If not, here’s my family’s killer homemade pizza recipe. To make the evening more unique, have everyone wear their pajamas all night. Invite another family over and make it a kids/adult slumber party. Or set up a tent in the living room and the kids can watch the ball drop from inside the tent in their sleeping bags. Here are some more ideas on how to host a fun Pizza Party.
Fancy Schmancy New Years Eve Party
Half the fun of New Year’s Eve is getting dressed up. Who loves dress up more than kids? It’s also fun to dance so why not combine these two into a Fancy Schmancy New Year’s Eve Party? Kids love watching their parents get dressed up for New Year’s Eve Parties, so let them share in the spotlight this year by dressing up in their fancy duds or their kooky dress-up clothes.
You don’t have to go to a club to hear the latest bands and dance on New Years. Pick a theme and host a kid’s prom at home. Turn the New Year’s countdowns on the TV and let the kids dance along to the featured bands. Or set up an area in the house as a dance floor and spin the tunes. Create a playlist of the top dance hits of 2011 and groove those holiday feeding-frenzy calories away or grab some of our favorite kids music to get them hopping. Get your video camera out because the video of your kids dressed up and dancing will be worth it!
For more ideas, here’s a video when I was on WGN last year talking about hosting a New Years Eve party for your kids. I was also on MomTalkRadio last night sharing a few of these New Years Eve ideas for your family.
Whatever you decide to do, have a safe and wonderful New Year’s Eve with your family. We look forward to sharing more simple, creative and memorable Family Fun ideas with you in 2012, so we can all have more Chocolate Cake Moments.
There’s only 9 more days for having fun with you Elf on the Shelf. Are you out of ideas yet? Well, here are more fun things you can do to hide and enjoy your Elf on the Shelf tradition.
Elf on the Shelf Cookies
Bridget over at the Bake at 350 blog did an AMAZING job with these Elf on the Shelf cut-out cookies. I wish I could ice cookies like that!
Elf Magic
Amy at Living Locurto had some fun with her kids by giving them “Elf Seeds” and creating magic. Check it out, it’s a very fun idea. She also has a free download with ideas for posing your Elf.
Elf Mischief
I’ve been having a blast creating funny situations for our Elf Jack. I found that I’ve been doing so many “scenes” with our elf that when I actually do hide him. The kids can’t even find him. They have become lazy with their elf sighting skills. Oh well. Here are some of the latest Elf sightings in our house.
Snowball Fight
Jack picked a snowball fight with one of our other Elf decorations. Each side has his own Marshmallow Reindeer team mascot.
Snow Globe
I made homemade snow globes with the kids one night and Jack decided to make his own that night while we were sleeping.
Elf Notes
Jack wrote our kids a note last year and of course everyone knows that Elves write backwards, so the kids had to hold their notes up to the mirror to read it. (You knew that, right?)
Late Elf Nights
We have a pull out couch in our family room that we like to use for Family Movie Night. We pull out the couch and everyone watches the movie in their PJ’s. Well, the kids loved it when they came down one night to find Jack had pulled out the couch and had stayed up all night watching Holiday movies. He even made himself an espresso to stay up. The cat must have kept him company.
I’ve been working on my Parents Sanity-Saving Guide to Elf on the Shelf for the last few weeks but sadly I didn’t get it done in time for the Holiday Season. Life keeps getting in my way. I’m make sure you know when it’s done so you can download it for next year.
What do you do for fun with your Elf on the Shelf? Send me a photo and I’ll put it up on the blog. I’d love to highlight your creativity! Send photos to sue (at) chocolatecakeclub.com Thanks!
Don’t you just love Holiday family traditions? Everyone is excited, looking forward to the activity. It’s fun to get everything ready with the kids. And then it’s fun to make the memories.
However, every now and then I feel like some of our traditions are getting a little “stale” and we need to spice them up a bit. Maybe you just need to add a fun twist to an existing family tradition or maybe your kids are a little older now so they can do more things.
So I did a little investigating and I was amazed at some of the really unique and cool traditions that other families are doing for fun. So I flagged some traditions I found online and asked my readers about some of their unique Holiday Family Traditions. You might want to start some of these fun activities in your home.
Christmas Eve Traditions
There are a lot of fun activities that go on on Christmas Eve night. Some are more traditional like opening gifts from family members to going to midnight mass. Some read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and others have to sing a Christmas carol before you get to open gifts. (OK, that was my Mom’s rule.) However, some families kick it up a notch. I’ve seen online that some families wear matching Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve. My Mother-in-law has a good family friends that hosts a talent show on Christmas Eve. Everyone no matter what age has to get up and provide entertainment for the whole family. If your family tends towards the “dramatic” it’s a nice tradition because cousins were working together on an act which brought them even closer together. Plus, it makes for great family videos.
The Family Memory Tablecloth
Amy over at SheWearsManyHats.com has a unique family tradition where they make aFamily Tablecloth. Every year when her family gets together for the Holiday they add a saying, memory, hand print or other drawing in pencil onto the designated family tablecloth. Then her mother-in-law embroiders over the pencil marks during the year so that next Holiday you see your contribution permanently added in needlepoint. The tablecloth grows as the family does. How cool!
Tree Looking
My husband’s family lives in rural Iowa and for years they’ve had a tradition of “tree looking” where you drive around to your friends’ houses during the Holiday Season and drop in to look at their tree. I know my Mother-in-law always had to have some cookies or treats ready because you never know when someone will stop by. It’s casual, informal and a fun way to stay connected with friends or neighbors and get to check out all of the hard work people put into decorating their homes for Christmas. I only ever get to see my neighbors’ trees from the window. I love the idea of stopping by to admire and chat. I love seeing other people’s Christmas decorations too because there is usually a memory or story behind some of them that I love hearing.
Hide and Seek Traditions
This year, the Elf on the Shelf tradition has really taken off but many families have been hiding the Christmas Pickle for years. This is a German traditions where you have a glass pickle ornament that gets hidden on the tree and whoever finds it first on Christmas Eve wins a prize or small gift. Here’s how one of my readers does the Christmas Pickle tradition.
The Cookie Drop
Over at Girlfriendology.com, I found a cute post about a Cookie Drop tradition. Andi, the author from Udandi.com, makes up packages of homemade cookies, drops them at a friend or neighbor’s house, takes a photo of the package at their door and sends them an email telling them to check their front door for a surprise. Very cool!
Does your family have any unique holiday traditions? I’d love to hear about them so please leave me a comment.
Looking for a way to spice up your family’s Holiday Traditions this year? I suggest you Be Creative and Try Something New to add a little variety to your Holiday Season and make it more fun this year.
While we all love traditions and look forward to them every year because they provide a foundation for the family’s Holiday activities, it doesn’t mean you can’t adapt or update the tradition or try something new entirely. Variety is the spice of life! What’s the worst that could happen? You don’t like the new activity and you don’t do it again next year.
So, instead of putting on your Santa Hat, put on your thinking caps and get the whole family to brainstorm some creative ways to amp up your existing Holiday Traditions. If your family has a tradition of cutting down a real tree every year, try wearing Santa Hats or dressing like lumberjacks this year to give the event a little silliness and flair. If you all bake Holiday cookies together, be adventurous and try a new recipe or one that sounds really wild. Do all the girls in your family get together for Holiday Tea? Ask everyone to wear an audacious hat to make the affair more elegant and/or goofy.
If your family seems a little burned out on the tried and true family traditions, be adventurous this year and try a new activity that you’ve heard or read about. Who knows? It may become a new favorite. So, if you always go to see the Christmas Carol play, try the Nutcracker Ballet this year. If you’ve never had a real Christmas tree, try cutting one down this year and see if you like the difference. If your kids are a little older now, try going to Midnight Mass. Invite other people to your Hannukah celebration to teach them about your traditions. Try making your menorah this year instead of using the family favorite. Or, buy a candle making set and have the whole family make candles this year for the Celebration of Light. (I’m not Jewish but I asked my friends about their traditions and looked and online for ideas. I found a really fun article on family Hannukah traditions to do with your kids at SheKnows.com. Let me know what you think.)
Need some fun ideas to say “Thank you” and “Happy Holidays” for your kid’s teachers this year? Helpful neighbors, sitters, or co-workers on your list? I try to be creative and come up with something unique or homemade, but many years I give gifts that I think they could really use, like gift cards or books. I am fortunate enough to have 6 teachers living in my neighborhood so I asked them what they like to get at the end of the year from their students. Here were their top answers, ideas from my readers, as well as some of my own ideas for thoughtful ways to say Happy Holidays.
CLASSROOM GIFTS:
Book Gift Cards – Many teachers have to buy their own books for the classroom so gift cards help to cover that expense. You can also donate some of your favorite, gently used books for the classroom as another thoughtful gift. Here’s a cool way to “wrap” your teacher’s gift card that I saw at RoomMomSpot.com – make a snow globe.
School Supplies – A reader last year told me she gets a canvas bag and fills it with extra school supplies and chocolate. Something for the teacher and something for the classroom. (more…)
What? It happens! It’s the Holiday Season. There’s so much to do – gift buying, wrapping, decorating, baking, and if you’re lucky, parties. You’re tired from a long day and you forget to move the Elf. The kids are going to be crushed. Now what?
How many of you have snapped awake at 4 a.m. and had to get up to move the Elf? We’ve all been there!
Well, after doing the Elf on the Shelf Family Holiday Tradition for the past 5 years, I’ve done everything wrong you possibly can … and survived. The Elf on the Shelf hide and seek tradition is supposed to be fun after all, not stressful for Mom and Dad. But the “magic” all depends on Mom and Dad, so here are some tips and tricks to recover from “magic” malfunctions.
What to do if you forget to move the Elf:
Pretend the Elf was tricky and stayed in the same spot to fool them. I’ve used this excuse at least once almost every year. The kids now expect our Elf to try and trick them by not moving at least one night.
Say that the weather near the North Pole was so bad that he couldn’t fly so he stayed put. This works well if the weather is really bad in your area. The kids can “see” that the weather was bad. If it’s not bad by your house, blame it on the Arctic Winds in the North Pole.
Guess that the Elf really liked that spot and decided to try it again another night.
Tell your kids that you were up all night – couldn’t sleep, too much work before Holidays, sick, etc. – so the Elf couldn’t leave because not everyone was asleep. Santa can’t come if you aren’t sleeping so it should be logical that the Elf can’t fly away if someone is awake. Tell your kids you’ll try to better tonight.
What to do when you forget to move the Elf two nights in a row:
I hope this never happens to you but it did to me once. One year I forgot to move our Elf two nights in a row and my daughter was devastated. “Oh, no! Our Elf is dead!” Hardly the spirit of Christmas, right? So we figured that maybe someone had accidentally touched him and he lost his magic. Here’s how we fixed it after many tears and me being overcome with Elf guilt. Write a letter to Santa. I told my daughter to write the big Man and ask him to give our Elf his magic back. We put the letter in an envelope addressed to Santa at the North Pole and put it in the mailbox.
I then wrote myself a note and set my alarm clock at 11:00 p.m. to go off to remind me to move the Elf before going to bed. That night there was a “Christmas miracle” and the Elf moved, so my daughter was thrilled that Santa got her letter and heard her plea. It actually ended up making her even more invested in the tradition and our Elf’s welfare.
Note: While I don’t really condone lying to my kids, I do want to fill their life with magic and joy, so a little fib here and there to keep everyone smiling is OK in my book.
Any other ideas? What has worked for you when you forget to move the Elf?
The Chicagoland area has some wonderful family-oriented activities to help you celebrate the Holidays and have fun together. We have a whole list of activities that we want to do each Holiday Season to take advantage of all of the cool happenings in Chicago. Chicago shines during December and whether you live here or are just visiting – take advantage of the fun.
Here are a few well-known and lesser-known local Holiday favorites that my family loves to do. Many of these have become Holiday Traditions that our kids look forward to every year.
Winter Wonderland at John Hancock Building – The Christmas tree is beautiful, the train exhibit inside is delightful for kids, and get a free photo with Santa every weekend from 12 – 4 p.m.
Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza – This is my family’s favorite thing to do every Christmas. We have been 3 times already this year. The hot sausages, German pastries, beautiful ornaments from Germany and the Gluhwein make it a hit for parents and kids.
Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theater or Joffrey Ballet Nutcracker - we alternate these two shows every year. This year we’re going to the Nutcracker Ballet. Joffrey’s version is the BEST. I’ve seen it 6 times. Last year, the kids LOVED the Christmas Carol. The stage and the special effects were incredible.
Nutcracker Tea at Seasons of Long Grove or Holiday Tea at the Drake Hotel is a special moment for the whole family or a Mom, Daughter and Grandmother event. I met a friend for Holiday Tea at the Drake Hotel this past weekend and the decorations were spectacular. So many adorable little girls in fancy dresses!
Ice Skating Millenium Park – Rockerfeller Plaza doesn’t have the mighty Bean sculpture behind it, now does it? Friday nights in December there is caroling in front of the Cloudgate sculpture (aka the Bean) at 6 p.m. Haven’t gone yet but I’m sure the photo ops are incredible.
Any Age:
Carriage ride on Michigan Avenue – Grab yours by the Water Tower
– We go every year. It’s amazing. This year it is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 17th at 2:30 p.m. Save us a seat, we’ll see you there.
Shop windows at Macy’s on State Street, then see the beautiful, decorated Christmas trees at Water Tower Place, 900 North Mall or NorthBridge. There is supposed to be an incredible, 5 story Grinch display in Water Tower Place so check it out.
No matter what you decide to do this year, create some memories and have some Happy Holiday Fun with your family!
What are your favorite things to do in Chicago during the Holiday Season?
We have a special Holiday tradition in our house that we do every year with the kids and Grandma and Grandpa. We decorate a Gingerbread House. We usually buy a kit where the house pieces are already made and all we have to do is decorate. (Saves a huge amount of time!) We eve use old Halloween candy as additional decorations for the house to get rid of the “less than desirable” candy that the kids never ate.
If you are looking for recipes to make the gingerbread pieces yourself, different gingerbread kits or tips on how to best tackle a gingerbread together, try the Fork & Bottle site or the Wilton site. They both have a nice round-up post of all things Gingerbread. If you want to see some incredible gingerbread houses for inspiration, check out Sweetopia, How to Cook That, or Better Homes and Gardens.
One year we branched out and made a gingerbread stable since my daughter loves horses. We’ve also made a gingerbread train. You can find the gingerbread train kit here. We even found a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Gingerbread House Kit. I love the Bumble! If you know of any other cool gingerbread kits out there, let us know. We’re always game for trying a new twist on a favorite family activity.
However, if you want to avoid the sticky mess and try something new this year, we found this great idea on the Alpha Mom site to build a cardboard Gingerbread House. Very cute!
Do you decorate a gingerbread house every year? Do you eat the gingerbread house when you’re done?
There are so many Holiday family traditions that I look forward to every year. But, you know, Holiday Traditions don’t always have to be about family. One of my favorite traditions is a Mom’s Night Out with friends. For a few years now, three of us girl friends have been getting together in December to have Holiday Tea. We relax, reconnect, and kick off the Holiday Season. So civilized! Chicago has some amazing places for tea – the Drake Hotel, the Peninsula Hotel, the Russian Tea Room. We meet, drink, eat and exchange some gifts. I dig the champagne, exotic teas, and the cute little sweets tray. I look forward to it every year and I’m excited for our tea party next weekend at the Drake Hotel.
Tea parties not your thing? Here are some other ideas for outings with your bestest Mom friends. Take some time for yourself during the Holiday Season to unwind and recharge. After all, if Mommy ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
1. Shopping Spree – Kill two birds with one stone and organize an outing to get your Holiday shopping done. Head on over to that new Mall you’ve been dying to visit. Or take the train and go to the big stores downtown. It’s always more fun when you have someone helping you shop for those impossible people on your list.
2. Cookie Swaps – Do you and your friends like to bake? Get a cookie swap going this year. CreativeMama.com has all the tips on How to Host a Cookie Swap. Stand around the kitchen with some cookie dough martinis and bake up a storm. Put on some music and dance while you’re at it. (Make sure your husband takes the kids to the movies. You don’t want them to die of shame while you boogie and sing.)Lauren McKinsey has some very cute printables you can buy to add some style to your Cookie Exchange.
3. Holiday Wine Tasting – Do you have a local winery or gourmet wine shop in your area? Call and see if they will give you a tour or a mini wine tasting class. You can tell your hubby that you are going to find the perfect wine for Holiday dinner but we all know you are going for the fun. They may even have little snacks. Bonus! If you can’t find a place to host your wine tasting, don’t be afraid to have it at someone’s home. TLC and TheDailyMeal.com offer tons of tips and ideas to make it easy.
4. Enjoy the Arts - I love the Nutcracker Ballet. We are lucky in Chicago to have the Joffrey Ballet perform the Nutcracker every year. I’ve seen numerous versions and noboby does it better than Joffrey. This is the perfect excuse to get together with the girls and get your sugar plum fairy fix. If Ballet isn’t your thing, check your local entertainment guides to see what Holiday shows are available. Don’t forget to check some of the churches or auditoriums who might have the Canadian Brass or other Holiday music concerts. Start planning now and get your tickets ahead of time.
5. Cooking Class – Another option for a fun evening out with the girls is a cooking class. If you don’t already have a favorite place for cooking classes, ask your friends what they recommend or look online. Some Williams Sonoma and Sur La Table stores have Holiday-themed cooking classes. You can even have a private chef come to your house and teach the class in a more comfortable setting. Learn how to make killer Holiday desserts or New Years Eve party appetizers.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope that you have plenty to be thankful for today and your day is full of “Chocolate Cake Moments.” I made the kids write out a list of what they were grateful for so I thought I would take my turn and then I’m off to eat turkey with my family!
As Bing Crosby sang in Holiday Inn, one of our family’s favorite Holiday movies, “I’ve Got Plenty to Be Thankful For”:
A husband who loves me and lets me pursue my passions both personally and professionally
A family that indulges me with my sometimes crazy family fun ideas
A son who makes me pull my hair out, but makes me laugh like nobody’s business
A daughter who can amaze me with how bravely she fights Type 1 diabetes, make me smile with her artwork, and is always game to try a new idea for the blog
A kitchen filled with donuts
A cat who can calm me and put me to sleep by purring in my ear
A smaller, weirder cat who is so funny looking I can’t stop smiling when I see him
An huge extended family that we can have fun with
A pair of red shoes
A beautiful house that is warm, cozy, and more importantly, lived in
Incredibly friendly neighbors
Friends who get my sense of humor and love to come out and play with me and my hair-brained ideas
A beautiful, furry dog who is still with us this Thanksgiving
The smell of turkey and gravy in my kitchen
Customers and friends who support my business so I can share my passion for having more fun with family and bring smiles to as many families as I can. Thank you!
I am grateful for you, my readers, friends and customers. I hope my ideas continue to inspire you to bring more laughter into your home. Now, go have fun with your family.
Sue Kirchner
Chief Fun Officer
www.ChocolateCakeClub.com
www.ChocolateCakeMoments.com
My kids are so psyched for the day after Thanksgiving when we start up our Elf on the Shelf Family Holiday Tradition. They have been asking for days when “Jack” is coming. We’ve been playing this fun Hide ‘n Seek game every Christmas for the past 4 years now. Now that my kids are older (9 and 11) and we’ve been doing this for awhile, I needed some creative ways to have even more fun with our Elf this year. Here are a few ideas that I thought up, that we tried last year, and some other fun ones I found online. I’ll be adding more as I get inspired throughout the next few weeks as we count down to Christmas.
Watch the Video
The creators of Elf on the Shelf put together a super cute video on how the Elves get ready for the Christmas season. You can watch it with the kids here.
Catch them in the Act
These Elves are photogenic. While the kids are sleeping or at school, take some funny photos of the Elves raiding the fridge or peeking in the wrapped presents or sleeping with the cat. Take them off center and close-up so it looks like the Elf took his or her own picture with your camera.
Elf Letters
My daughter loves to write letters. She writes some for Santa, Rudolph, Buddy from the Elf movie, the Tooth Fairy, the Pumpkin Fairy and our St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun. So have your kids write a note or letter to your Elf and maybe he’ll answer overnight. Want to make it even funnier – write the letter in an “Elf” language that no one understands or have the Elf write backwards so the kids have to hold the note up to a mirror to read.
The Elf was Here
Leave clues around the house that show that the Elf was moving around. A cereal box tipped over, Christmas cards out and on the floor, little footprints on the kitchen table or even have the Elf write his or her name out using raisins, Cheerios, legos or in some spilled flour. Here’s a cute idea – spill some flour out on the counter and then have the Elf make a snow angel in the flour.
Bake Up Some Fun
When the kids come downstairs for breakfast, won’t they be surprised to find a fresh batch of Christmas cookies on the kitchen counter that the Elf “baked” overnight?
Here are some very fun ideas I found online that would appeal to older kids or teens to keep the fun going.
Don’t Let the Elf Drive the Car
I read that a family would put their Elf in the driver’s seat of the car up on phone books or books so it looked like he was joy riding at night. Park the car in a crazy position, backwards, or out on the street to show that the Elf was out on the town and really shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
Elves are Socially Savvy
I read about some families setting up Facebook, Twitter or email accounts to talk with their teens or tweens or keep a Cyber “eye” on who’s naughty or nice online. Your Elf can also find funny Christmas inspired sites to email to the kids.
Fun in the “Off” Season
My kids always joke about what “Jack,” our Elf, does on his time off. What does he DO the other 11 months of the year? I think it would be a blast to give the Elf to friends or family you know who are traveling and ask them to take a picture of the Elf in that location. You know, like the gnome in the movie Amelie. The Elf can then send postcards or photos to the kids to keep the fun going all year long.
Elf on the Shelf season is approaching! Did you purchase an Elf on the Shelf set or receive one as a gift this year? Not sure when to start this fun holiday hide ‘n seek tradition? Don’t worry. Every family does it differently and here are some things to consider before the Elf makes his or her first appearance of the year.
When Does the Holiday Season Officially Start for Your Family?
When does the Christmas season officially start in your house? The day after Thanksgiving? The 1st of December? Christmas Eve? When do you get your Christmas tree? In our house, the Elf makes his first appearance the day after Thanksgiving. We traditionally switch gears to Christmas mode the Friday after Thanksgiving. (Really, right after the turkey dinner, it’s bring on Christmas!) It has been a tradition in our house to get out the decorations and go get our live tree that weekend, so it made sense for us to see the Elf at the same time. (Also, the kids drive us nuts asking where the Elf is way before Thanksgiving. While their constant queries can be annoying, I love that they are so excited about a tradition! We start as early as we can.) You can tell the kids that the Elf doesn’t show up until the decorations go up because he can only visit a decorated house. Whatever rationale works for you, go for it.
Key Dates Can Help You Remember
It’s easy to remember when to start this tradition if you tie the Elf’s first appearance to another key date in December. Start on December 1st when all of the advent calendars kick in. Or, a friend of mine starts her Elf on the Shelf fun on December 6th, which is St. Nicholas Day. Someone else told me they start December 13th because it is 12 days before Christmas.
What is Your Level of Enthusiasm?
I’ve had some friends say that they just can’t remember to hide the Elf or come up with a new hiding place every day for a month. It adds stress to an already stressful time of year. If that is the way you feel, start 5 or 10 nights before Christmas so the tradition doesn’t become overwhelming for you. (If you need ideas on where or how to hide the Elf, I’m starting a new series on creative Elf hiding places. Check back for some inspiration.)
Bottomline, there is no right or wrong answer on when to start the Elf on the Shelf tradition. Have Ziggy or Petunia or Mr. Twinkle Toes come out when you are ready for some Holiday family fun. If the kids are excited about the tradition then give them a date to look forward to. Anticipation makes it more fun!
When do you start your family’s Elf on the Shelf tradition?
Looking for some fun ideas to do with the family around Thanksgiving? Here are a few of my favorites as well as some great ideas from other Mom bloggers.
Get Active!
Our town hosts a Turkey Trot 1 Mile and 5K race every Thanksgiving morning. While we usually travel out of town to visit family on Thanksgiving so we have never been in town to participate, several of our neighbors run as a family every year. It’s a great way to burn the calories before you pack in the carbs!
Bake Up Memories.
We have a family tradition on Thanksgiving Day. After we gorge ourselves and the boys go watch football or take a nap on the couch, the women folk go back in the kitchen and make our favorite Holiday cookies. Each person brings their favorite recipe and we bake, bake, bake. (It keeps us awake and standing so we’re burning the Turkey dinner calories, right?)
When we started this tradition it was fun to see what Grandma’s favorite cookie recipe was when she was a kid. Now that she is gone, we still make those cookies to remember her by. The other benefits of this tradition are that everyone goes home with a plate of assorted cookies. Freeze them and pull them out for your Holiday parties. If that’s not a stress-bustin’ tip, I don’t know what is.
Make it a Tradition!
Here’s a post I wish I had written! Check out the great A to Z Thanksgiving Family Fun Ideas from Cindy Bultema at the SheSparkles Blog.
TheMotherHuddle.com also had some very cute ideas for Thanksgiving family activities. I love the Ornament Exchange idea!
Have your kids make these Thanks and Giving trees. Every night in November, they write down something they are thankful for on a leaf and paste it to the Thanks Tree. They also write something Giving they did on a leaf and paste it to the Giving tree. It’s a cute way to decorate for Thanksgiving and the whole family will love reading what the kids wrote. Download these cute templates from LivingLocurto.com.
Craft it up! If you want the kids to help make some fun decorations for the Thanksgiving dinner table or need an activity to keep the nieces and nephews amused on Thanksgiving Day, check out these kids craft ideas.
Looking for some fun ideas to do with the family around Thanksgiving? Here are a few of my favorites as well as some great ideas from other Mom bloggers.
Get Active!
Our town hosts a Turkey Trot 1 Mile and 5K race every Thanksgiving morning. While we usually travel out of town to visit family on Thanksgiving so we have never been in town to participate, several of our neighbors run as a family every year. It’s a great way to burn the calories before you pack in the carbs!
Bake Up Memories.
We have a family tradition on Thanksgiving Day. After we gorge ourselves and the boys go watch football or take a nap on the couch, the women folk go back in the kitchen and make our favorite Holiday cookies. Each person brings their favorite recipe and we bake, bake, bake. (It keeps us awake and standing so we’re burning the Turkey dinner calories, right?)
When we started this tradition it was fun to see what Grandma’s favorite cookie recipe was when she was a kid. Now that she is gone, we still make those cookies to remember her by. The other benefits of this tradition are that everyone goes home with a plate of assorted cookies. Freeze them and pull them out for your Holiday parties. If that’s not a stress-bustin’ tip, I don’t know what is.
Make it a Tradition!
Here’s a post I wish I had written! Check out the great A to Z Thanksgiving Family Fun Ideas from Cindy Bultema at the SheSparkles Blog.
TheMotherHuddle.com also had some very cute ideas for Thanksgiving family activities. I love the Ornament Exchange idea!
Have your kids make these Thanks and Giving trees. Every night in November, they write down something they are thankful for on a leaf and paste it to the Thanks Tree. They also write something Giving they did on a leaf and paste it to the Giving tree. It’s a cute way to decorate for Thanksgiving and the whole family will love reading what the kids wrote. Download these cute templates from LivingLocurto.com.
Craft it up! If you want the kids to help make some fun decorations for the Thanksgiving dinner table or need an activity to keep the nieces and nephews amused on Thanksgiving Day, check out these kids craft ideas.
I know it’s the day after Halloween but I wanted to get a few more posts in to help give you ideas for next Halloween. Throughout October, I’ve been trying to spice up my daughter’s school lunch since both she and I are getting bored with her lunches. She only eats two kinds of sandwiches, so we get a little limited. I was looking for ways to add a joke or put in some unusual foods to add an element of fun and surprise. Here are some of my ideas and others I found online to make a child’s school lunch more special around Halloween.
Have fun with your Halloween cookie cutters by cutting out sandwiches or even pieces of cheese. I used a pumpkin and skeleton cookie cutter to make these PB & J sandwiches for my daughter. The strawberry jelly makes the eyes look creepy. My daughter, who is 9 years old, loved them!
I even cut her sandwich diagonally and added candy corn eyes and tooth to make a goofy looking monster sandwich. Lame, I admit, but she liked it.
Finally, Jill over at Meet the Dubiens Blog always has some great lunch idea using bento picks and cookie cutters. She inspired me to buy some Holiday shaped mini cookie cutters so I can get creative with lunches in November and December.
What do you do to spice up your kids’ school lunches? I need more inspiration!
Have you heard of the Pumpkin Fairy? Or, the Switch Witch? If you want to discourage your kids from eating all of the unhealthy candy they collect on Halloween night, you might want to start a new family tradition and have the Pumpkin Fairy take their candy in exchange for little toys, trinkets, or other fun stuff.
Last year, my daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes so she wasn’t really looking forward to trick or treating until she heard about the Pumpkin Fairy. Why go collect all of that candy if your Mom won’t let you eat most of it, right? Well, we happened to have a diabetes check-up visit before Halloween and her doctor and nurses told her about how the pumpkin fairy visits kids who can’t or don’t want to eat all of their Halloween candy. According to the story, if you leave your candy out for the pumpkin fairy on Halloween night, she will take it and exchange it for something else – money, little toys, etc.
Well, this was right up my daughter’s imaginative alley so she decided to create a fairy house out of a pumpkin, so the pumpkin fairy would have someplace to sleep on Halloween night. She drew a picture of what the house should look like. As you can see from the photo of the pumpkin house, we didn’t come that close to the drawing. Oh well! My daughter and I had a blast making it together.
You can see the bed and “couch” inside the fairy house that we made out of extra pumpkin pieces. We used a leaf for a blanket. Although not a natural substance, we added a battery tea light to give her some light.
She felt that the pumpkin fairy wouldn’t be traveling alone (who would on Halloween night?) so she left pet treats in the fairy house for the fairy’s two pets, you know, the flying jack o’ lanterns. (I told her they should be flying monkeys but she didn’t like my suggestion.) She wrote a letter to the Pumpkin Fairy about how she had diabetes and wanted to trade in her candy, in case the fairy didn’t understand her rationale for a trade.
Then we went trick or treating in the cold for hours to collect enough “booty” worth trading. Even when it was cold and dark and my son, who is older, had called it quits on trick or treating, my daughter kept going because she wanted A LOT of candy to trade in for a better exchange.
The next morning she was thrilled that the candy was gone. The fairy left her a note and 2 art kits. She was most excited that the fairy’s pets, Spooky and Squash, ate the treats. She felt that building the fairy a house and providing her pets with treats, put her over the edge to get a better exchange. She’s an enterprising young gal and she’s already planning for next year.
Did the pumpkin fairy come to your house? What other Fairies visit your house to provide a fun solution to a parenting challenge?
Halloween night can’t come soon enough for my kids. They are ready to turn into gremlins, goblins, and ghosts and start raking in the candy. I’ll be excited as soon as I have their costumes done. Nothing like cutting it close to the wire with a homemade costume. Whew!
To make sure Halloween night is fun for your kids, everyone needs to stay safe by following some rules. Here are some helpful tips to make sure your kids stay safe and have fun trick or treating.
Adult Participation Required. Walk with your kids if you don’t think they’re old enough to trick-or-treat on their own. There is no “right” age to let your kids trick or treat alone. I’ve heard anywhere from 8 – 12 years old as the magic number. But it really depends on your child, the neighborhood, and how far they will be walking. If you’re nervous about it, go with them. Better yet, make it a party and trick or treat with your neighbors. This way the older kids won’t feel like you’re “watching” them if you all go in a big group.
Safety in numbers. If they’re old enough to trick-or-treat without an adult, tell your kids to stay in a group. Give your oldest child a cell phone so you can call or text to find out where they are. If you really want to keep an eye on them, you can track your little gremlins with the Trick or Tracker 2.0 App for your smartphone. (more…)
Looking to start a new family tradition this year? Celebrate the Mexican Holiday Day of the Dead. Our family really looks forward to el Dia de los Muertos each year. It has become one of our favorite family traditions because it is all about remembering and celebrating our loved ones who have passed away. On November 1st, we spend the day decorating, cooking, and in the evening we host a special dinner where we laugh and share our favorite memories of those we miss.
To help share the tradition with your family, here are some ideas on how to celebrate Day of the Dead with your kids and make it fun.
Set up an altar.
This “altar” or ofrenda is not for worshipping, it’s just a fun, colorful reminder of the people you miss. Usually Day of the Dead altars have 3 tiers, which have some significance that you can read about here if you are going for accuracy, but set it up however you want.
We like to include marigolds (the traditional flower of Day of the Dead), candles, skull candy (calaveras), papel picado tissue paper scenes, and some Day of the Dead folk artwork that we’ve collected. The National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago has a great gift shop to buy little trinkets and figures for decorating. La Fuente imports and MexicanSugarSkulls.com sells quite a few items online, as well.
The most important element is to include on the altar are photos of your loved ones – we even include our pets. Then add objects that represent what they loved or reminds you of them. We’ve included some of Grandpa’s favorite food, a can of his favorite beer, and a blanket Grandma made of his old shirts. We include some cat toys for our deceased pets, too. Then you can decorate with Day of the Dead inspired folk art or crafts.
There are some amazing designers out there who are nice enough to share some of their work with us non-creative types for FREE. (Actually I consider myself very creative, but I just can’t draw!) Here are a few of my favorite Free Halloween Party Printables to help make your Halloween parties and treats so much more impressive this year. Thank you ladies for sharing and definitely cruise their sites for other party decorating ideas.
I always envied families that created a theme for their Halloween costumes each year. We’ve only been able to do it once. My kids have VERY STRONG ideas about what they want to be each year for trick or treat. My husband and I always wanted to do a Star Wars theme – He’d be Han Solo, I’d be Princess Leia, my son could be Darth Vader, my daughter would be Princess Amadala and our furry dog would be Chewy. The dog already makes that weird Wookie sound. We couldn’t get the kids to go for it.
However, one year we did pull off a Family Themed Halloween Costume Idea and it was a blast. We went with a Frankenstein theme – my husband was a Mad Scientist or Dr. Frankenstein. I was supposed to be the lab assistant (think Teri Garr from Young Frankenstein) and my son would be Igor. However, he refused to wear the hump and the Marty Feldman-esque eye. So, I was Igor, my son was Frankenstein, and my daughter was a spooky, black lab cat. It was so fun to have us all trick or treat together in matching costumes. If you can convince everyone in your family to go with a theme, it’s a lot of fun and makes for great family photos. Here are some family costume ideas to get you inspired. (Some of these costumes you can buy online, for others you might need to be creative and make them yourself.) (more…)
One of the cutest games I’ve seen lately for a classroom Halloween party or any kids Halloween party is Pumpkin Bowling. I’ve come across some incredibly clever ideas from other Mom blogs on how to make Halloween themed bowling pins. Here’s a round-up of some of my favorites. Some are easier than others, but all look like an incredible amount of fun for the kids.
Jeanetics.com created a super-cute and super-easy version of Pumpkin bowling with toilet paper rolls.
If you haven’t been Boo’d or Boo’d someone else, you are missing out! Last year, I was introduced to the Boo Halloween tradition when one of our neighbors left a basket full of Halloween treats and a Boo poem at our door. I had read about this fun new activitiy online and wrote a post on it, although I had never done it. That very same day, one of our neighbors Boo’d us. Spooky but cool! So, if you’ve never heard of Boo-ing and want to start the tradition in your neighborhood (or even your office), here’s how to get started.
What is Halloween Boo-ing?
Booing someone is a fun way to kick start the Halloween spirit and interact with friends and neighbors. The idea behind the Boo is that you gift a basket of Halloween treats for a neighbor and then they do the same for another neighbor. Hopefully it will spread around the neighborhood so that everyone gets a basket. You need to get started by the middle of October so everyone has time to participate. I’m sure Boo-ing will be new to some people so to keep the chain going, Boo one or two neighbors to start or when you reciprocate.
How to Boo a Neighbor
1. Have the kids help you put together your Boo Basket filled with Halloween treats.
4. Pick a neighbor to Boo, leave the basket on their doorstep, ring their doorbell, and run. (The kids LOVE this part.)
5. Once you have been Boo’d, make sure you put your sign on the door to let all of your neighbors know, so you don’t get hit multiple times.
If you have a fun neighborhood and everyone participates, you’ll see Boo signs on all the doors in the neighborhood!
What to Put in the Boo Basket?
Basically, anything goes. Usually, the goodie basket will include some Halloween treats for the kids or the whole family, a “We’ve Been Boo’d” sign, as well as a mysterious note or Boo poem. The note or Boo poem should explain the tradition of Boo-ing and how the Boo “victim” now needs to reciprocate and Boo someone else. Don’t panic, you don’t have to write a poem from scratch unless you want to. Download these super cute Boo Poems that we designed by very talented people.
This year I want to be more creative with our Boo baskets. Last year, all we did was candy and I could tell that everyone was sick of candy before we even went trick or treating. You can only handle so many POUNDS of candy before your body rebels. (Read these ideas on what to do with your leftover Halloween candy this year.) I’ve seen suggestions for small toys for kids, Halloween hand towels, a Halloween decorating magazine for Mom, an inexpensive Halloween decoration or mug, and Halloween drawings that the kids have done.
Don’t wait for someone else to begin the Boo! Get your neighborhood started and Boo someone this weekend. Read up on these other Halloween family traditions for even more fun.
There have been so many cool Halloween treat recipes floating around the Internet that I just had to do a round-up post of some of my favorites. I’m hoping we get around to making each and every one of these in the next two weeks. I’m inspired by these Ghosts, Vampires, and Mummies, oh my! I may need to throw a party so someone will help me eat all of this.
Chocolate Covered Peep Pops
These cute and relatively easy Chocolate Covered Peep Pops from LovefromtheOven.com look awesome. This would be the perfect Halloween party treat. I’m thinking of making them for my daughter’s school party.
Vampire Bite Cookies
If you are looking for something a little spooky instead of cute, try these Vampire Bite Cookies from BrightIdeas.com.
Boo-tiful Ghost Cake
This ghost cake from the I am Baker blog looks amazing! It looks a little tricky to make, but the visual impact is so cool, I have to try it or find a way to modify it to look similar. The shine on the chocolate drizzle is what makes it look so cool.
Halloween Ghost Cake
This cake from HowSheDoesIt.com is just as cute and might be a little easier to make.
Mummy Cookie Tray
The Hostess with the Mostess Blog highlighted some very creative Mummy inspired recipes and decorations last year. I love her Mummy Cookie Tray.
If you have a Halloween treat recipes you’d like to share, I’d love to feature it on the blog. Just shoot me an email at sue (at) chocolatecakeclub.com.
We love to read before bedtime and Halloween is one of our favorite seasons. Bedtime storytime is one my favorite time of the day – snuggling with the kids on the bed on a crisp Fall night and reading a story that makes us smile or giggle or shiver. Here are our favorite books to read to get ready and excited for Halloween:
2. Inside a House That Is Haunted by Alyssa Satin Capucilli. This is a very funny story that uses Rebuses so the kids get to help “read” the story by saying the right work when they see each picture. The illustrations by Tedd Arnold are so cute. I think we read it every night for two weeks straight.
Once they learned to read they loved:
3. Halloween, Jerry Seinfeld. Hands down, my kids favorite book. Whether I read it or we listen to Jerry read it on the CD, they laugh and laugh.
5. Winnie the Witch by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul. The stories aren’t about Halloween per se but my kids love reading about Winnie and her cat and the illustrations are too funny. You need to really scan the pages to see all of the little creatures and details.
6. Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson. This is a fun rhyming book about a witch who tries to find room on her broom for all of her Halloween friends. It’s a very cute read-aloud book. My kids like to take turns reading the book out loud to me.
7. Zen Ghosts by Jon Muth. Stillwater the Panda is back with a surprise for his young friends. A mysterious stranger tells the kids a wonderful and spooky story, with a moral, of course. We love the Zen books!
8. Goodnight Goon by Michael Rex. This is a quick read by my kids think the parody of Goodnight Moon is pretty funny. The illustrations are super cute.
Now that I have a tween in the house, he likes:
9. Hank Zipzer: My Dog’s a Scaredy-Cat: A Halloween Tail by Henry Winkler & Lin Oliver. Both of my kids love the Hank Zipzer series about a boy with ADHD who runs into all kinds of challenges because he can’t focus or study well in school. We usually listen to these books on long car trips because Henry Winkler, aka the Fonz, narrates his stories. In this book, Hank decides to create the scariest haunted house ever to scare the school bully but ends up scaring his weiner dog Cheerio.
10. The Zombie Chasers by John Kloepfer. There’s a zombie attack and Zack and his friends have to stop these monsters and save the world, before his Mom finds out. The book is silly and the illustrations are gross and icky, yet funny.
What are your favorite Halloween books? I’d love to discover some new favorites.
Note: Unless you buy the Just a Minute book from our sister company ChocolateCakeClub.com, we don’t make any money on these recommendations. We love these books and I just gave you the links to buy the books to make life a little easier for you.
The candy is coming, the candy is coming! I dread the mountains of candy that comes home with the kids after they trick or treat their hearts out Halloween night. After a few hours, everyone in the house is bored with it. Even the dog stops begging. But we have tons of it and it seems like such a waste to throw it out.
After not knowing what to do with all of the leftover Halloween candy last year, I wrote a post for Patch.com on What to Do with Your Kids Leftover Halloween Candy. Check out the ideas on how to repurpose or donate your extra candy.
How do you get the kids to cut back on devouring their Halloween haul? Any other ideas on what to do with the leftovers or where to donate them?
My daughter and I were surfing online to find some cute yet easy Halloween craft ideas to make this weekend. We wanted to share some of the coolest ones we found. Which one is your favorite?
Finally, check out the Halloween Tootsie Pop Ghosts my daughter and I made last year as party favors. They would look so cute stuck in a Halloween wreath.
What are your favorite Halloween crafts to make with the kids? Feel free to add a link to your idea.
Thinking about hosting a kids Halloween party this year? We’ve put together some fun, easy and inexpensive ideas to help you serve up some spooky Halloween fun.
HALLOWEEN PARTY INVITATIONS
There are certainly a variety of cute Halloween party invitations out there, both paper versions and as e-vites. However, sometimes sending a homemade invitation makes all the difference and creates a great first impression for the festivities. Your invitations can be as simple as taking a photo of the kids from last Halloween and writing the party details on the back.
There are so many ways to decorate for Halloween, it’s mind boggling. I like to use everyday objects in the house and “spookify” them in some way. For example, drape cobwebs over your picture frames. Wrap muslin strips around a candle and add googly eyes to make it look like a mummy face. Cut a black mask out of construction paper and tape it to your large candles.
Our favorite easy Halloween decoration is to make Scarrots. Read my Easy Halloween Party Decorations post to find out how to make scarrots.
PARTY GAMES & ENTERTAINMENT
Mummy Wrap Limbo – You’ve all played Mummy Wrap where one kid wraps another up in toilet paper to look like a Mummy. Take it a step further and make them do the limbo. Whoever breaks their toilet paper wrapping is out.
Freeze Dance – Get some spooky Monster Mash music and have the kids play freeze dance in their costumes. Grab your video camera! Play the music and when you stop, have the kids freeze. The last one moving is “out” and gets to run the music next.
Halloween Storytime – Especially if you have little kids at the party it’s nice to calm them down for a few minutes by reading them a Halloween story. Here are some of my family’s picks for Best Halloween Books for Kids.
Halloween Cupcakes – The kids and I made some fun Halloween cupcakes last year. Check out the instructions to make Jack Skellington, Owl, and Spiderweb cupcakes.
Halloween Bento Boxes – While these fun ideas from AnotherLunch.com were to create a Halloween Themed Bento Box Lunch for your kids, you could easily use these creative ideas for a Halloween party and give each child their own bento box or have the food out on larger plates for them to take. It would still be super cute!
Beefy Pumpkin Tostadas – If you want to serve more substantial food for the party, try this recipe for easy Beefy, Cheesy Pumpkin Tostadas.
Ghost Pretzels – These White Chocolate Ghost Pretzel snacks are so easy to make that the kids could do it as an activity at the party or make a bunch to take to your child’s school Halloween party.
Here’s photos of some otherHalloween cakes for more inspiration.
PARTY FAVORS
A Halloween bag full of candy is certainly fun as a party favor but why not get the kids to help make Ghost Tootsie Pops for your party favors? It’s super easy. You’ll find more ideas for party favors there as well.
Got any great party ideas you’d like to share? I’d love to hear about them, so leave a comment with your tips! Have a great party!
It’s not too late! Still haven’t thought of something fun to do tomorrow with the kids to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Well, the luck of the Irish be with you. Here are some last-minute, but worth-the-wait, ideas.
St. Patrick’s Day has become quite the new “in” Holiday with families it seems. Everywhere you look on the blogs there are some cool new ideas for crafts, food, or fun activities. We do a few things in our house to celebrate, even though we aren’t Irish, so I wanted to share those ideas as well as a few not so easy, but super-cute ideas I’ve found during my late night Internet research safaris. Just because.
Fun with Food
Surprise the kids for breakfast with the i am mommy blog’sRainbow pancakes.
A Whisk and a Prayer blog made some super yummy Mint Oreo Cookies. The perfect dessert after your corned beef dinner. (more…)
Looking for something special to do with the kids to celebrate Valentine’s Day today? How about going to see a Classic Love Story movie tonight? On a school night!?! I know! That’s why they will think it is so cool, a break from the norm. Of course, it’s a Classic Love Story with a twist … that doesn’t have a sad ending … and is quite funny.
We went to see Gnomeo & Juliet Friday night to kick off our Valentine’s Day weekend and it was a very cute movie. The kids loved it! Here’s why I recommend taking the family to see it:
1. It’s rated G. So many kids movies are PG these days which usually offers a cringe-moment, so it’s nice to get a movie that is truly suitable for little kids.(Toy Story 3 was rated G but even it had some intense moments and sexual innuendo).
2. A movie about Garden Gnomes is totally creative. Who doesn’t love Garden Gnomes? Then, to have these Garden Gnomes be star-crossed lovers? Now, you’ve got a cute story. The whole Garden theme and poking fun at “Garden Art” is very clever. The animation is super-cute and it’s a nice break from the “DreamWorks” and “Disney” look.
3. Shakespeare allusions. Pay attention adults! See if you can find all of the fun and sly allusions to Shakespeare in the play. Like the Stratford-on-Avon tour bus or the Rosencrantz and Gildenstern moving van.
4. Rocking Music. Elton John produced the movie so it features all Elton John songs. Nothing wrong with that! You can sing along in your head because you know the words.
5. Gnome in a Thong. While my kids loved Featherstone the Garden Flamingo as the best character, I loved the Gnome who would prance by every now and then in a “Borat”-style Euro-thong bathing suit. Fun!
My kids were totally bummed when we explained that Romeo & Juliet die in the original story. They couldn’t understand why anyone would like a story like that. Come to think of it, why would they? Go see the “Feel-Good” version and have fun with your kids at the movies.
This Valentine’s Day why not tell your child you love them … over and over again? I love this adorable Valentine’s Day gift, the Mimicking Monkey Sleep Soother by Cloud b which helps your child fall asleep by playing soft music. But to put the “Ultimate” in Ultimate Kids Valentine’s Day Gift, you can record a voice message as well. So go ahead and sing or whisper “I Love You” and the monkey will repeat as many times as your child likes. Your child or grandchild will love listening to Mom’s, Dad’s, Grandma’s or Grandpa’s voice.
Plus, the Mimicking Monkey is so FLUFFY and cute, I want one! The minute I saw this product, we had to sell it.
This is also a perfect gift to give your child to stay connected when you have to travel for work. Record a message saying “Good Night” or “I Love You” and your child will still fall asleep to the sound of your voice. It’s also a great way to stay connected to your grandchild if you live in another city or state. Need I say more?
This weekend only to help spread the love, save 20% OFF of the Mimicking Monkey Sleep Soother at www.ChocolateCakeClub.com. No coupon needed but hurry and order before midnight, Sunday, Feb. 13th!
Don’t underestimate the power of surprising your children with a little token of love for Valentine’s Day (actually, any day would do). Last year, my husband created a heart out of flower petals on the counter so my daughter saw it when she came down for breakfast before school. She was beyond elated.
My son was thrilled when he came down and saw his Star Wars guys guarding a special birthday Chocolate Donut for him, but you could do the same for Valentine’s Day. (That boy loves his donuts!)
It doesn’t take much to help them walk on air and best of all, you get to walk up there with them.
There are so many wonderful craft ideas out there on various parenting sites and Mom blogs to help celebrate Valentine’s Day with your kids. It’s hard to choose which to tackle but I put together a list of the ones I thought were really unique, easy, and fun to do with the kids.
Unusual Valentine’s
I just discovered this new site, SillyEaglebooks.com that had some of the most unique Valentine’s Day crafts. The bloggess, Vanessa, loves children’s books just as much as I do and she uses these books as inspiration for kids crafts and activities. Check out her whole site for ideas, but these were my favorites:
Valentine’s Card Holders
Calli over at MakeItDo.com made some super cute Valentine’s Day Card Holders out of a box or an oatmeal container. Here’s another blog I am adding to my weekly read list.
Valentine’s Day Countdown
I love countdown calendars! Special occasions are always more fun when there is a lot of anticipation built up before hand. So this very easy Valentine’s Day Garland from Jessica at HowAboutOrange.com appealed to me greatly. Have your kids add a heart every day before Valentine’s Day and depending on how many days ahead you start, this could be fun garland for a Valentine’s Day party or turn it into a mobile.
Valentine’s Day T-Shirt
Jean over at the ArtfulParent blog made the most beautiful Valentine’s Day inspired Tees for her kids. Her site is gorgeous to look at so check out all of the wonderful craft ideas.
Valentine’s for Boys
Robot Love
Most of these Valentine’s Day ideas are kind of girlie so I loved these totally boyish Robot Valentine’s. Who says Robots can’t feel love?
This Photo Valentine’s Day Card idea from Jen at the SmileReport.com is so clever and perfect for us photo-nuts!
Have any Valentine’s Day craft ideas you would like to share? Send me your idea or photos at sue (at) chocolatecakeclub.com and I’ll post them on the site this week.
There are some amazing recipes out there for Valentine’s Day treats for the kids. I went looking for the ones that would intrigue my kids (and me) the most. Make them ahead of time to surprise the kids when they come home from school on Valentine’s Day or you can prepare any of these recipes WITH the kids for even more fun on Valentine’s Day.
Sprinklebakes.com is a very cool baking site and I just love these flaming Chocolate Cupcakes. While she is pushing them as romantic, I would push them as worthy of amazing the kids. I would definitely keep the liquor and the flame out of the kids’ hands, but having them gaze upon a cupcake that is on fire would heat up Mom’s coolness factor. (Note: Although you need to add liquor to make the flame, the heat burns away the alcohol so kids can still eat it. Or, light some on fire but keep some liquor free cupcakes on the side to serve the kids after the “show.”)
This Box of Chocolates Cake from AmazingMoms.com is pretty cool as well.
Here in Chicago we are going to celebrate Groundhog Day with 12 -20 inches of snow. Yippee! (Note to self: Get gas for the snowblower today!) I don’t foresee any Groundhogs popping out in the blizzard to look for a shadow. However, since we might be trapped indoors, I went on the hunt for some Groundhog day fun for the kids.
Finally, you can buy these Groundhog cookie cutters. Use your favorite cut-out cookie recipe and ice them in brown. Yum!
Pure Fun
Groundhog Day Shadow Fun
Since the day is all about seeing a shadow, why not play shadow puppets? Set up a white sheet a few feet away from a wall. Place a lamp behind the sheet near the wall. Have your kids take turns going behind the sheet and casting shadow puppets. Here’s a post I found on making a Shadow Puppet Theater that looks super fun.
Here are some Groundhog Day Activities to do with the kids from the official Punxatawney Phil website. I’m all over the Groundhog ornaments to print out and hang from a chandelier or indoor tree but the Word Searches and coloring pages are cute, too.
If your kids are a little older, watch the Groundhog Day movie. My kids think it is hilarious. “Don’t drive angry!”
What do you do to celebrate Groundhog Day with your kids?
Do your kids have tomorrow, Martin Luther King Day off of school? My kids even get Tuesday off, so it’s a really long weekend! If it were just one day off, we could stay home and goof around. For two days off though, I feel like we need to do something special to have more fun. (Hopefully you can take some time off, if you are working.)
I looked around the Chicagoland area for some inspiration and thought I would share 4 ideas I found that look like fun for the whole family. You can check out my ideas in a post I wrote for Kidgrade.com, a site created by a fellow Mom to share where kids love to eat, play, shop, and stay in Chicago.
Have fun and maybe we’ll see you around town.
What are you going to do with the kids on their day off?
Don’t throw out your Christmas cards yet! There is still joy and fun to be had with them. In our house we tend to be so busy during the Holiday Season that when the Christmas cards come in I open them, glance at them, and then put them into a container to read later. (I have to open them to make sure I haven’t missed anyone new for our Christmas card list.) After Christmas my husband and I go through the pile and spend time catching up on the news our friends and family share in their cards. Finally, they hit the recycle bin.
Last year, a gentleman at one of my speaking engagements told me about a great tradition they do in their house with their cards. They have an art show. He said his family tapes all of the cards up on a wall in their house and then they vote on their favorite card for the year. I know I tend to open the cards quickly and say “Oh, that’s cute” but I don’t really stop to look at the cards as a piece of art and I should, because some are amazing. Even the photo postcards can be admired for the composition of the card or the photography itself. He said that the winning card gets put in a box with the other year’s winners so you have a showcase of the “best-of-the-best” in Christmas-themed art. You could also make a scrapbook or my daughter had the idea of making a story book using the winning cards as the illustrations. I’m totally digging that idea and she is on it.
Here’s an idea to make the voting easier. Have everyone in the family pick their top 3 favorite cards. Take down all of the rest off the wall. Now you have a smaller selection. Then have everyone choose 3 favorites again. Keep whittling it down until you have 3 cards total on the wall. Have everyone explain what they like best about their favorite card and why it should win. For the final vote, have everyone write their favorite on a piece of paper so it’s an anonymous vote and crown the winner. If it is a tie or no one can agree, then Mom’s pick wins. Why? You shouldn’t even have to ask.
Here’s another great idea to recycle and get more out of your Christmas cards. Aubrey at The Mother Huddle blog had a great idea for making a Christmas card photo collage. Read her post on how to do it.
Any other ideas of what to do with your Christmas cards?
My kids were positively gloom and doom this morning when they had to go back to school. (Why does school start so early? Why do I even have to go to school? Ninjas don’t need to learn math. Why don’t you ever buy me any decent pants?) Insert your kids’ favorite whining here.
Now I like a good wine, I mean whine, when it’s me doing the whining. I certainly don’t want to condone the kids’ whiny behavior, but I was thinking of doing something special for the kids this evening to “celebrate” or “ease the pain” of going back to school after the Holiday Break. My plan? Chocolate Fondue! What better way to create a Chocolate Cake Moment than with hot, gooey chocolate?
You can certainly surprise the kids with this treat after school today or maybe on Friday after school to celebrate them getting back into the swing of homework.
Kirchner’s Chocolate Fondue
1 lb. of your favorite milk chocolate bar (we like Ghirardellis)
4 oz. dark chocolate bar
3/4 cup heavy cream (you can use half and half for less calories)
1 Tbsp. vanilla
Break the chocolate bars into pieces and place in your fondue, hot pot, or double boiler. Keep on a low setting. (If you don’t have any of those, just use a regular pot on very low setting and make sure you keep stirring.) Add cream and stir constantly until chocolate is melted and smooth. (If you are melting this on a stove top, watch the heat. Don’t walk away or the chocolate will boil and be ruined.) Stir in the vanilla right before serving. Then dip away!
Dipping Suggestions(In order of our kids preference):
Large marshmallows
Sliced bananas
Salted pretzel sticks
Cubed pound cake
Angel food cake
Stem strawberries
Hazelnut or almond biscotti (more for the adults)
Serves 6
Have fun!What do you do to ease the pain of going back to school for your kids?
Still not sure what to do today or tonight to celebrate New Year’s Eve with the kids? Here are some last minute suggestions to bring on the fun.
If you live in the Chicagoland area and have little kids, head on over to Make A Messterpiece today for their New Year’s Eve Kiddie Countdown Celebration. From 9 a.m – 1 p.m., they will be having all kinds of fun activities to help you and your little ones ring in the New Year with a mess. It’s $18 for the celebration this morning which includes all activities and a balloon drop at noon. Get dressed and head on over now. (more…)
I was thrilled to be invited to WGN-TV today to share my ideas for a Kid-Friendly New Year’s Eve Party. Watch the video and let me know what you think. What do you normally do for New Year’s Eve? If you stay home with the kids, how do you celebrate?
For more information on my party ideas, check the write-up on the WGN site or my last blog post.
Now that the kids are out of school on Winter Break, are you looking for some activities to keep them amused? I found some really cute craft, cooking, and computer ideas that I wanted to share.
While I usually spend most of my time keeping my son off of the computer, there are some very cute sites where the kids can enjoy some Holiday Cyber Fun.
In today’s day and age of GPS and microchip tracking technology, you’ll be glad to know that even Santa can’t stay off of the grid. Have fun with your kids tracking Santa as he makes his way across the globe at www.noradsanta.org. You can play games online and even check the weather at the North Pole. Want even more fun? Sign up for Facebook or Twitter updates of what Santa is doing. You can even download an App to track his progress on your phone.
Finally, send your kids a personalized video from Santa. This site is so cute!
The Chicagoland area has some wonderful family-oriented activities to help you celebrate the Holidays and have fun together. Here are a few well-known and lesser-known local Holiday favorites that my family loves to do. Many of these have become Holiday Traditions that our kids look forward to every year.
Younger Kids:
Wonderland Express – Holiday Train Exhibit at Botanical Gardens
Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza – This is my family’s favorite thing to do every Christmas. We have been 3 times already this year.
Christmas Around the World at the Museum of Science & Industry – While the exhibit is nice and has a lot of great history, I would go see the Jim Henson exhibit before it closes and then also check out the decorated Christmas trees. The Gingerbread Museum in the lobby is AWESOME!
Ice Skating Millenium Park – Rockerfeller Plaza doesn’t have the mighty Bean behind it, now does it? Friday nights in December there is caroling in front of the Cloudgate sculpture (aka the Bean) at 6 p.m. Haven’t gone yet but I’m sure the photo ops are incredible.
Any Age:
Carriage ride on Michigan Avenue – Grab yours by the Water Tower
For those of you who live in the Chicagoland area, I will be conducting a workshop at Make A Messterpiece in Glenview tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. and next Wednesday, December 15th at 6 p.m. on How to Create Fun & Enduring Family Holiday Traditions.
Here’s what I will be covering:
The Holidays are a great opportunity to start new family traditions or rediscover long-held family Holiday traditions that you and your kids will look forward to every year. Traditions are the glue that bind a family together but more importantly, provide opportunities for fun.
Sue Kirchner, Family Fun Coach, will share ideas on how to strengthen existing and start new family Holiday Traditions to create memories and laughter. She’ll share tips on conducting research on your family’s Holiday traditions, identifying which traditions mean the most to you and your kids, and ideas on updating long-held family traditions. She’ll also share some great ideas for new Holiday Traditions as well as favorite Holiday activities that the Chicagoland area has to offer.
Workshops are about 30 minutes long, free and you can bring your kids. If you haven’t been in to see Make A Messterpiece yet, definitely come and check it out. Your kids will have a blast in the various creative studio stations.
Contact me at sue (at) chocolatecakeclub.com for more details. Hope to see you there. It will be fun!
To make a holiday tradition more fun and memorable, don’t forget to “Make it a Party.” No one said that you have to limit family traditions to just family. Some of our favorite Holiday traditions involve our best friends or neighbors:
Every Christmas, we have a gift exchange with some of our closest friends. It’s like Christmas Eve Lite.
We always try to invite friends to our Holiday meals who might be home alone that year.
We also meet our best friends every year for the Fourth Presbyterian Church Holiday Concert (http://www.fourthchurch.org/concerts.html#december)in downtown Chicago. We have gone for several years now and the kids love it. We head down to the Church for their Tower Brass concert and then walk around Michigan Ave. looking at the lights before grabbing dinner. It’s the perfect way to celebrate the season and experience the beauty of the city during the Holidays. (This year the concert is Dec. 18th at 5 p.m.)
Our neighborhood had a tradition of having a house decorating contest with a snowman theme. Each house on our block tries to decorate with as many snowmen as possible. We would all meet for a party at a neighbor’s house. During the party the whole group would put on their coats and march around the block in the dark and the cold, voting on which house had the best snowman “spirit.” Try it with your neighbors this year and let the competition and laughter begin.
Last year, one of the neighbors organized a Caroling party for some Holiday fun.
Every year two friends and I meet up for a Girls Night Out Holiday Tea at a swanky hotel downtown. While we might not pull it off every year, it does get us talking and reminiscing during December, so we don’t lose touch. I look forward to the thought of Holiday Tea just as much as actually having it. (more…)
Looking for a way to spice up your family’s Holiday Traditions this year? I suggest you Be Creative and Try Something New to add a little variety to your Holiday Season and make it more fun this year.
While we all love traditions and look forward to them every year because they provide a foundation for the family’s Holiday activities, it doesn’t mean you can’t adapt or update the tradition or try something new entirely. Variety is the spice of life! What’s the worst that could happen? You don’t like the new activity and you don’t do it again next year.
So, instead of putting on your Santa Hat, put on your thinking caps and get the whole family to brainstorm some creative ways to amp up your existing Holiday Traditions. If your family has a tradition of cutting down a real tree every year, try wearing Santa Hats or dressing like lumberjacks this year to give the event a little silliness and flair. If you all bake Holiday cookies together, be adventurous and try a new recipe or one that sounds really wild. Do all the girls in your family get together for Holiday Tea? Ask everyone to wear an audacious hat to make the affair more elegant and/or goofy.
If your family seems a little burned out on the tried and true family traditions, be adventurous this year and try a new activity that you’ve heard or read about. Who knows? It may become a new favorite. So, if you always go to see the Christmas Carol play, try the Nutcracker Ballet this year. If you’ve never had a real Christmas tree, try cutting one down this year and see if you like the difference. If your kids are a little older now, try going to Midnight Mass. Invite other people to your Hannukah celebration to teach them about your traditions. Try making your menorah this year instead of using the family favorite. Or, buy a candle making set and have the whole family make candles this year for the Celebration of Light. (I’m not Jewish but I asked my friends about their traditions and looked and online for ideas. I found a really nice article on Hannukah traditions to do with your kids. Let me know what you think.)
Our Elf on the Shelf Family Holiday Tradition started up again yesterday. My kids were so psyched. They have been asking for days when “Jack” was coming and so we officially started December 1st. We’ve been playing this fun Hide ‘n Seek game every Christmas for the past 4 years now. Now that my kids are older and we’ve been doing this for awhile, I wanted some creative ways to have even more fun with our Elf this year. Here are a few ideas that I thought up and some fun ones I found online. I’ll be adding more as I get inspired throughout the next 20ish days.
Watch the Video
The creators of Elf on the Shelf put together a super cute video on how the Elves get ready for the Christmas season. You can watch it with the kids here.
Catch them in the Act
These Elves are photogenic. While the kids are sleeping or at school, take some funny photos of the Elves raiding the fridge or peeking in the wrapped presents or sleeping with the cat. Take them off center and close-up so it looks like the Elf took his or her own picture.
Elf Letters
My daughter loves to write letters. She writes some for Santa, Rudolph, Buddy from the Elf movie, the Tooth Fairy, the Pumpkin Fairy and our St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun. So have your kids write a note or letter to your Elf and maybe he’ll answer overnight. Want to make it even funnier – write the letter in an “Elf” language that no one understands or have the Elf write backwards so the kids have to hold the note up to a mirror to read.
The Elf was Here
Leave clues around the house that show that the Elf was moving around. A cereal box tipped over, Christmas cards out and on the floor, little footprints on the kitchen table or even have the Elf write his or her name out using raisins, Cheerios, legos or in some spilled flour. Here’s a cute idea – spill some flour out on the counter and then have the Elf make a snow angel in the flour.
Bake Up Some Fun
When the kids come downstairs for breakfast, won’t they be surprised to find a fresh batch of Christmas cookies on the kitchen counter that the Elf “baked” overnight?
Here are some very fun ideas I found online that would appeal to older kids or teens to keep the fun going.
Don’t Let the Elf Drive the Car
I read that a family would put their Elf in the driver’s seat of the car up on phone books or books so it looked like he was joy riding at night. Park the car in a crazy position, backwards, or out on the street to show that the Elf was out on the town and really shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
Elves are Socially Savvy
I read about some families setting up Facebook, Twitter or email accounts to talk with their teens or tweens or keep a Cyber “eye” on who’s naughty or nice online. The Elves can also find funny Christmas inspired sites to forward to the kids.
Fun in the “Off” Season
My kids always joke about what “Jack” our Elf does on his time off. What the heck does he do the other 11 months of the year? I think it would be a blast to give the Elf to friends or family you know who are traveling and ask them to take a picture of the Elf in that location. You know, like the gnome in the movie Amelie. The Elf can then send postcards or photos to the kids to keep the fun going all year long.
There are so many fun things to do this Holiday Season. Make sure you and your family plan to spend time together during this crazy busy time of year. For some inspiration, check out the post I wrote on 5 Simple Ideas for Holiday Family Fun over at the Parents Tested, Parents Approved blog.
I’ll be adding more ideas here on my site as the season progresses.
Let me know what you and your family will be doing to have fun this Season.
We received another great Family Holiday Tradition submission from Ginger S. in Austin, TX. Thank you for sharing, Ginger! Everyone, keep these family tradition memories coming. We love them!
Two of my favorite family Christmas traditions are: The hanging of the pickle ornament and a surprise for the individual that finds it and horses.
The pickle tradition came from my husband’s family. After we married, his Mom gifted us with a pickle ornament for our own tree. One of the first things our family does on Christmas morning is look for the Christmas Pickle.
I suppose I have always had a tremendous love of horses. Growing up, my brother and I always wanted a horse. When I was about 8, I awoke on Christmas morning, looked out my window and saw a real horse tied to a tree in our back yard. My brother and I spent the day wearing the horse out as we rode around our yard and up and down the neighborhood streets. Late in the evening our Uncle appeared and offered to keep the horse at his farm. We often spent many fun days at his farm riding our Christmas horse.
My daughter’s love for horses surfaced before her first Christmas. She constantly chose horse toys to play with and picked out pictures of horses from books and magazines. She started her riding lessons at age 6, saved enough money to buy her own horse at age 9, and owned 5 horses by the time she went to college on a scholarship she earned through her horse projects. Beginning with her first Christmas, Santa put a horse ornament in her Christmas stocking. This Christmas Santa will leave her 41st horse ornament.
My granddaughter continues the tradition with a great love for horses. Santa now also places a horse ornament in her Christmas stocking each year.
As Bing Crosby sang in Holiday Inn, one of our family’s favorite Holiday movies, “I’ve Got Plenty to Be Thankful For”:
A husband who loves me and lets me pursue my passions both personally and professionally
A son who makes me pull my hair out, but makes me laugh like nobody’s business
A daughter who can amaze me with how bravely she fights Type 1 diabetes and make me smile with her artwork
A kitchen filled with donuts
A cat who can calm me and put me to sleep by purring in my ear
A smaller, weirder cat who is so funny looking I can’t stop smiling when I see him
An huge extended family that we can have fun with
A pair of red shoes
A lovely, renovated house that is warm and cozy
Incredibly friendly neighbors
Friends who get my sense of humor and love to come out and play with me and my hair-brained ideas
A beautiful, furry dog who is still with us this Thanksgiving
The smell of turkey and gravy in my kitchen
Customers and friends who support my business so I can share my passion for having more fun with family and bring smiles to as many families as I can. Thank you!
I am grateful for you and I hope that you have plenty to be thankful for today and your day is full of “Chocolate Cake Moments.” Have fun with your family. I’m off to eat turkey with my family!
Sue Kirchner
Chief Fun Officer
www.ChocolateCakeClub.com
www.ChocolateCakeMoments.com
On Thankgiving, did you ever have to sit at the Kids’ Table? I distinctly remember being banished to the dark, dank basement to eat with the other messy kids on major Holidays. I didn’t like it. So, I was thrilled when I saw TipJunkie.com’s post on Kids’s Table Decorating Ideas. Some of these ideas are so cute and creative!!!!! If our kids table had looked like this, I would still be sitting there as an adult.
So, get crafting and your kids are sure to be thankful that they aren’t eating in the dark, boring basement.
Here is another family Holiday tradition sent to us from Erin B. in IL. She shares her family’s tradition where the kids got to open one present after Church on Christmas Eve, ending hours of anticipation. She always remembers these “first” presents of the Holiday because they were from her Great Grandmother, they were handmade, and they were the first gift they were allowed to open on Christmas Eve. Thanks for sharing the story and the photo Erin!
As a child growing up in Round Lake Beach, IL, our house was the center for family on Christmas. Those who had traveled from out of town (Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles) found themselves sleeping in my bed or on the sofa sleeper. Many children today would be mortified to be resorted to sleeping in the same bed as a sibling. However, my brother and I couldn’t have been happier. We knew that no matter how much we fought with each other throughout the year, we could contain ourselves for that one glorious day when we would awake to find the tree adorned with presents underneath.
Weeks before the big day, our house would be flooded with packages of presents from family members who could not make the trek to our house. It took a lot of patience on the part of my brother and myself not to sneak a peek at those colorfully decorated boxes. On Christmas Eve, following the 7pm church service, we were allowed to open the present from our Great Grandmother. This present was never anything too extravagant as her funds were limited, but rather it was something that was handmade by her. The fact that this gift was handmade was of course special to us but it was because it was the “first” present that I truly believe it meant more to us. To this day, I still have those handmade presents, though my Great Grandmother is long gone.
As a new mother of two, I intend to carry this tradition over to my young children as I believe every child should remember their “first” present every Christmas.
Did your family have a tradition of opening certain gifts first? Please send us your Holiday Traditions stories. We’d love to post them and share the fun.
I have asked some friends and family to tell me about their Holiday Traditions or their favorite memories of the Holidays. This first post is from my mother, Roberta, and her Holiday Tradition of Tinsel on the Tree.
We had 4 children in our family and always spent Christmas Eve with my maternal grandparents and all our cousins. My grandparents lived in Oak Park, IL. in a big house or so I thought at the time. They had a side driveway and portico. When you entered on Christmas Eve the dining room glass doors were shut with a drape on them. In the living room in front of the fireplace, was a very tall unadorned Christmas tree and a ladder.
My grandfather would call each of his grandchildren to help him decorate the tree. Depending on your age, dexterity and patience, you either placed an ornament on the tree or an icicle one by one. No throwing or bunching of the icicles. This whole project could take quite some time and get very boring but I loved the tinsel. That was my job and I thought I did it the best. When we were finished, the dining room doors were opened for food and drink. My parents, aunts and uncles were starving by this time but my grandfather didn’t care. The tree was important. It reminded him of Germany.
To this day more than 50 years later, we put tinsel or some type of “one by one” shimmer on the tree.
I do remember that we always had tinsel on our tree growing up. Gold, it had to be gold. I tried to continue the tradition in my house but sadly we have cats. You know, they eat the tinsel and you find it later in a very unsavory state.
So, friends, please send me your favorite Holiday traditions and photos. I would love to start a collection of memories.
Looking for some fun ideas to do with the family around Thanksgiving? Here are a few of my favorites as well as some great ideas from other Mom bloggers.
Get Active! Our town hosts a Turkey Trot 1 Mile and 5K race every Thanksgiving morning. While we usually travel out of town to visit family on Thanksgiving so we have never been in town to participate, several of our neighbors run as a family every year. It’s a great way to burn the calories before you pack in the carbs!
Bake Up Memories. We have a family tradition on Thanksgiving Day. After we gorge ourselves and the boys go watch football or take a nap on the couch, the women folk go back in the kitchen and make our favorite Holiday cookies. Each person brings their favorite recipe and we bake, bake, bake. (It keeps us awake and standing so we’re burning the Turkey dinner calories, right?)
When we started this tradition it was fun to see what Grandma’s favorite cookie recipe was when she was a kid. Now that she is gone, we still make those cookies to remember her by. The other benefits of this tradition are that everyone goes home with a plate of assorted cookies. Freeze them and pull them out for your Holiday parties. If that’s not a stress-bustin’ tip, I don’t know what is.
Family traditions are wonderful, aren’t they? The anticipation. The preparation. Knowing that your family has done this in the past and will continue to do so makes an activity powerful. Hopefully, these traditions are also a load of fun, mostly because you spend time together as a family!
The Winter Holiday Season offers great opportunities to have fun traditions with your family. Baking special cookies, throwing parties, caroling, sledding, cutting down a real tree, etc. Whether you are carrying on family traditions or starting new ones, there are so many options. However, the season is short and there is a lot to do – gift buying, baking, wrapping, Holiday parties, decorating, and writing and addressing cards, to name a few. Agh! Don’t let the stress of the Holiday Season overwhelm you where you forget to have fun or start traditions your family will look forward to year after year. After all, the Holidays are all about family.
You may already have a few traditions in place but I want to inspire you to start a new one this year. There are so many activities around the Holidays like plays, concerts, and parties to keep your family in the fun. But it’s also nice to just relax, stay in, maybe light a fire, admire your decorations, and have fun in your home.
What is a tradition? According to Merriam-Webster:
a tradition is an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom).
It is also:
the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction
It is essential that they traditions continue year after year to become ingrained in your family’s culture. So, don’t let any of the Holiday stress get in the way of carrying on the fun.
Tune in tomorrow for my “Recipe” on How to Create Strong Family Holiday Traditions.
When Does the Holiday Season Officially Start for Your Family?
When does the Christmas season officially start in your house? The day after Thanksgiving? The 1st of December? Christmas Eve? When do you get your Christmas tree? In our house, the Elf makes his first appearance the day after Thanksgiving. We traditionally switch gears to Christmas mode that Friday after Thanksgiving. It has been a tradition in our house to get out the decorations and go get our live tree that weekend, so it made sense for us to see the Elf at the same time. (Also, the kids drive us nuts asking where the Elf is way before Thanksgiving. While their constant queries can be annoying, I love that they are so excited about a tradition! We start as early as we can.) You can tell the kids that the Elf doesn’t show up until the decorations go up because he can only visit a decorated house. Whatever rationale works for you, go for it.
Key Dates Can Help You Remember
It’s easy to remember when to start this tradition if you tie the Elf’s first appearance to another key date in December. Start on December 1st when all of the advent calendars kick in. Or, a friend of mine starts her Elf on the Shelf fun on December 6th, which is St. Nicholas Day. Someone else told me they start December 13th because it is 12 days before Christmas.
What is Your Level of Enthusiasm?
I’ve had some friends say that they just can’t remember to hide the Elf or come up with a new hiding place every day for a month. It adds stress to an already stressful time of year. If that is the way you feel, start 5 or 10 nights before Christmas so the tradition doesn’t become overwhelming for you. (If you need ideas on where or how to hide the Elf, I’m starting a new series on creative Elf hiding places. Check back for some inspiration.)
Bottomline, there is no right or wrong answer on when to start the Elf on the Shelf tradition. Have Ziggy or Petunia or Mr. Twinkle Toes come out when you are ready for some Holiday family fun. If the kids are excited about the tradition then give them a date to look forward to. Anticipation makes it more fun!
When do you start your family’s Elf on the Shelf tradition?
My daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes this year so she wasn’t really looking forward to all of the Halloween candy, until she heard about the pumpkin fairy. We happened to be in the doctor’s office before Halloween and her doctor and nurses told her about how the pumpkin fairy visits kids who can’t or don’t want to eat all of their Halloween candy. According to the story, if you leave your candy out for the pumpkin fairy on Halloween night, she will take it and exchange it for something else – money, little toys, etc.
Well, this was right up my daughter’s imaginative alley so she decided to create a fairy house out of a pumpkin, so the pumpkin fairy would have someplace to sleep on Halloween night. She drew a picture of what the house should look like. As you can see from the final, we didn’t come that close. Oh well!
You can see the bed and “couch” inside the fairy house that we made out of extra pumpkin pieces. We used a leaf for a blanket. Although not a natural substance, we added a battery tea light to give her some light.
She felt that the pumpkin fairy wouldn’t be traveling alone (who would on Halloween night?) so she left pet treats in the fairy house for the fairy’s two pets, you know, the flying jack o’ lanterns. (I told her they should be flying monkeys but she didn’t like my suggestion.) She wrote the fairy about how she had diabetes and wanted to trade in her candy, in case the fairy didn’t understand her rationale for a trade.
Then we went trick or treating in the cold for hours to collect enough “booty” worth trading.
The next morning she was thrilled that the candy was gone. The fairy left her a note and 2 art kits. She was most excited that the fairy’s pets, Spooky and Squash, ate the treats. She felt that building the fairy a house and providing her pets with treats, put her over the edge to get a better exchange. She’s an enterprising young gal and she’s already planning for next year.
Did the pumpkin fairy come to your house? What other Fairies visit your house to provide a community service?
It Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead today. It’s a wonderful Holiday that reminds us to remember and cherish the memories of those we have lost. We built our family’s Day of the Dead shrine and tonight at dinner we will have fun talking about what we like most and miss most about our family, pets and friends who are no longer with us.
How cool is this! I just published a post earlier today about Halloween Family Traditions and I mentioned that I had seen people online talking about the tradition of Getting Booed, but I had never heard of it. Well, I just came home and saw that we were Booed! (So, now I know that someone other than my Mother reads the blog.)
Yeah! Some incredibly nice friend or neighbor left us a Halloween bucket full of candy and an inflatable black cat which my daughter has now adopted and named Meiu. (“Say it with a French accent, Mom.”)
OK, we’re ready to carry on this tradition. I’m off to create the Boo basket we’re going to give and print our Boo signs.
Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. What’s not to love about fun, treats, costumes, parties, and spooky chills. We have a few family traditions we do every year and I’ve seen a few more online that I would love to adopt. Read on and plan some fun for this week.
1. Decorations. If you haven’t decorated the house yet for Halloween – get on it! One of my favorite parts about trick or treating is seeing how everyone spooks out their house. I love the creativity. Whether you prefer fall elegant to grotesque to friendly ghosts and monsters, let’s see your Halloween spirit.
2. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Watch it. Love it. Need I say more? It’s on this Thursday night on ABC at 7 p.m. CST. (Scared Shrekless is on at the same time on NBC. I haven’t seen it so can’t recommend it, but I’m going to DVR it.)
3. The Nightmare Before Christmas. I am a huge Jack Skellington fan. The kids still get a little creeped out by this movie so it’s a tradition for my hubbie and I to curl up on the couch and get our annual movie fix. Not all family traditions need to involve the kids. (We made Jack Skellington Cupcakes this year. See how.)
4. Read Halloween Stories before Bedtime. We love to read Halloween stories in anticipation of the big day. Read my post on the Best Halloween Books for Kids (as voted by my kids). I just read about how DesignMom.com and her family have a tradition of reading Halloween stories by candle light. I love it! We’re going to read by the flickering flames tonight.
5. Neighborhood Halloween Procession. Our neighborhood trick or treats together which makes if more fun for kids and parents alike. We’ve got some wagons to pull the younger ones who get tired. We’ve also got some thermos’ with hot chocolate if it’s cold.
6. Boo Your Neighbors. Now, I have never heard of this tradition but I saw a post on it the other day and it sounded pretty cool so I thought I would share. (I’m probably the only one who hasn’t so don’t laugh at me.) Basically, you make up a goodie bag for a friend or neighbor. You then leave the goodie bag at their house with a poem and sign that they have been “Booed.” The neighbor then is supposed to reciprocate and “Boo” someone else. This post explains it pretty well. You can download some very cool Boo signs and instructions for free at TomKat Studios.
7. Day of the Dead Dinner. This is the day after Halloween but every year we celebrate Dia de los Muertos in our house honoring and remembering our loved ones who have passed on. We build a shrine in our house where we display photos of the people and pets we want to remember. To celebrate at dinner, we usually make one of Grandpa Kirchner’s favorite meals and as a family we talk about our favorite memories of Grandpa and our pets who have died. It’s a nice way to keep memories alive and share stories about what we remember and what we liked best about those we miss.
What Halloween traditions do you enjoy with your family?
This past weekend for our Halloween fun activity, we decorated cupcakes. I had seen so many incredibly cool cupcake designs on other sites that I wanted to see if we could recreate them. The goal was to make them for the kids’ school Halloween parties this Friday, but guess what? They’re gone already.
There are a million cupcake recipes out there to make the cupcakes from scratch (go ahead, Google Cupcake recipes and prepare to be overwhelmed) but we made life a little easier and just chocolate cupcakes from a mix. We were in the mood to decorate, not bake. So, how did we do?
Jack Skellington Cupcakes
I love the movie Nightmare Before Christmas so when I saw these Jack Skellington cupcakes on the Disney Family.com site, I started to drool. I thought it was easy to do and the instructions were very helpful however, my daughter got mad because she couldn’t get the face to come out right. You need fairly good icing control. Her cupcakes looked like a cool ghoul, but not exactly like Jack.
Spooky Owl Cupcakes
Owls are the “it” animal this year, as I said in my post Owls are Hot! Hoo Hoo Knew? So, my daughter, who was a big fan of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole wanted to make these cupcakes. You can find slightly different versions of these owl cupcakes on a variety of different sites (as I said, owls are hot) but we chose this photo at TheCupcakeBlog.com as inspiration.
We used, chocolate frosting, Oreos, white frosting and M&Ms. These cupcakes were super easy and my kids could put them together like pros. We frosted the cupcake. Split open Oreo cookies for the eyes and “ears.” Once the Oreos are split, take the piece without the white center and break them into “ear” shapes. Then put M&Ms on for eyeballs and an M&M turned sideways for the beak.
The only two issues we had were that the Oreos were hard to break open. I remember as a kid you could just twist them apart so I don’t know what’s in these cookies now but the centers are like super glue. These needed to be pried open with a knife or they would break in pieces. Also, when we did get them to break open cleanly, the white center part had black crumbs all over it from the other side of the cookie. It didn’t look like a nice, clean, white eyeball. So we used white frosting on the inside of the cookies which actually made it easier for the M&M eyeballs to stick. All in all, a great recipe for the kids.
Spider Web Cupcakes
Our inspiration for these easy spider web cupcakes came from Bakerella.com. We did it in reverse with white frosting on the cupcake and a black web. We also used M&Ms for the spider since we had them out anyway.
Finally, we just got out our collection of sprinkles, almond slivers, and other toppings to create our own ideas. Creating bats, cats, tarantulas, and werewolves was a pretty fun afternoon with the family.
Have you made any cool Halloween cupcakes that you’d like to share? Send me a link to your photos and I’ll post them on the blog.
We love to read before bedtime. It’s my favorite time of the day – snuggling with the kids on the bed and reading a story that makes us smile or giggle. Here are the Kirchner Kids’ favorite books to read in anticipation of Halloween:
1. Halloween, Jerry Seinfeld. Hands down, my kids favorite book. Whether I read it or we listen to Jerry read it on the CD, they laugh and laugh.
3. Winnie the Witch by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul. The stories aren’t about Halloween per se but my kids love reading about Winnie and her cat and the illustrations are too funny. You need to really scan the pages to see all of the little creatures and details.
5. Inside a House That Is Haunted by Alyssa Satin Capucilli. This is a very funny story that uses Rebuses so the kids get to help “read” the story by saying the right work when they see each picture. The illustrations by Tedd Arnold are so cute. I think we read it every night for two weeks straight.
What are your favorite Halloween books? I’d love to discover some new favorites.
By the way, unless you buy the Just a Minute book from us, we don’t make any money on these recommendations. We give you the links to buy the books to make life easier for you.
It’s the weekend before Halloween and all through the house, there wasn’t enough spookiness, not even to scare a mouse. So what are you waiting for …
You’ve still got time to have some Halloween-themed fun with the kids this weekend. Here are 6 ideas to get your fun on.
1. Corn Maze – I never really got into corn mazes until I found out you could do them in the dark. With flashlights! Why didn’t anyone tell me this sooner!?! I wouldn’t recommend that you take toddlers to the corn maze at night but for older kids (and some weird adults like myself), this is a blast. If you are in a group of 4 or more, split into teams. Give each team a flashlight and a compass and see who can get out of the maze first. Look online to find the largest corn maze in your area and make it a night.
2. Pumpkin Farm – Pumpkin Farms are fun for the kids but they are priceless to adults for the photo ops. There is nothing better than photos of your kids standing amidst a field of orange pumpkins. Go now. Don’t forget the cider donuts.
3. Halloween Baking – I have seen so many cute Halloween treat ideas online that I am paralyzed by what to tackle first. We are going to tackle cupcakes this weekend but I am totally into Bakerella’s Halloween Cake Pops. I have to make these Spider Brownie Bites. But wait, look at these Spooky Sweet Pops. Ah! I can’t decide. (BTW, Bakerella has a new Cake Pops cookbook out. I’m going to get it this weekend, because I need more food porn.)
4. Organize a Neighborhood Trick or Treat Procession – My neighborhood rocks. We do such fun things together. When we moved into our first house, the neighbors who lived behind us showed us the fun of a Trick or Treat Procession. You get a bunch of friends and neighbors and go trick or treating together. What was cool about their procession was that they had wagons full of snacks and hot chocolate, wagons to pull the young ones who get tired after 3 blocks, dogs on leashes in costumes, and plenty of cameras and video cameras to capture the fun. While trick or treating as a family is fun … why not multiply that by inviting 3 or 4 families? Now, the adults can have a blast walking around too.
5. Costume Frenzy. You’ve got the school Halloween parties coming up on Friday so this is your weekend to finish the kids’ costumes. Whether you are buying or making, get it all done this weekend so you aren’t panicking at the last minute. If making, have fun working together on the construction. We’re making a gingerbread and gladiator costume this weekend. (For even more fun, go back and look at past Halloween costume pictures for some nostalgia and big laughs.)
6. Day of the Dead - If you live in a town with a large hispanic population, go online and see if there are any Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos exhibits to check out. Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art hosts the largest Day of the Dead exhibit in the country. It’s AWESOME! We go every year to get inspired to make our Day of the Dead shrine even cooler. Never heard of Day of the Dead? Read why I love it and think it is a great Holiday to share with kids.
It was a dark and spooky night in the middle of a cornfield in Missouri ….
Actually it was sunny and lovely on a recent trip to Iowa to visit family. We made a short trip to Missouri for a family reunion and one the way back, we decided to visit the Zion Cemetery where the original Kirchner family who came over from Germany was buried. After several wrong turns and stops to ask for directions, we found the cemetery in the middle of nowhere in the cornfields.
Lo and behold, what do we see but a tombstone for Charles and Susie Kirchner. FREAKY!!!!!!! We were trying not to smile because you know, no one smiled in the 1800s. They were always so serious in photos. While I would rather be caught dead than called Susie, it’s still a pretty spooky encounter, don’t you think?
I was in a pancake mood last weekend so the kids and I decided to see if we could make Halloween pancakes. We didn’t have any Halloween pancake molds (I know Willams Sonoma is selling some) but we were able to “draw” them freehand with our pancake batter pen we purchased from WS.
We added black food coloring to half of the batter to use for bats and cats. We then used the white batter for ghosts, skulls and tombstones.
Sprinkles, almond slivers, and cinnamon hearts helped us be more creative. Although cute, we just used Bisquick pancake batter and they were pretty dry and boring tasting.
(The Gruyere and canadian bacon scrambled eggs my husband made were pretty darn tasty though.)
I was on ABC 7 Chicago news this morning talking about fun, easy and inexpensive ideas for planning a Kids Halloween Party. Check out the video segment so you can see the ideas in action.
My kids had a blast helping me make the scarrots, pretzel log ghosts and ghost pops so that I could show them on air. You can see a printed version of my Halloween Party ideas on the ABC Chicago 7 site or click here to see all of my Halloween Family Fun ideas.
Are you planning a Halloween party for the kids this year?
Looking for some party favor ideas for your upcoming Kids Halloween Party? Well, in addition to candy, candy and more candy there’s always small toys, spider rings, bubble jars, glow sticks, erasers, and stickers. You can even find books or coloring books at the Discount stores for $1.00. What else can you make and what do you put these fun items in?
As a unique party favor, create some Lollipop Ghosts. Take 2 or 3 Kleenex tissues and place them over the top of a Tootsie Pop. Cinch the Kleenex sheets at the bottom of the lollipop and tie with a Halloween ribbon or yarn. Have the kids help you draw faces on these “ghosts on a stick” with markers. Place all of the candy ghosts in a cup for a nice decorative effect.
Get some brown paper bags and have the kids help you decorate them as goody bags. Use crayons, markers, or Halloween stamps to create some cute decorations.
You can create Halloween hobo bags. Take Halloween fabric and cut 12 x 12 inch squares. Place your goody bag items in the center, bring the four corners up and twist. Tie the bag at the center of the twist with black yarn, Halloween ribbon or raffia. Makes a very cute and very easy gift bag. If your items are bigger, cut a larger square.
Over at ChocolateCakeClub.com we sell some very cute and sturdy felt Halloween treat bags.
We hope we have inspired you to start planning your Halloween party. Scare up some Family Fun! Don’t forget to read all of our Halloween party ideas on:
I’m always looking for ideas on how to make lunch more fun for my daughter. She has Type 1 diabetes so we need to not only control her carb intake but also know exactly how many carbs she’s eating. It’s just easier and healthier to bring lunch every day. But as you know, it can be challenging to come up with something new to send in her lunch box. And since she has to deal with shots every time she eats, I look for ways to make her day a little more fun.
I love, Love, LOVE this spooky Halloween Bento Lunch box menu that I found over at the Another Lunch blog. Melissa, the site author, has put together some super cute Halloween lunch and snack ideas. Here are 3 of my favorites:
Head on over to Melissa’s site to see all of her super cute and creative creations and get the instructions for how to make these Halloween lunches and snacks.
You can certainly buy a ton of Halloween decorations at the various Party and Discount stores but using a little creativity to dress up your existing home decor to have a Halloween flair can be the most fun of all.
If you are throwing this party for toddlers and young kids, don’t make the decorations too scary. You don’t want the kids afraid to go into a room of the house during the party. Stick with the familiar Halloween images like friendly ghosts, witches, and pumpkins. If your kids are older than 5 years old, you can get a little spookier with cobwebs, rats, monsters, and mummies.
Don’t feel like you have to use only orange and black in your color scheme. Throw in some deep purples, neon green or yellows into your decorating scheme. Most of your decorations for the table can be the food itself. If you plan on making some Halloween themed treats, then your food can take center stage for the table decorations.
Here are some of our ideas for creating some super easy, spooktacular decorations for your next kids Halloween Party. Your kids can help you make a lot of these, so it’s Family Fun time as well.
Buy black masks and put them on your pillar candles so that they look like mysterious bandits. Or you can make them with black construction paper. Use ribbon or string to tie the mask to your pillar candles.
Make some “Scarrots!” Put full size carrots upside down in black candlestick holders to look like candles. Add googly eyes for a scary, yet very funny decoration.
Use old trick or treat bags or small decorative treat bags to hold candy or Chex Mix as snacks around the room.
We like to take the kids artwork from the last few Halloweens and hang them around the house as our decorations. It’s cute, not too scary, and reminds the kids of what they made last year.
Let the kids draw ghosts and pumpkins on the windows with window markers before the party.
Take some muslin cloth cut into 1” strips or gauze and wrap it around objects in your house to make them look like a mummy. Vases, tall candlesticks, and plant bases are all great objects to wrap. Have the kids add googly eyes and you have some funny Mummy decorations.
We like to use the colorful Mexican Day of the Dead paper cutouts for Halloween decorations too. The bright pink, blue and yellow tissue paper cutouts feature scenes from everyday life but with skeletons. You can order them from this site or this one.
Piñatas are a fun decoration and activity for the party. You can find some great Halloween piñatas here.
If the party is for older kids, top off glasses with red cake gel to look like dripping blood.
If you have any other easy Halloween decorating ideas, please click on this post, leave a comment and share them.
There are certainly a variety of cute Halloween party invitations out there, both paper versions and as e-vites. There are also a lot of Halloween invitation templates that you can search and find on the web. However, sometimes sending a homemade invitation makes all the difference and creates a great first impression for the festivities.
Here are some easy ideas:
Cut out orange pumpkin shapes, let the kids decorate the front with pumpkin faces and write in the details of the party on the backside
Fold gray construction paper in half. Cut the shape of a coffin around the fold so that the “door” swings open. With a black marker, decorate the outside with RIP. Inside, write the party details.
Draw a large skeleton on white paper. Cut out the bones. Write the party details on the bone pieces and send one to each guest. Ask the guests to bring the bone invitations with them to the party. Reassemble the skeleton by the door as they walk in.
If you have seen any other great Halloween Party invitation ideas out there, please let me know.
Here’s an easy recipe to make Halloween tacos for a kids Halloween party or as easy dinner after trick or treating. (It’s also a great way to get kids to eat leftover taco meat – disguise it as something new.)
Beefy, Cheezy Pumpkin Tostadas
You’ll need:
Flat, crispy corn tostada shells
Ground beef
Taco mix
American or Cheddar cheese slices
Green pepper cut into 1” x 2” slices
Note: If you can’t find tostada shells in the Hispanic section of your grocery store, you can make them a day ahead of the party. Take corn tortillas and fry them flat in oil until they are crispy and golden brown. Drain well and store in an air tight container until the party.
Brown the ground beef and add the taco mix, following the mix instructions. While the meat is cooking, take slices of American or Cheddar cheese and with a small, sharp knife cut the cheese slice into a circle or pumpkin shape. Then cut eyes, nose and mouth of the slice of cheese.
Spread a layer of the meat mixture on the tostada. Place the cheese pumpkin on top and place on a cookie sheet in a 350 degree oven for 2-3 minutes until the cheese starts to melt. Don’t let it melt too much or you’ll lose your face shapes.
Take out the tostadas and add a green pepper “stem” to the top of your pumpkin.
Planning a Halloween Party for the kids this year? We’ve put together some of our favorite games and activities to truly distinguish your house as the most Haunted Party Palace. I have listed these activities in order of age appropriateness to appeal to kids ages 2 – 12 years old. You’ll have a blast with these game ideas and make sure to take lots of pictures and video!
Pin the Stem on the Pumpkin
Similar to Pin the Tail on the Donkey, cut out a large pumpkin out of oversized orange construction paper. You could also draw one on a 3M Sticky White Pad, like we use at work for meetings, and that way it will stick to the wall by itself. Cut stems out of green construction paper and write each child’s name on the back so you know who’s closest. Use a bandana or scarf as a blindfold, turn each child around 3 times and let them at the pumpkin. Whoever sticks the stem closest to the correct spot wins a prize. (Suitable for ages 2-6 years old.)
Halloween Freeze Dance
This is a perfect video moment. Have the kids play freeze dance in their costumes. Turn the music on and off. Whoever doesn’t freeze, steps aside and gets a prize. Or just keep everyone dancing and everyone wins. This game is a favorite because it lets the kids release some energy and it’s so fun to see the kids dancing in their costumes. (Suitable for ages 2-8 years old)
Catch the Donut Game
I’ve got a thing for donuts so I prefer this game to bobbing for apples. Tie a string or yarn around some cider donuts and then hang them from the ceiling, spaced about 2-3 feet apart. (If you can’t hang them from the ceiling, you can tie the donuts to a broomstick and have two volunteers stand on chairs to hold the stick up.) The first child to eat the whole donut without using their hands wins. Note: Don’t use donuts with powdered sugar or heavy amounts of sugar coating. You’ll just create a mess on the floor and on the kids costumes. (Suitable for kids ages 5-12 years old)
Mummy Limbo
This is a little twist on the traditional mummy wrap game. Have the kids take turns wrapping each other up with toilet paper, pinning their arms to their sides. Once they are all wrapped up, hold up a broomstick, turn on some music and watch the kids limbo. The guest who can not only go the lowest but keep their mummy wrappings wins a prize. (Suitable for ages 6 – 12 years old)
Are you a Bill Harley fan? We sure are. If you love to laugh, grab one of his kids CDs and have a blast. We discovered his wonderful kids stories about 2 years ago on NPR and now every time we take a road trip the kids ask if we have a new Bill Harley CD. He has some funny, clever songs as well but we want his stories. More and more stories.
If you have never heard him before, this is your chance to download a free kids Halloween story called the “The Eeny Weeny Beeny Ghost.” Perfect for Halloween and not too scary for little listeners. If you sign up for his newsletter, which I just did today, supposedly you’ll get a free download offer a month.
Here’s our review on his “Yes to Running” double CD. My kids LOVE, LOVE, LOVE “The Great Sled Race.” We’re going to start selling Bill Harley’s CDs at www.ChocolateCakeClub.com soon, we hope.
We love cooking with the kids as a way to spend some quality time together, creating “Chocolate Cake Moments.” This weekend, our goal is to try out some fun Halloween food to get in the spirit of the spooky Holiday and test out some recipes for our upcoming Halloween party posts. We’re also going to be putting our annual Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead shrine together. Check out my posts to learn more about Day of the Dead celebrations or How to Teach Your Kids About Day of the Dead?
On to the food!
TipJunkie.com had a great collection of Halloween food recipes that we are thinking of trying this weekend. I’m voting for the Parmesan Witch Brooms or the Banana Caterpillars.
It’s a big Cub and Boy Scout Camping Weekend so why not try these Halloween Owl S’mores from Living Locurto. They look yummy and easy!
Spiderweb pizza anyone? Gourmet Mom on the Go has an easy recipe.
Both of these sites have some great Halloween fun recipes and ideas so check them out and tell me about your favorite Halloween recipes.
The kids and I are cooking up some Halloween treats this weekend. Last year we had great success making Pretzel Ghosts. It’s easy peasy!
1. Put some vanilla chips or almond bark in a microwave safe bowl.
2. Melt vanilla chips according to package directions.
3. Dip or roll the pretzel logs in the melted white goo and stand up to let the candy coating drip down a little.
Don’t eat them yet!
4. Either stand these up in a paper cup to dry or lay flat on a wax paper covered cookie sheet.
5. When dry, take black icing (not the gel kind!) and draw ghostly faces on your pretzels with a toothpick or other very small icing tip. You can use cinnamon hearts for noses or any other sprinkles that catch your fancy.
These look so cute all bunched together in a cup on the table. They are a perfect treat for a kids Halloween party.
Hopefully you saw my post yesterday on Totally Cool Halloween Cake Ideas. I’m going to tell you how we made the “Scary Rats Eating Cheese” … Cake. It was pretty easy and my kids and I had a blast making the rats. (Some of them looked downright goofy and not scary so we had to play around with the faces a little.)
Our inspiration was a recipe from Redbook Magazine for Creepy Critter Cheesecake and Chocolate Rats. It was very easy to make although we couldn’t find some of the ingredients so we fudged a little.
For the Cake, I couldn’t find Famous Chocolate Wafers in the store so we used Oreo Thin Crisps. We could have also used Annie’s Chocolate Bunny Grahams, but the Oreos were darker. My son is 10 and I was really impressed that he was able to make the whole cake with just a little guidance from me and the Mixer. We followed the instructions for the cake exactly so you can grab them from the link.
For the rats, we couldn’t find black decorating sugar! It’s Halloween season and we could find every other kind of Halloween cookie and cake decoration except black sugar. ‘Sup with that? After 3 stores I was disgusted so we used chocolate jimmies to give the rats a “furry” texture. We also couldn’t find black rope licorice. What happened to rope licorice? Why don’t they make it anymore? Red or black. We had to use black Twizzlers and just cut strips for the tail. Finally, we couldn’t find “Yellow and brown candy-coated chocolate-covered sunflower seed. Personally, I don’t think these really exist. So we used a red cinnamon heart for the nose and we make the yellow eyes from candy corn. I just cut a small sliver of the yellow part of the candy corn, twirled the candy between my fingers to make it sort and then shaped it into the eyes we wanted.
Almond Ears for the mice:
Chocolate Coating:
Furry Sprinkles:
Rats on Cheese:
Rat Wearing a Party Hat(my daughter wanted hers to look more festive):
As I mentioned, we won for Most Original Cake in our class at the Cub Scouts’ Annual Cake Bake. Time to start planning for next year …
Cake + Spooky Creativity + Family Together Time in the Kitchen = Chocolate Cake Moment!
Every year the Cub Scouts hosts a Cake Bake in October and it has become a family tradition to make a scary Halloween cake. (There are themes every year but we just go for spookiness. What can I say? It’s how we roll.) This year we won for Most Original in our class with our “Scary Rats Eating Cheese” Cake. Tomorrow, we’ll tell you how we made it.
I am constantly amazed by the creativity these kids come up with every year, so I thought I would share some of the cake designs our family and our Cub Scout Pack have cooked up over the past few years.
Last year we won Most Original with our “A Cake Made of Vegetables? Scary!”
The year before the theme was Your Favorite Book. We chose Frankenstein. My son even dressed up as Igor. We won for Best Theme!
Pull Zee Switch!
Here are some of my favorites from the past few years:
Since this is our last year in Cub Scouts, I’ll have to make sure we keep this family tradition alive next Halloween.
Have you made any Halloween cakes? I’d love to see your cake creations. Send me your cakes pics to sue (at) chocolatecakeclub.com and I’ll post them on the blog.
It’s October 1st and Halloween is coming. Halloween and Dia de los Muertos are some of my favoritest Holidays. We are going to decorate this weekend to get everyone in the mood.
I saw this great post about Halloween Fun for Families and thought I would share. We’ll be starting our Halloween posts later today too. Let the spooky fun begin!
