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We were on a roll crafting and baking this past Easter and we were able to make and put our own spin on 5 different ideas we found on Pinterest. (If you didn’t see my previous two posts on how to make an Easter Egg Bouquet or Mustache Easter Eggs, which we found on Pinterest, check them out.)
So, for our third piece of craftiness, we decided to make Easter Bunny Butt-Up Candy Cups to give to the little nieces and nephews at Easter. These would be so cute to set as placeholders on the Easter dinner table or as favors at an Easter party.
My inspiration came from this idea from the Delightfully Noted blog. She explains how she made them on her site and her photography is so much better than mine, so definitely check it out. I deviated just a little from her instructions and I couldn’t find the cups she used at Target, so I improvised.
Here’s what you’ll need:
Small paper or plastic cups (Easter themed or pastel colors)
Styrofoam balls
White foam sheet (one sheet will get you 24 bunny feet)
Pink foam sheet or Pink sharpie marker
Glue gun or craft glue
White pom poms
Candy – jelly beans, Robin’s Eggs, M&Ms
Green Easter grass
Important Tip: Buy your cups first! Styrofoam balls come in so many sizes so I found it incredibly helpful to find the cups first and then take one with me to the craft store to see which size ball fit the best. You don’t want it too big so it looks like a muffin top and you don’t want it too small that it falls in the cup.
To start I took a plain piece of white paper and drew an oval that I thought would be the right size for the feet. They need to be about 3/4 of the size of the ball so they can hang over and flop. Once you have the right size on the paper use that as your pattern to cut feet out of the white foam sheet.
Now for Delightfully Noted’s version, she cut the little pads for the feet out of a pink foam sheet. My daughter and I decided to cut the work time in half by just drawing the pads onto the feet with a pink sharpie marker. (I’m all about cutting crafting corners.)
You are ready for the glue. We used a glue gun because it sticks better and dries faster but you could use regular glue, no prob! Glue the feet on facing down. (I glued them facing up first and my daughter thought I was a nub. Don’t do the same thing and look lame in front of your child.) Then glue the white pom pom on the top center of the butt.
Now you are ready to fill your cup with candy, put some Easter grass on top of that and center your bunny butt on top. Viola! Easy-peasy. Took us 20 minutes.
So what do you think? Here’s the version from Delightfully Noted and then ours. I like her cups better and we should have made the pink feet pads a little bigger but overall, still pretty cute.
Did you make anything you saw on Pinterest this Easter? I’d love to hear about it so please leave me a comment below.
For more Holiday fun ideas, check out the Easter craft and recipe section of my blog or my Easter Ideas board on Pinterest. Feel free to pin this idea to your craft and Holiday boards.
As the second installment in our Pinteresting Easter activities this year, the kids really wanted to color eggs. So we colored them using the traditional purchased dye method. You know dropping the dye tablet into a mixture of vinegar and water. However, We did use muffin tins to dye the eggs, which was a very helpful tip I saw on Pinterest last year from ParentHacks.com
Here’s how Melissa at the Number-2-Pencil blog made them and then our version. Hers are a little cleaner and have more of a minimalist style. Ours seem to be more whimsical or just plain goofy. What do you think?
We eventually got more creative and moved on from just mustaches to make all kinds of egg faces. You know a craft idea is good when your 13-year-old son comes over and wants to help. He was really getting into his “hippie” egg. To display the eggs, we just placed them on a plate covered with fake Easter grass. They looked adorable on the Easter table, let me tell you.
This is the second installment in my Very Pinteresting Easter series featuring cute craft and recipe ideas we found on Pinterest. Did you catch our first idea – the DIY Easter Egg Bouquet? Next up are the Bunny Butt Treat Cups we made for the kids.
Did you make or bake anything you found on Pinterest this Easter? Please share the link to your pin in the comments below. I’m always looking to add ideas to my Easter Board.
I know Easter is over but my family and I had so much fun baking and crafting this Easter. I decided we should tackle some of the cute ideas I had pinned to my Easter Board on Pinterest because you know, if you are pinning but not doing, then you are just digitally hoarding. So, we tackled not one, not two, but five Pinterest ideas. The funny thing was I wasn’t the only one in the family having a Pinteresting Easter. When the family got together for Easter dinner we were all laughing because almost every one of us had brought a new recipe they found on Pinterest.
Over the next five posts, I’ll show you the original pin and then the version that we made. I think our creations came out pretty good but my photography skills leave A LOT to be desired so you’ll just have to come over the next time we’re crafting and admire our work in person.
First up, we made a DIY Easter Egg Bouquet to give as a gift to Grandma. The idea came from a pin I saw from the Ms-notsoperfect.com blog. She made a super cute “floral bouquet” using plastic Easter eggs. It looked easy to make and it definitely was. My daughter and I finished it up in 30 minutes. Click over to her site to see the directions.
I made one modification and added a green styrofoam floral cone to the inside of the vase to stick the skewers in. That way they were secure and not bouncing around when you carried the vase. I got all of the supplies at my local craft store but I could only find the wooden skewers at Target or the grocery store.
So, below you can see her version first and then our version. We did pretty good, right?
I love cooking with my kids. However, what I love even more is that my 10-year-old daughter can make some of favorite desserts all by herself now. How cool is that! I was telling her that I was looking for a St. Patrick’s Day themed dessert to make and feature on the blog and she came up with a cute idea to add some Leprechaun charm to one of our favorite desserts – Chocolate Nutella Cheesecake Mousse. One of our good friends made this recipe that we found on Pinterest and we have made it at least 10 times since.
It’s easy and no baking is involved so it’s perfect for cooking with the kids. It’s also incredibly tasty! You can find the recipe here at MyBakingAddiction.com.
But back to St. Patrick’s Day! To make this dessert more Holiday-ish, we added some Leprechaun flair by drawing shamrocks and Leprechaun faces on marshmallows with edible markers. We also dyed a marshmallow black to look like a pot created an indent in the top and added yellow M&M candies to make it look like a pot of gold.
All you need are regular size marshmallows, mini marshmallows, edible markers, black food coloring, and yellow M&M candies.
To make the Leprechauns, we made two versions – one where we just drew the face and hat on a regular size marshmallow. In the second version, we stuck a mini marshmallow on top of the regular sized one to make a hat. We then colored it black with the markers.
To make the pot of gold marshmallow, add black food coloring to a cup of water. Submerge the marshamllow in the water for a few minutes. The longer the time in the water, the darker the “pot.” We used black food coloring paste to get the marshmallow so dark. Regular liquid food coloring didn’t cover as well. After you’ve achieved the color black you want, dry the marshmallow for a few minutes on a paper towel. When dry, use your fingers to create an indent in the top of the marshmallow. Insert several yellow M&M candies in the indent to make it look like a pot of gold.
We also added green food coloring to our whip cream to add a colorful dollop to our dessert.
There you have it. A delicious dessert recipe to make with the kids and some crafty decorations to make it the perfect ending to a St. Patrick’s Day party or dinner celebration.
For more ideas check out my other recipes, crafts, and activities to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with your kids or head over to my St. Patrick’s Day Board on Pinterest.
How do you like to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with your kids?
I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I hope your day is full of “Chocolate Cake Moments” where you are happy, smiling, and making memories with your family.
Every year we have a tradition of taking the kids to see a Holiday-themed show. It’s our annual Christmas outing where we dress up and do something cultural that puts us in the Holiday mood. We’ve seen the Joffrey Ballet’s Nutcracker production. AMAZING! Last year we went to the Goodman Theater to see their version of A Christmas Carol. ULTRA AMAZING! So this year, when I was offered tickets to see and review the Radio City Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes, I was thrilled. We would get to experience a new show that I know people make a tradition of seeing every year.
Let me tell you, it’s a kickin’ good time for families.
Bring the young ‘uns
This show is perfect for little ones. First, the show is split into two 45 minute segments so little people won’t get too squirmy. They can get up and walk around during intermission. Second, even though there is a lot of singing and dancing there is a story line that will keep young kids interested. Unlike the Nutcracker Ballet for example where there is no talking, Santa Claus comes out to narrate in between dance numbers so little kids don’t feel lost and then get distracted. Actually, the Rockettes do a little Nutcracker Ballet routine with teddy bears and mice as dancers. Perfect for little ones.
Also, there is nothing risque, inappropriate, or scary in the show. My kids are 10 and 12 and they got a little scared during A Christmas Carol when the ghosts come out and the stage gets dark. There is nothing but bright lights, smiles, and wholesome fun with the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.
Something for Everyone
I have to admit I was afraid my 12-year-old son, who’s going on 25, was going to hate the show but he liked it. It’s like an old fashioned variety show that seems to be popular again on TV. There’s some singing, some dancing, and even some nostalgia. For the adults and grandparents in the crowd, the little segment with the history of the Rockette’s on Broadway was interesting. It’s the 85th anniversary of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular! Wow!
The show did a very nice job of combining a more traditional, commercial Christmas with Santa Claus at the helm and ending the show with a live Nativity Scene to remind everyone what Christmas is really about. The costumes in the Nativity Scene are spectacular.
Making a Spectacle of Themselves
Even without the crystals on their costumes, the show had some pretty spectacular moments. The Rockettes are all about precision dancing, right. No girl can be too tall, kick too high, or be out of step. Having performed on a drill team in high school I know it’s hard to sync your movements to people dancing next to you. Well, the Rockettes take it a step further in one of their routines by showing a video of dancers on the screen behind the stage. One of our favorite routines was the Santa routine. Everyone in the cast is dressed in a Santa suit and they dance on stage but then they turn on the video screen to show an infinite number of Santas doing the same routine on the screen. It creates a very cool optical illusion that only works if all of the dance movements are in sync.
Another of our favorites was when they bring a double decker sight-seeing bus on the stage and with scenes of downtown New York City flashing by on the screen behind the stage and the wheels turning on the bus, it really looks like it’s moving. I don’t see how the dancers don’t get dizzy and fall down but it’s cool to watch.
Finally, the Christmas Spectacular wouldn’t be spectacular without the march of the Wooden Soldiers. Precision dancing at it’s best!
A Tradition of Giving Back
On the night we were there, the marines were in attendance collecting unwrapped toy for the Toys for Tots drive. You can see my daughter adding gifts to the box. However, I learned a lot about how much the Rockettes give back as an organization. They do a lot of charitable outreach while they tour the country. Since my daughter is a Type 1 diabetic, I was especially encouraged to hear their involvement with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in Seattle, hosting several events to raise money to find a cure.
According to the press material the show has been totally revamped with new scenes, costumes, and special effects. I’ve never seen the show so I can’t comment on what is new but even if you have seen the show in the past, I would definitely consider making this show a Holiday Tradition. The show runs at the Akoo Theater in Rosemont through December 30, 2012. You can still get tickets so grab them now and take the kids for a show they’ll always remember.
Thank you to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular and the Rockettes for allowing me to share this fun Holiday Show with my family.
There are so many ways to have fun with your family around the Holidays. However, it’s very easy to get caught up in the stress and crazy-busy schedules during the Holidays that we forget to stop and have some fun. (What do you mean we forgot to get a present for your Spanish teacher? Why has the cat eaten all of the curling ribbon? Where did I put the Christmas cards that I bought last January on sale?) So, one of our favorite ways to unwind and have fun during the Holiday Season is to read Christmas-themed bedtime stories. We put on our jammies and sit by our Christmas tree to read. There are so many great Christmas children’s books but these are some of my family’s favorites to get you inspired. Have fun!
Favorite Christmas Bedtime Stories
Last night, we read Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman. While my kids are a little too old for this picture book, it is still a Holiday favorite. The illustrations are too cute and the rhyming words are perfect for lulling everyone to sleep. (I want some of the cookies that Bear makes his friends!)
Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner. This fun board book is not only cute, but inspires some ideas for outdoor, snowy fun. Who wouldn’t love to see snowmen come to life at night and cruise around town?
Russell’s Christmas Magic by Rob Scotton is another favorite of ours. The illustrations are cute and the red color for Santa and the “fixed-up sleigh” just jump off the page. Even though this is more of a toddler book, my kids still love to read it just for the illustrations.
The Grinch. Need we say more? The Grinch by Dr. Seuss has it all. Great rhymes, silly words, a loveable dog, and a very important message for kids. “Maybe Christmas, he thought… doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps… means a little bit more!” We definitely watch The Grinch TV Classic but we’ve made it a tradition to read the book every year, too.
You can’t have a Christmas book list and not include Jan Brett. My daughter and I LOVE her illustrations. She has a lot of winter and Holiday themed books but The Mitten is our favorite. The illustrations of the animals are incredible, the kids laugh at the thought of all of these animals crawling into a small mitten, and my kids totally relate to the boy losing his mitten. All elements of a great story.
If you love to read with your kids, here’s an awesome idea for next year! Over at This Girl Loves to Talk, their family has a tradition of wrapping 24 Christmas themed books. Starting December 1st, every night the kids get to unwrap a book and read together. Pure genius!
Note: I don’t receive any compensation if you click on and buy these books. I just provided the link to make it easier for you to find them.
I love it when I get to answer a question from a reader! Madi recently left me a comment and asked a great question which fits perfectly into my Elf on the Shelf Busy Parents Survival Guide.
“This is only our second year doing the elf tradition, and our elf comes Dec. 1st. How are some ways you have brought the elf back each year? Does he just appear? Does he get shipped? Does he bring a note?”
Traditionally, our Elf just makes his appearance on the day after Thanksgiving and I never really thought about how to make Day 1 extra special, so I’m so glad she asked the question and forced me to put my creative hat on and investigate how other families handle this. Here are some great Elf on the Shelf Day 1 ideas.
Surprise, I’m here!
Like I said, I haven’t really done anything special to announce his “return” in the past. When the kids were really young, I hid the Elf in a very obvious spot on the first day so the kids do a doubletake and are surprised when they see him. As they got older, they anticipated that he would show up the day after Thanksgiving and they would wake up and automatically look for him. But one year, Jack, our Elf, wrote the kids a note and of course our Elf had to be complicated and write backwards, so the kids had to hold their notes up to the mirror to read it. (As your kids get older you need to throw in some challenges.)
Amy at Living Locurto had a cute idea to have the Elf deliver seeds with a letter from Santa on Day 1, asking the kids to plant the seeds and wait two nights for a special surprise. They grew magic cookies! You could have so much fun with what “grows” from the seeds. Click over to her site for a copy of the letter from Santa.
Let me in!
Another Mom told me she puts the Elf outside the window on the first day (only if the weather is good) like he flew in from the North Pole but needs to be invited inside. One of our readers said even though this is her second year doing the Elf tradition she was going to have a wrapped package be outside the front door on December 1st with a note inside from Santa saying that their family Elf was back.
Here’s your Letter!
Here’s a great letter from the Elf to use as inspiration from the ItsyBitsyPaper Blog. Leana at A Small Snippet did something similar with a letter from Santa. Scroll most of the way down in the post to check out her letter for inspiration.
I’ve also seen people write a note from the Elf or from Santa to leave next to the Elf saying that he is back and excited about being with the kids this Holiday Season. Model A Designs has some great free printables for you to use with your Elf on the Shelf fun, including official letter head from Santa’s desk for his letter to your kids.
I hope those ideas have helped you figure out what to do with your Elf on the Shelf on Day 1. Have fun with it!
Continuing my Elf on the Shelf Busy Parents Survival Guide, today I’m sharing thoughts on how old your kids should be when you start the Elf on the Shelf hide ‘n seek tradition. From my experience and from other Moms I have talked to, at 2-years-old, kids like and can participate in the hide ‘n seek game but it isn’t until they are 3 or 4-years-old that they understand the motivation behind it all.
But as for when to start, that depends on you. Let’s face it, the “hider” can get just as much joy out of this Holiday tradition as the kids. If you want to start when you first child is still a baby, go for it. If you want to create funny little scenes for just you and your spouse, have at it. Maybe don’t hide it every night but have it sitting out in the house somewhere as a decoration.
I wish I had my Elf on the Shelf when my kids were infants because then I could take pictures of the Elf with each baby and show them how the Elf was there for them from their very first Christmas.
One thing I do know is that at my online retail store, ChocolateCakeClub.com we have sold a lot of Elf on the Shelf as baby shower gifts. People were giving them as gifts to start a tradition for their new family. What a cool gift to give someone – a lifetime of fun and memories.
On the flip side, I remember how exhausted I was all the time after each of my children were born. If you are in that stage of mommyhood where you have a new baby or your toddlers are a handful and you just look forward to going to sleep, then skip it and wait until the kids are older and you feel more able to enjoy the tradition. It doesn’t take that much time but you do need to think about and remember to do it at a point in the day when you are most exhausted. If Elf on the Shelf is stressful for you, then it’s not worth it.
What do you think? How old should your kids be when you start Elf on the Shelf?
One of the questions that I get asked the most about the Elf on the Shelf tradtion is “When should we start?” So, for the first tip in my Elf on the Shelf Busy Parents Survival Guide I’ll give you some ideas on what date the Elf should make his or her first appearance of the Season.
The answer is … it’s totally up to you. 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. It has been a tradition in our house to get out the decorations and go get our live tree the day or weekend after Thanksgiving, so it made sense for the Elf to show up 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.) However, 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 or helps you remember when to start, 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. This is why I started my Elf on Shelf Busy Parent Survival Guide series, to help give you ideas and inspiration on those crazy busy days when you just can’t think anymore.
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?
Family traditions are so important, especially around the Holidays. They create fun anticipation and help us laugh and smile when things get hectic. While there are so many different traditions to celebrate the Christmas season, in my opinion, Elf on the Shelf is one of the most fun Holiday family traditions around. What is it, you ask?
If you purchase an Elf on the Shelf set(we’ve been selling them over at ChocolateCakeClub.com for 6 years), you get a poseable Elf and a beautifully illustrated book that explains the tradition. Your Elf has a job to do. He or she sits in your house during the day but then at night, the Elf flies back to Santa to report on who has been naughty and who has been nice. (Parents, that includes you too.)
Why would kids like that? Well, here’s the fun part. When the Elf comes back in the morning, he’s sitting in a different part of the house. It is the ultimate hide and seek game. Now we have been doing Elf on the Shelf for 7 years now (OMG!!!) and our kids still wake up every morning and run around the house trying to be the first to find the Elf.
Now some parents say they don’t like to focus on the negative or reporting kids’ bad behavior. That’s fine. Even if you don’t want to have the kids worry about being naughty or nice, the hide and seek aspect of the tradition is a blast for kids, no matter what age. You can do all of these ideas with any Christmas toy. Even when they get older and no longer believe (gasp!) they can still enjoy it and take turns hiding or staging the Elf for the rest of the family.
You’ll see online that some Moms scoff and view this as just one more thing they need to do during an already crazy, busy Season. I get it! If that’s the way you feel, don’t do it. However, for the amount of fun that this tradition has brought my family, I’m totally willing to put in the extra effort and create some Holiday magic. Your kids grow up SO FAST. There are a very limited number of Christmas Seasons in which to enjoy the magic of believing in Santa. Take advantage and hopefully my series of tips will make it easier and inspire you to have some fun.
Now, as I said, we have been doing this for 7 Christmas Seasons now so we have done a lot of right and a lot of VERY WRONG things. I want to share many of these experiences with you (and hopefully you’ll comment and share your tips back) so that you and your family fully enjoy this tradition.
Throughout the next 3-4 weeks I’ll be sharing:
Ideas on how and when to get started
How to name your Elf
Hiding tips and staging ideas and what is appropriate for each age range
What to do when you forget to move your Elf
Extra fun ideas to do with your Elf even when Christmas is over
Please check back every day for new inspiration. Next post – When to Start Your Elf on the Shelf Tradition. Have you started the Elf on the Shelf tradition at your house? How did you find out about it?
Who’s up for a fun, spooky kids Halloween party idea? MommyParties contacted me a few weeks ago to host a party to promote R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour TV series. I was definitely interested since my kids like to read Stine’s Goosebumps books and I was planning on hosting a Halloween party for my kids and their friends, but I wasn’t sure what theme to go with this year. Problem solved, then! I set to work to create a party centered around the Haunting Hour TV episode they sent us, which featured vampires. (Grampires, to be exact. You know, a Grampa who is a vampire.)
DECORATIONS
We used a lot of our existing Halloween decorations to create a mood for the party. Bats, rats, spiders, and pumpkins helped create a mood. As part of the promotional package for the show, they sent us Team Grampire t-shirts. We put a t-shirt on our full size skeleton for some spooky humor.
I also decorated several tables wtih Scarrots. They are super easy to make. You just take full size carrots and glue on googly eyes or draw on the carrots with a marker. My daughter made one look like a mad scientist. Then put them in a black or Halloween candle holder for some funny, spooky decor.
PARTY ACTIVITES
To start, we spent some time crafting. I had two craft projects for the kids to keep them busy. The first was to create a paper skeleton mask. The kids could color, stamp, bejewel a paper skull to take home and use as Halloween or Day of the Dead decorations.
Or, if they wanted, we glued popsicle sticks to the back to turn the skull into a spooky mask. I had purchased a paper skull decorating kit earlier in the year which was perfect to use for the party, but you can also download this free skull template and use your own craft materials for this easy kids craft idea.
The next craft we worked on was to create spooky wooden peg people. I saw the idea at the Eighteen25 blog and the kids just loved this whole craft idea. I bought the wooden pegs at Hobby Lobby but instead of paint, we used Sharpie markers to create our spooky creatures. As you can see, they were veeeeeery creative.
Our next activity was to watch the Haunting Hour episode that we were sent. I decided to kill two birds with one stone and eat pizza while we watched. Let me tell you the kids were hanging on to the edge of their seats during the episode. Even my 12-year-old son, who felt he was too old to come to the party, came in to watch the show. If you think your kids might be interested in the show, you can watch a sneak peak trailer for Season 3 of The Haunting Hour here.
As our final party activity, we played the Blood Red Donut Bobbing Game. Our local donut shop has great red velvet flavored donuts whose color reminded me of blood. So, it was a natural fit for this vampire party. To play the game, I used black curling ribbon to tie several donuts to a large stick. I then had my husband and son hold the stick up in the air and the kids had to bite the donuts using no hands. Whoever finished their whole donut first won.
To make the game harder, I tried to have the kids use their vampire fake teeth to bite the donuts but they quickly felt the game was hard enough on its own and took their teeth out.
TREATS
As parting treats, we gave the kids a goodie bag that I made to look like a tombstone. I just purchased small black treat bags and cut the top so it was rounded. We used a white poster paint marker to write R.I.P. on the front. I filled the bags with some of the material that I was sent from MommyParties like fake vampire teeth, glow in the dark wrist slapbands, and Haunting Hour Bumper Stickers. I also included some Halloween candy in the bag.
As a final treat, we sent the kids home with a Vampire Bite Cupcake that my daughter and I made. We saw the idea on Pinterest but we adapted it to make it our own. I made chocolate cupcakes from a mix. I frosted them with store-bought white vanilla frosting. I then rolled the edges of the cupcake in black sugar. Then we used a chopstick to puncture two teeth marks in the cupcake. We then filled the holes with red gel frosting. Remember to gently taper the frosting out of the hole to make it look like the blood is dripping. You could also use a toothpick to pull some of the red gel frosting out of the hole for the same effect.
You can find the original version of the vampire bite cupcakes and tons of other Halloween party ideas on my Halloween Party Pinterest Board.
Thank you to MommyParties and the Hub TV Network for sending us the materials. We had a great party and I had fun putting everything together with my daughter.
NOTE: I was selected to be a MommyParties host as part of a promotional program through MomSelect. However, my opinions and party ideas are my own.
Help! It’s the day after Halloween and we have way too much Halloween candy in our house. Waaaay too much candy. The kids trick or treated for hours and brought home enough candy to feed a small nation. There’s no way we can eat or even want to eat it all. So, Houston, we have a problem.
You can’t bring the candy to work because EVERYONE ELSE brought their extra candy to work. Your waistline does NOT need to collect the “Mommy or Daddy Tax” from the candy haul. You don’t want to throw it out but you certainly don’t want to urge your kids to eat more candy, so it doesn’t go to waste. That won’t win you any Mom-of-the-Year awards. So, what should you do with the leftover candy?
1. Repurpose it
Use your Halloween candy to fill a pinata for an upcoming child’s birthday party. Freeze the candy and then put it out in candy bowls as snacks for your Christmas, New Year’s, or Superbowl parties.
2. Play with it
Use the candy to have some fun. Have your kids build structures with the candy as if they were building blocks. My kids love to build structures using the jelly, butter and sugar packets on restaurant tables, so why not do the same at home. See who can build the tallest candy tower. Use the hot glue gun and build a fort for their Lego guys. Have your toddlers play games sorting the candy into sizes, colors or exact matches.
3. Add it up
Use the candy to work on your kids math skills. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and making groups of fives or tens for counting are all ways you can put the extra candy to work for you.
4. Craft with it
Store the candy away for a few weeks and then use it to decorate a gingerbread house. Don’t want to wait until Christmas? Make a Halloween or Thanksgiving themed candy house. If you don’t have the gingerbread pieces, just glue the candy onto a shoebox. M&Ms, hard candy, Smarties, and jelly beans make the best gingerbread decorations. Alphamom.com has some cute ideas for crafting with leftover Halloween candy like making an advent calendar or a turkey piñata.
You don’t want your kids to eat all of the candy they collect but you also don’t want them to feel like you are taking away their hard earned prize. So, have them exchange it. My daughter has Type 1 diabetes so we started the tradition of the Pumpkin Fairy who comes on Halloween night and exchanges the candy for little gifts such as a craft kit, book or toy. We tell her she can eat whatever she wants and trade the rest, but she eats hardly any because she wants a bigger stash to trade in. Read to learn more about the Pumpkin Fairy and how my daughter even built her Fairy a house out of a pumpkin.
7. Donate it
Get the candy out of the house by donating it. There are quite a few organizations that accept candy donations. Operation Gratitude sends care packages to the troops overseas. Make sure you have your child include a letter of support to a soldier, as well. According to Operation Gratitude, that’s what the soldiers love most. Some libraries and dentists will collect the candy on behalf of Operation Gratitude to make it easy for you. Otherwise call your local nursing home, food pantry, woman’s shelter or even children’s hospital ward to see if they accept candy donations.
8. Or, donate it to science
Older kids will have a blast running experiments with their candy. Check out CandyExperiments.com for some cool science experiments that go beyond exploding Mentos in Coke. Making Lifesavers flash in the dark or running acid tests on your candy look like some serious fun. Science20.com has even more experiments.
9. Ring in the Holidays
Girlfriendology.com has some great advice on what to do with your leftover Halloween candy but the idea I liked most was to create a countdown to Christmas calendar. Save out 24 pieces of candy from each kid’s stash. Then add the candy to your advent calendar or tape the candy to your family calendar. The kids get one piece every day in December as they countdown to Christmas Eve.
10. Regift it
Use the candy in homemade Holiday gifts. Create a movie night basket with some DVDs, popcorn, and Halloween candy. Put together a gourmet coffee basket with coffee, mugs, and some Halloween chocolate candy to melt into the coffee. These are easy to make and would be great ideas for Teacher’s Gifts.
What is your favorite Halloween candy? Any other ideas on what to do with your leftover Halloween candy?
I admit that I am a bit of an Avengers Fan. My kids think I’m nuts for watching The Avengers movie at least 10 times since we grabbed our DVD. But hey, what can I say? Thor and Iron Man make me supernaturally weak in the knees. Moms are entitled to a little eye candy and fantasies now and then, right?
So when it was time to decorate pumpkins this year, I decided to go with my obsession and create The Avengers pumpkins. I roped my daughter in to help me. We bought 4 small pie pumpkins.
We then drew the faces in pencil first to make sure we liked the design. We used two different craft ideas for inspiration on how to draw the Avengers characters. First, I love the Avenger bookmarks from CraftsbyAmanda.com. The faces are so cute! But they aren’t 3D so then I used the Superhero Pegs craft from Girl and a Glue Gun to design the whole head.
Once we had our design set, it was time for color. I didn’t have any paint so we tried to use Sharpie markers to color the pumpkins. It didn’t work that well. Only a few colors showed up. So, I broke down and went and bought kid-friendly acrylic paint in green, red, blue, yellow, and black. We painted around the pencil marks and let the pumpkins dry.
For Iron Man’s gold face and Thor’s silver helmet, I used Zig’s Posterman Metallic Paint Markers which worked perfectly. I cut wings out of thick cardstock paper, colored them silver and hot glued them to the side of Thor’s helmet.
Even though I have a thang for Thor and Iron Man, I think the Hulk pumpkin turned out the best. What do you think?
All in all, this was a super easy way to decorate pumpkins with the kids.
There are some really good books written for kids that explain the Holiday tradition of Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. I introduced this fun Holiday to my kids when they were five years old and reading books about the Holiday made it so much easier to share the tradition. Here are a few of our favorites. (Note: I put the links for the books in to make it easier for you to find and buy them. I don’t get any commission for the books I recommend.)
Day of the Dead by Tony Johnston and illustrated by Jeanette Winter is a good book with fun illustrations that explain how a Mexican family gets ready for Dia de los Muertos. The beautiful, colorful illustrations really capture the joy the family is having preparing to visit with their loved ones.
Felipa and the Day of the Dead by Birte Muller is another one of our favorites that is more of a fictional story. Felipa loses her grandmother and to comfort her, her parents tell her that a soul never dies. She finds that the celebration of Dia de los Muertos helps her feel close to her grandmother again.
Rosita y Conchita, by Eric Gonzalez and Erich Haeger, is the story of twin sisters who are trying to find a way to get back together once again, even though one of the twins has died. The illustrations alone would make this an incredible book but the story is equally as good with Rosita building an altar with ofrendas for her twin sister. The book is really good at helping to explain the concept of death to your child that isn’t scary or confusing. The end of the book has some extra goodies like a history of the holiday, along with a simple recipe for making your own sugar skulls, and directions on how to draw Rosita’s character.
Finally, a book that doesn’t talk directly about Day of the Dead but is a counting story that features Day of the Dead inspired art, is Just A Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book by Yuyi Morales. (Shameless Plug: I have one copy left of this book at ChocolateCakeClub.com. Grab your today!)
How do you teach your kids about Day of the Dead or any unique cultural Holidays?
Have you heard of Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead? It’s one of my family’s favorite Holiday traditions. Celebrated November 1st – 2nd, in many Latin American countries, the Holiday is about remembering and honoring loved ones who have passed away. I learned all about the Holiday when my family moved to Mexico City when I was in 8th grade. I loved the concept of not only taking a day to remember the people you miss, but also to honor them with some fun and festivity. Sounds odd, right? But here’s the thing. The Mexican culture embraces death as just another aspect of life. It is not to be feared. And even when you are gone, you are not truly gone if someone remembers you.
I have passed this fun tradition on to my family and boy, do they look forward to it every year. To celebrate, we create a Dia de los Muertos shrine or “altar” in our house. These “altars” are not for worshipping, they are just a colorful, fun, physical reminder of the people you miss. Then on the evening of Nov. 1st, we cook a special dinner to honor our loved ones who have passed on, like our Grandpa and our pets. In other words, we throw them a party. We make their favorite foods, display photos of those we love, and share funny stories to help keep their memories alive. The kids love it. And, of course, we decorate with fabulous bright colors, candy skulls, and have tons of food where we eat, eat, eat.
This year my daughter and I wanted to make something that we could use to decorate our Dia de Los Muertos shrine. There is nothing more iconic for Day of the Dead than the Calaveras or Sugar Skulls that are sold all over Mexico around this time of year. So I came up with an easy paper craft to make little Calaveras or Calaveritas that we could work on and decorate together. (It’s also another great opportunity for the kids and I to talk about the people we miss most.)
However, you don’t have to celebrate Dia de los Muertos to have fun decorating these skulls with the kids. Just use them as Halloween decorations.
Calaverita Template
To get started, download the Calavera or skull template I created from the link above. If you want to make bigger skulls you can enlarge it when you print or copy it and enlarge it. Same thing if you want to make smaller skull, just reduce the size when you print or copy. Make sure you copy it onto cardstock or cover paper. You need a little extra weight to hold up to the glue and decorations.
Cut out the skull and start decorating. We used markers to create the dots and squiggly lines around the skulls’ eyes, mouth and nose. Day of the Dead art uses a lot of turquoise, rose, lime green, black and purple colors. So don’t be shy, the more colorful the better.
To decorate or embellish your calaveritas, I just used whatever I could find around the house. Glitter, jewels, foam stick-on shapes, and scraps of colorful paper. We cut out shapes of hearts and flowers to glue to the skulls.
We used glue to draw a flower and then poured glitter over the glue. Tap it off and you get a glitter shape on your calaverita. You can even have your kids write their names at the top of the skulls because in Mexico it is tradition to have your name written in frosting on the top of the sugar skulls you buy. For inspiration on how to decorate your calaveras, check out my Day of the Dead Ideas Board on Pinterest.
Once you have your Calaverita decorated, you can paste them up around the house, you can tape them to the windows, or you can decorate your own Dia de los Muertos shrine. Click here for the directions to create a Dia de los Muertos shrine in your house. You can also turn your Calaverita into a mask. Cut the eyes out so you can see and glue a popsicle stick to the back of the skull to hold it in front of you to cover your face.
We made this Scary Halloween Cheesecake two years ago for my son’s Cub Scout Cake Bake and I’m still proud of how it turned out. I love the scary looking rats eating the cake. The cake 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. Like I said, 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 was 10 when we made the cake and I was really impressed that he was able to make the whole thing 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.
Here’s how we deviated from the original recipe to make the rats:
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):
Woo Hoo! We won for Most Original Cake in our class at the Cub Scouts’ Annual Cake Bake.
When the Leprechauns come, it’s a whole lot of fun. Why? Kids love mischief and St. Patrick’s Day is perfect for some Leprechaun-inspired shenanigans. You can be really creative with the idea that leprechauns play tricks on kids. After all, they are tiny, green, greedy, and grumpy.
At my daughter’s day care a few years ago, her very clever day care teacher decided to have the kids decorate the room for St. Patrick’s Day. When they came back the next morning, the “Leprechaun” had played a trick on them and shrunken all of the decorations to a tiny size. A year later, on St. Patrick’s Day, the kids found the Leprechaun’s pants, coat and underwear in the sandbox. In first grade, my daughter’s class made “traps” or little houses to catch the Leprechaun. However, “he” was too clever and replaced all of their traps with green hats.
Last year, my daughter wrote a note to a Leprechaun and put it outside by the mailbox. She was thrilled when “he” answered her letter and left a gold, half dollar coin. The following year, she built him a house.
Here are some other cute Leprechaun Shenanigan ideas that you can use to delight your kids.
Leprechaun Traps
Howdoesshe.com did a nice round-up of Leprechaun Traps to catch the sneaky little guy. Use cardboard, legos, popsicle sticks, and even PVC piping to catch yourself a green guy. I like the version from FamilyFun.com and Education.com.
Be Sneaky Good
Here is a St. Patrick’s Day family tradition idea I saw over at TipJunkie.com. What I love about it is that the kids get to be sneaky and tricky like a leprechaun, but all in the name of doing something nice for another person. Kids will love doing something nice for their siblings or classmates and seeing if they can guess who did it.
Tricky Feet
Leprechauns are tricksters and they don’t appreciate anyone trying to take their gold. So, sometimes they retaliate which cracks the kids up. A Differentiated Kindergarten blog does a cute job of destroying her house and leaving little green footprints behind as clues to the culprits. I love the footprints on the toilet.
GourmetMomontheGo.com did a super cute job of “vandalizing” her kids’ lunch. I love the tiny footprints on the sandwich that has been tasted.
Funny Games
I really liked this free printable for the game “Don’t Eat Lucky” from Pink Polka Dot Creations.
More Leprechaun Mischief
There are a lot of super creative Moms online having fun with Leprechaun mischief. I’ve seen posts where they turn their kids’ breakfast milk green, mess up the house, put clothes on their kids toys, turn the toilet water green, and run green ribbon through the house so the kids can barely walk. Some other ideas I’ve seen include leaving a small square of green velvet in the door like his coat got caught, sprinkling gold or green glitter on the floor, and unrolling all of the toilet paper. You can leave little chocolate gold coins at each place of “mischief” so the kids have to hunt for them all.
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
Tower Brass Holiday Concert at Fourth Presbyterian Church on Michigan Avenue
– 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!
I know Easter is over. And I hope you had a fabulous Holiday with your family. My kids and I have one last Easter treat idea to share. You can change the theme, easily. Check out this Easter Kit Kat Cake that I made with my daughter, having fun in the kitchen together.
The cake looked great but we wanted to give ours an Easter flair. Here’s our version, using Peeps:
You need:
Chocolate Cake Mix
Chocolate Frosting
6 Kit Kat bars (4 pieces each)
Bag of Shredded Coconut
Green food coloring
Peeps, robins egg, or jelly bean Easter candy
Ribbon
First we baked a Chocolate Cake using 2 round cake pans. We used our knife to even off the top of one cake so that the top layer would sit a little nicer on the bottom layer. We generously frosted the bottom layer of the cake, then added the top layer and frosted it. We finished up by frosting the sides. (more…)
I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter or Passover last week with their families. After finding so many creative ideas for Easter cupcakes last week on other blogs, my daughter and I were inspired to bake up some fun treats. Here’s our take on some cupcake ideas:
Carrot Patch Chocolate Cupcakes
I saw this idea on the Frog Prince Paperie blog and just had to try it. Not only because it looked tasty but had huge visual appeal. You can get the whole tutorial for how to make the cupcakes on their site but here are our photos of my daughter making the “carrots” and our end product. It was VERY easy to make and kids can help out all along the way – baking and decorating. It just has several steps – make cupcakes; let cool; make “carrots”; let cool; frost cupcakes, and insert carrot tops – so you need a little time.
Dipping marshmallows in orange candy coating, then dipping top in orange sugar sprinkles, and finally sticking them into styrofoam block to dry. (more…)
I’ve been spending a lot of time online getting inspired for our Easter celebration tomorrow. I’ve been highlighting some of my favorite crafts, decorating ideas, Easter family traditions, and recipes you can cook with the kids. Normally, I only share ideas that are creative AND simple. One’s that have high impact but that a busy Mom could do – with her kids.
However, these three Easter cookie recipes blew me away and I just had to share.
Spring Bird Nest Cookies
These cookies by SweetSugarBelle are amazing. I so desperately want someone to make them for me. I wouldn’t even eat them. I’d just stare and admire them for awhile. (OK, I lied. I’d eat them. But I would admire them first.)
Easter Cookies
Tidymom went nuts decorating these beautiful Easter cookies. I love cut-out, sugar cookies and these are so incredibly beautiful.
Bunny Macaroons
Macaroons are the “it” gourmet cookies lately and the Raspberri Cupcakes blog did an amazingly fun job of making Bunny Macaroons. As she says, they aren’t that easy but they are SO CUTE!
If you do make any of these for Easter, let me know how it goes. I’d love to admire your hard work.
Family traditions are so important and Easter is a great time of year to celebrate and have fun with loved ones. But Easter can mean more than just a ham dinner and an Easter Egg Hunt. Here are 5 ideas to start a fun, family Easter tradition this year.
1. Color Easter Eggs – Well, duh! This is easy right, we all know you color Easter eggs at this time of year. But, why not add to the Easter Egg coloring experience? Every year, color the eggs in a different way. Family Fun magazine, Martha Stewart Living, and Celebrations.com provide you with ideas on how to decorate Easter Eggs. Start a tradition where every year you take turns deciding how you are going to decorate the eggs that year – stickers, decopage, tie dye, googly eyes, themes, etc. Or, start a tradition where you take some of the decorated eggs to a nearby nursing home. They would love to see your artwork. Another idea is to paint wooden eggs. Every year, everyone in the family gets to decorate one wooden egg. Put their name and the date on the bottom, save them and you have some artwork to look back on.
2. Hunting for Practical Jokes. Funny-up the Easter Egg Hunt by putting weird items in the plastic eggs. Our family has put in everything from grass, dog food, candy wrappers, dirt, shaving cream, and lego guys in the eggs. The kids look forward to opening the eggs and finding weird stuff in them. Lots of giggles.
3. Feed the Bunny. You leave cookies and milk for Santa, right? Well, what about the Bunny? He has to travel all night and he has to hop it! He doesn’t get a cool sleigh ride. I’m sure he’s hungry. Leave out a plate of carrots and a bowl of water for the Easter Bunny. (Maybe leave a can of Red Bull. I think he’s going to need the extra energy.) It’s up to your kids if they also want to leave some “white dip.” This forces Mom and Dad to eat a healthy snack before dinner, as well. Take it a step further and have the kids create a special plate and bowl just for the Easter Bunny.
4. Hunting for Fun. Why do the kids get all the fun on Easter Day at the Easter Egg Hunt? My husband has a huge family and every Easter the adults have fun hiding the eggs for the kids. The eggs get hid in some weird places and you get points for hiding the egg that doesn’t get found until Labor Day. Bonus points if you find out the egg was run over with the lawn mower. One year when the kids were done hunting and the adults were standing around wondering what to do next, we decided to have an adult hunt. One year we hid beer cans (soda would work, too). Another year, it was twinkies. We have hid pieces of paper with jokes on them and it’s pretty fun to read them all aloud later. Be creative, but have fun by having a second Easter Hunt.
5. Try Something New. Traditions are all about doing the same thing so you can look forward to the event, right? Well, make a tradition of doing something different for Easter. In our family, Easter means Ham, Cheesy Potatoes, Deviled Eggs, and some kind of Cream Pie. However, why not make it a tradition to try a different meal combination every year or a different recipe for ham, cheesey potatoes, etc? Cook an Easter meal from another country each year. Or, if you are like me, you clip these great recipes out of the food magazines only to store them somewhere and never use them. Use this family gathering as an excuse to try a new ham recipe or do the potatoes a little different. Just wait for the comments. “Ooh, she used apricot jelly on the ham this year.” “Goat cheese in the potatoes? Brilliant!” Here’s another tradition – invite non-family members to Easter dinner. If you have a small family or find yourself not traveling on Easter, start a tradition of inviting non-family to the family dinner. We have plenty of friends who celebrate Easter at home by themselves. Why not invite them over? You’re going to cook anyway.
We hope these ideas have spurred you on to start a new Family Tradition this year. Leave a comment and tell us your Easter Family Traditions.
Living Locurto is definitely on my list of sites to check out daily for inspiration to have fun with the family. Designer Amy and her team of creators always have some fun recipes, printables, and craft ideas that are just adorable. Here are two of my favorite Easter recipes from her site.
These Cotton Candy Cupcakes are just too cute and pretty easy to make. The kids will love working with the sticky cotton candy to create fluffy clouds and of course you can’t go wrong with Peeps and M&Ms.
My daughter and I got crafty this past weekend after looking through all of the wonderful egg decorating ideas in magazines and online, we were inspired to make the most unique idea we had seen – Chalkboard Painted Eggs. We saw the idea in Style at Home and wanted to see if it really was super easy and super cool.
It’s definitely easy and my daughter loved making them. We used their instructions as a guide but we found we had to deviate a little to make ours work. (more…)
Christi over at the Love From the Oven blog made these incredibly cute cupcake pops with Peeps. What an impressive Easter dessert to thrill the kids and amaze the adults.
Now, you will have to buy the plastic push pop containers to get the same effect. Or you could just make regular cupcakes and use the Peeps as decoration. They would still look stunning displayed on an Easter theme serving plate.
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
Tower Brass Holiday Concert at Fourth Presbyterian Church on Michigan Avenue
– We go every year. It’s amazing. This year it is scheduled for tonight at 5 p.m. Save us a seat, we’ll see you there.
Shop windows at Macy’s on State Street, see the beautiful, decorated Christmas trees at Water Tower Place, 900 North Mall or NorthBridge
No matter what you decide to do this year, create some memories and have some Happy Holiday Fun with your family!
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. Here’s the video!
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!
It happens. We love our husbands and Dads to death and want to show them appreciation and give them a fun day to remember on Father’s Day. But some years you wake up on a Saturday morning in a cold sweat and say, “What? It’s tomorrow!?! How did that happen?”
It’s not that we don’t love you, sweeties. We want only the best for these men of ours. But life interferes. Kids need attention. (Yes, I am going to cop out and blame it on the kids.)
So, ladies, here are some last minute Father’s Day ideas that will make it look like you have been planning a special day for months.
1. Breakfast in Bed. The classic. Why not make his favorite dish and have the kids help you present it to him in bed? Or relaxing out on the patio? Breakfast Burritos are a huge hit in our house and easy to make. Scramble eggs, saute some onions and red peppers. Warm some tortillas and your favorite salsa. Add a side of grated cheddar and sour cream. Viola!
2. Bake his favorite cookies. My hubby loves Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies so the kids and I make them for him on special occasions – his birthday, Christmas, and now Father’s Day. (Make sure the kids don’t eat too many kisses so you run out of them by the time the last batch is ready.)
3. An afternoon of golf. If your whole family plays golf, set up a tee time and spend the day outside. If not, call one of his best buddies and set up a play date for Dad.
4. Act like a tourist. Some of our best Father’s Days have been where we just headed into downtown Chicago and hit some of the big tourist attractions. It’s something we rarely do as a family and it makes us feel like we “traveled” somewhere for the day.
5. Pampering. Every Dad likes quiet and relaxation, right? Well, why not give him a massage. He’ll get an hour of peace and quiet and come home relaxed and jelly like. (Ready to start work again on Monday. Right!)
6. Cook together. Do you both like to cook? Why not take the day to make one of those all day recipes that you have been dying to try. Make homemade pasta. Make paella. Slow cook ribs or a BBQ brisket. You’ll have a relaxing day spending time together in the kitchen and then eating a fabulous, rarely cooked meal.
It’s going to be nice outside in Chicago this Memorial Day weekend – Yeah!!! So, I’ve been trying to put together a few ideas of things we can do outside as a family. We’re going to ride our bikes over to watch our local Memorial Day Parade. (Psst! Like how my daughter turned her bike into a horse? We sell the Handlebar Horse Bike Accessory at www.ChocolateCakeClub.com.)
Then, we’re definitely going to go for a bike ride/ picnic through the forest preserve to feed the new duckies.
We’re going to meet up with another family for dinner one night where we can eat al fresco. (I’m going to finally get to see Iron Man 2, but that has nothing to do with outside. I’m just really looking forward to finally seeing a grown-up movie.)
My daughter built a toad cottage and wants to hunt for toads but I don’t know how successful we’ll be. Toads seem to have this magic ability to only be found when you don’t want to find one. Darn you, Toads!
But as I was cruising around the web this morning I came across this post on the TeachMama blog that I had to share as a great outside fun idea. Amy, the author, calls it a Backyard Rainbow Hunt and I call it a great way to spend time outside enjoying nature and making something together.
What are you going to do for fun this weekend? Whatever you decide to do, have fun with your family! Happy Memorial Day!
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Mother’s Day is coming up and I’m looking forward to it. I have to admit, I didn’t use to. For a couple of years when my kids were toddlers, without fail my children would act their absolute worst on Mother’s Day or my birthday. The minute we walked into a restaurant to celebrate or tried to have a nice, relaxing breakfast at home, my kids would decide to explore and hone their obnoxious, whiny skills. Because really, what better day to bring your “A game” or what better way to really test how much your Mother loves you, than to act like a poop on Mother’s Day?
However, we’ve grown out of that stage and I really do like having fun with my kids on Mother’s Day. We have a tradition at our house that I love. Read about My Mother’s Day Tradition to get some ideas on how to have fun with the family on your very Special Day! While you are reading, I’m going to go find some paper and start a petition to get every day declared Mother’s Day. Wish me luck!
Tired of the plain old colored Easter Eggs? There’s more to having fun with your family decorating Easter Eggs than throwing fizzy tablets in a cup of water. Why not “amp up” the creativity this year and try a new decorating technique. These sites have some interesting ideas on how to create masterpieces with a carton of eggs.
Easter Egg Decorating Ideas to inspire your creative minds:
We were looking for some ideas on how to “amp up” our Easter celebration this year so we found some “go-to” sites for inspiration. There are some fun ideas in each one so take your time, read through their offerings on recipes, crafts, and games and then choose an activity or two to try with your family this year.
It’s 65 degrees and sunny in Chicago today so I’m thinking SPRING, SPRING, SPRING. Which then led me to think of Spring Cleaning, which depressed me so then I debated laying out to absorb some sun and essential Vitamin D, but I thought that would be pushing it a bit. So to compromise, I changed my thoughts around to focus on Easter fun with the family. I found some cute ideas on how to make Easter a little more special this year with some craft ideas that I can do with my kids.
Check out these very fun free downloadable Easter Triangular Envelopes from Mushy.com that you can use to put candy in or give as gifts. Very cool and thank you for the free download.
The next two ideas we found at the celebrationshoppe.com blog site. They have some beautiful ideas on decorating and kids crafts. I bookmarked this site!
My kids got excited about this carrot candy craft. We’re thinking about making them for the cousins for Easter.
I got all excited about how cool, and more importantly easy, this Easter centerpiece looks. Since we aren’t hosting Easter dinner, we’ll bring the centerpiece.
What are you going to make with the kids this Easter?
Wednesday is St. Patrick’s Day. Normally, I would have said “So, what?” I’m not Irish, I don’t look good in green, and I was never very much into hanging out in a bar all day and getting blasted in the name of a Saint. However, slowly there seems to be a clever Leprechaun in charge of PR for the Holiday who has been building awareness of the fun you can have on this day with your kids. So, now I’m into it … for the kids. I’m still not Irish, wearing green or getting blasted in the middle of the work week.
Kids, at least my kids, seem to love the idea of the tiny, green being tricksters. You can have a lot of family fun and be really creative with the idea that leprechauns playing tricks on kids. At my daughter’s day care a few years ago, her very clever day care teacher decided to have the kids decorate the room for St. Patrick’s Day. When they came back the next morning, the “Leprechaun” had played a trick on them and shrunken all of the decorations to a tiny size. A year later, on St. Patrick’s Day, the kids found the Leprechaun’s pants, coat and underwear in the sandbox. In first grade, her class made “traps” or little houses to catch the Leprechaun. However, “he” was too clever and replaced all of their traps with green hats.
My daughter wrote a note to a Leprechaun this year and put it outside by the mailbox. She was thrilled when “he” answered her letter and left a gold, half dollar coin.
Here are some other cool ideas to have fun with the kids on Wednesday.
OK, Groundhog Day is well in our past but I just came across these fun ideas for cooking up treats for Groundhog Day and thought I would share because you could make these recipes with your kids for really any day of the week.
These incredibly creative cooking recipes are from the Gourmet Mom on the Go blog. Pretend the animal is a teddy bear and not a groundhog, and you have a tasty fun treat to make with the kids. What a cute birthday party idea. Hmm …
In our family, we keep Valentine’s Day low key. I used to get roses but after the cats knocked them over and ate them several times, I no longer receive floral tokens of love. (Rotten cats! Although, when I begin to wonder what value the cats add to our family, I look into their cute little blank eyes and remind myself that every family needs a daily shot of cuteness. However, I like to remind the cats that I can now get my cute cat fixes on the internet, so beware.)
OK, back to Valentine’s Day. We like to celebrate as a family instead of getting a babysitter and we have fun doing little things for each other that say I Love You. Hopefully they will inspire you to do the same.
1. My daughter gets 1 rose from her Dad, which puts the biggest smile on her face. Read our post about the Power of a Flower for your little girl.
2. Can’t find a babysitter for Valentine’s Day this year? No problem. Read about how you can still have some romance 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.
My husband and I like to cook so this year we are making Beef Tenderloin with Blue Cheese Crumbles and Red Wine Sauce, Cauliflower and Gruyere, and twice baked potatoes. Yummy! Unfortunately, the kids have discovered the joy that is beef tenderloin. I guess we’ll have to share. The days of distracting them with chicken nuggets are gone.
3. We like to try out a new dessert recipe since my family seems to be obsessed with sweets. (Personally I have a salty tooth.) This year we are going to make Red Velvet Heart Cakes.
4. Buy your kids a little gift to go with the mounds of chocolate. A cool necklace like the Itty Bitty Blocks or a new Garfield book seem to do the trick. For younger kids little toys are always a hit and for older kids gift cards for iTunes or the movie theater are always well received.
5. Let the kids eat dessert first on Valentine’s Day. It’s truly a treat that delights.
6. Leave love notes for your kids around the house. I like to tape a Hershey’s kiss or some other candy to a small index card and hide it around the house where the kids will find it. *Handy Tip: Write down where you hid them all so you don’t get ants in your family room a few weeks from now.Although, that might distract the cats from the flowers. Hmmm.
What small acts of love are you going to share with your family this Valentine’s Day? Awesome free vector art from www.design-freebies.com.
I was looking up recipes for something special to make for the family for Valentine’s Day and came across this blog post at the Mother Huddle. In their post today, she made Red Velvet Heart Cakes and I thought it looked fabulous enough to share. It looks like a good, easy recipe to cook with the kids so we’re going to try it out this weekend.
What are you going to make as a special treat for your family?
A few weeks ago I was on NBC 5 Chicago News talking about ways to keep kids busy during the Holiday Break, with some sanity saver ideas and cool products. While the Holiday Break may be over, check out the clip and use the ideas to have fun with your kids, especially on snow days or the upcoming Presidents Day Holiday weekend. Leave me a comment if you like the segment and check out some of my other videos on my YouTube Channel (the content is good, even if my head is cut off in some of them.)
Video on How to Amuse Kids During Holiday Break.
As a personal aside, I want to throw out a big thank you to Nesita Kwan and the morning news crew at NBC 5 Chicago for making me feel so welcome and at ease while I was in the studios. It was a pleasure! Thank you as well for allowing us to post the video clip.
Would you be interested in seeing some of our tips and ideas on Family Fun in video form?
Looking to ring in 2010 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, do like the idea of celebrating the arrival of the new year. So, party on we must. Since the crowds are a bit much on New Year’s Eve and I’m usually running on empty, I’ve put together some fun and yet low-key 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. Read on to see how you can make the food preparation be the evening’s entertainment, keep the decorations easy, and add some inexpensive noise makers. 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, and it saves on babysitter money. But 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 have fun together as a family to ring in the new decade. 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.
DECORATIONS:
Decorate a New Year’s Tree
We loved this idea from a Mom who wrote it in to familyfun.com. 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.
Pop in the Fun
Kids love noise makers on New Year’s Eve. You can grab some at your local Dollar Store or another idea is to 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.
MAKING TOASTS:
Make a non-alcoholic punch and serve it to the kids in your good champagne glasses or for younger kids get some plastic ones. This makes them feel grown up. If you are really dragging after the Holidays or if you had to work all day, some non-alcoholic punch for the grown ups is good, too. Sparkling grape juice is always good kids to make a toast, as well.
ACTIVITIES:
Pizza Party
Why not have fun cooking together and sharing some laughs in the kitchen by making homemade pizza? Start the new year off with something truly new by trying some unusual pizza toppings. Who knows? It may become a new family favorite. If you have a killer pizza recipe and a pizza stone, you are good to go. If not, we sell a Kids Pizza Making Kit to help with a recipe and the necessary utensils. If you want to cook but are intimidated by making the dough, buy some Boboli pizza crusts and add the toppings or use the Pillsbury Pizza Crust and a cookie sheet. Some fun topping ideas:
Taco pizza – This pizza is huge hit with my husband and his family. It’s basically taco meat, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, taco sauce, sour cream, and crushed Doritos. Here’s a highly rated recipe for Taco Pizza I found online.
Hawaiian pizza – pineapple bits and Canadian bacon
Goat cheese, plum tomatoes, pesto, and sundried tomatoes (believe it or not, my 7 year old daughter likes this)
Candy pizza – why not? Let the kids add some candy to the pizza for some sweetness. See if anyone likes it. Or melt some chocolate chips and spread it on the pizza dough. Then add white chocolate chips as the “cheese” or tiny marshmallows.
Game Night
Get out the new games that your kids got for Christmas or Hanukkah and play. Give out prizes for the winners. We like movie theater size candy for prizes. Click here for more ideas on planning a Family Game Night.
Record the Year for Posterity
Why not spend the evening capturing your favorite moments of the last year in a scrapbook? Print out some of the best photos of the year and everyone can work together to make a scrapbook of 2009’s family fun. Gather photos, postcards, and travel mementos to use on the pages. By involving the whole family in making the pages, maybe that scrapbook will actually get done instead of having your photos sit in a box or on the computer. While you are scrapbooking, you can talk about things you want to do or places you want to go as a family in 2010.
Dance Party
You don’t have to go to a club to hear the latest bands and dance on New Years. 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 2009 and groove those holiday feeding-frenzy calories away.
Whatever you decide to do, have a safe and wonderful New Year’s Eve with your family. We look forward to sharing more Family Fun ideas with you in 2010 so we can all have more Chocolate Cake Moments.
We created a pdf file of our Recipe for Creating Fun Family Holiday Traditions to make it easier for you to download and print for future reference. This “Recipe” includes on:
Tips on how to be more creative with your existing traditions
Planning advice to make sure these fun ideas get on your calendar
Questions to ask to help you pick the perfect Holiday tradition for your family
A blank monthly calendar for you to print and fill in a month’s worth of family fun or traditions
Finally, we give you our 10 Fun Family Holiday Traditions ideas to inspire you to create activities that your family will look forward to every year and remember forever. It’s all about creating more of those Chocolate Cake Moments when you are smiling, relaxed, and loving parenthood. Enjoy!
Here’s another day’s worth of fun ideas to do with your family this Holiday Season. Good tidings we wish to you, but no figgy pudding.
Watch: It’s Friday night and the kids can stay up so you can watch a longer Christmas show, so let’s start with a classic – Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Nothing reminds me more of Christmas as a kid then sitting in front of the TV waiting for the theme music saying that a special presentation was coming up and then watching Rudolph. In today’s age of DVDs and DVRs, kids don’t feel the same sense of “need” that we did growing up to not miss when the show was airing on TV. We had to stay home and be glued in front of the TV when this all important show was on. I think I can recite all of the lines to this one. My favorite character is Yukon Cornelius, of course. “Put some heart into it boy!” But I also love the Burl Ives score as he sings Silver and Gold. Leave a comment below and tell me about your favorite scene is.
Read:The Grinch. Enough said. (We’ll recommend watching it too in a different post but it is definitely worth reading the book as well.)
Bake: My second favorite Christmas cookies, that also remind me so much of my youth, were Spritz Cookie-Gun Cookies. (They call them cookie presses now but we always called it a cookie gun growing up.) My mother made these every year and I love them. However, I haven’t made them as an adult because I can never find a good cookie press. My brother made them last year when our family visited last Christmas and I think I must have eaten 4 dozen of them they just reminded me so much of childhood. We loved decorating them as kids. My favorites were the little flowers with the cinnamon hearts in the center. Grab a cookie press, check out this recipe and introduce your kids to the magic of squeezing tasty dough out of a tube into shapes. They are muy tasty.
Craft:Make these adorable Penguin Christmas ornaments, which we found over at Kaboose. http://crafts.kaboose.com/penguin-pals-ornaments.html
Pure Fun: More computer fun for the kids. Go to http://www.northpole.com/ and see all of the games and Christmas related activities. We liked the dancing Santa.
Leave us your ideas on how to have fun with your family during the Holidays or tell us what your remember about your childhood Christmas.
OK, I missed getting this post out yesterday and I apologize profusely. We were slammed with orders yesterday and then I had a Holiday party to go to in the evening, which is when I usually have the time to write. I had a few glasses of wine at the party and when I got home I decided to follow the wise advice of “Don’t drink and blog.” I think we are all safer that way. Anyway, here are my ideas for today.
DAY 3 – Holiday Family Fun Ideas
Watch: Another favorite of ours is Santa vs. the Snowman. Whether we watch this funny movie with 3-D glasses or not, I love the pop culture references in the movie. Elves battling snowmen with super jets in the North Pole appeals to the goof ball kid in me. I love Jonathan Winters and he makes a great Santa. Note: We took my son to see this movie in 3-D at an Omnimax theater when my son was 3. Big mistake. He freaked at the enormity of the screen and the 3-D objects hurtling at him in the movie. Watch it at home without the 3-D glasses if you think your kids might get a little nervous.
Read: We read Russell’s Christmas Magic by Rob Scotton before bed last night. The illustrations are so cute in these books. The red color for Santa and the “fixed-up sleigh” just jump off the page. Even though this is more of a toddler book, my kids still love to read it just for the illustrations.
Bake: When I was a kid I loved it when my Mom made Cornflake Marshmallow Wreath Cookies. They were gooey, had cinnamon hearts and turned your tongue green. Loved every bite! Here’s the recipe for these ultra-fun, kid-friendly, Cornflake Wreath Cookies from Kellogg’s.
Note: Send us your favorite Holiday cookie recipe and we’ll include it in one of our future posts.
Craft: How about this Stuffed Felt Santa Ornament, that we found over at Kaboose. This would be a cute gift for Grandma and Grandpa, friends at school, or even teachers.
Pure 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? Sign up for Facebook or Twitter updates of what Santa is doing. Now who’s who to see who’s been naughty and who’s been nice?
Send us your favorite ideas and we may include them in one of our future posts. Check back later tonight for Day 4!
I hope you were inspired by our ideas yesterday to start some Holiday Family Fun at your house. Here are some more ideas to get the family smiling and saying “Wow, you are the coolest Mom on the planet!” (OK, maybe that’s a stretch but the Holidays are for dreams, right?)
DAY 2 Holiday Family Fun Ideas
Read: Tonight we read Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner. This fun board book is not only cute, but inspires some ideas for outdoor, snowy fun. Who wouldn’t love to see snowmen come to life at night and cruise around town?
Note: We just came across a great idea at another Mom’s blog site and thought we would share. Over at This Girl Loves to Talk, their family has a tradition of wrapping 24 Christmas themed books. Starting December 1st, every night the kids get to unwrap a book and read together. Pure genius!
Watch: We didn’t have time to watch any Holiday shows tonight but if we did, we would have watched A Charlie Brown’s Christmas. The dance scene is too funny, (come on, do your Linus Dance!) but the best part is when Linus explains the true meaning of Christmas. In fact, this year since our house is all ripped up for renovations, we have no room to put up our Christmas tree. The kids were really bummed until I went out and got the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. We now have it sitting in our family room waiting to be dwarfed by wrapped presents.
Bake: Our most requested cookie in the Kirchner household for the Holidays are classic Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies or Peanut Blossoms. (I personally don’t eat them, but sometimes you have to bake one for the team.) There are a million recipes out there for this cookie but our family seems to prefer the one in the Gooseberry Patch Old Fashioned Country Cookie Recipe Book. Definitely get the kids involved in baking these. They love doing the stuff that I find mind-numbing like unwrapping the kisses and rolling the dough into little balls.
Craft: AmazingMoms.com has a very cute idea to make Reindeer Candy Holders. Very cute and you can immediately fill them with Chocolate when you are done for a truly Chocolate Cake Moment with the kids.
Pure Fun: If you live in a fun neighborhood, organize a Neighborhood Decorating Contest/ Party. One of our neighbors came up with the idea a few years ago of encouraging everyone to decorate the outsides of their houses with Snowmen. Then they threw a party inviting all of the neighbors. The night of the party, we all had to walk around the block in the cold and vote on which houses had the most “Snowman Spirit”. It was a blast and we continue to do it every year. It’s so funny to see a neighbor put out a new snowman decoration and everyone runs over to check it out and ask where they got it. True Holiday bonding.
Please share your ideas or other great ideas you have seen on other sites. We love to see them and share. Check in tomorrow for Day 3.
There are so many ways to have fun with your family around the Holidays. However, it’s very easy to get caught up in the stress and crazy-busy schedules during the Holidays that we forget to stop and have some fun. (What do you mean we forgot to get a present for your Spanish teacher? Why has the cat eaten all of the curling ribbon? I can’t wait for that gift to come out. Where did I put the Christmas cards that I bought last January on sale?) So, as a way to remind myself to plan some fun for the family every day during the Holiday Season and not become the Grinch, I will be sharing some fun ideas every day. From reading Holiday-themed books before bedtime to watching your favorite Christmas specials to finding that perfect craft or cookie recipe, I hope I can inspire you to do something every day to keep your family smiling during December. Smile and wave kids … smile and wave.
DAY 1 Holiday Family Fun Ideas
Read: Tonight we read Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman. While my kids are a little too old for this picture book, it is still a Holiday favorite. The illustrations are too cute and the rhyming words are perfect for lulling everyone to sleep. (I want some of the cookies that Bear makes his friends!)
Watch: We didn’t have a lot of time to watch anything after dinner and homework but we snuck in one of my all time favorite Christmas shows – Ziggy’s Gift. I was a huge Ziggy fan growing up and the first time I saw this Christmas special I was bawling. Guess what?After watching again tonight, I’m still tearing up. I love this story about the true meaning of giving and forgiveness at Christmas. My kids love the thief. Go figure.
Bake: We are in the process of renovating our kitchen and haven’t had an oven for about 6 weeks now. Because I can’t bake, I have been dreaming about homemade Holiday cookies for several nights now. But if you have an oven, go ahead and make these with your kids. They love rolling the cookies into a ball and then rolling them in powdered sugar. Sure, it makes a mess. Sure, these cookies are pure butter. But that’s why I love them. Here’s a recipe that is close to how we make them, only we use ground pecans because the kids don’t like the texture of nut pieces in the cookie.
Craft: I’ve been on the hunt for some really cute but really easy Holiday crafts to do with the kids. You know the kind where I don’t need to spend all day shopping for supplies, doesn’t take three days of drying time to complete, and actually looks cute when finished. Well I found a fun site called Homemaking Fun and I liked their idea for making Magical Reindeer Food to sprinkle in the snow. If you are lucky, you’ll have everything you need in the house already.
Pure Fun: If your family has adopted an Elf on the Shelf, tonight is the night to start. At least in our house it is. (Some people start the day after Thanksgiving, some on December 6th which is St. Nicholas Day, and some on the 15th because they only want to hide the Elf for 10 nights.) You choose. Never heard of Elf on the Shelf? Well, this post explains it all.
We’ll be sharing ideas every day for 25 days but we’d love to hear your favorite way to have fun during the Holidays. Please share them by leaving a comment here. Check back tomorrow!
Thanksgiving is just around the corner and you know what that means … ROADTRIP! Yes, it is that time of year when we all pile in the car with our duffle bags, non-perishable Thanksgiving dinner contributions, and the dog and head out to Grandma’s House for Thanksgiving dinner. We’re getting ready for our Roadtrip to Iowa so I thought I would pass along a few tips that we rely on to make the trip go a little easier.
Car essentials:
Snacks - Make sure they’re not too messy or crumbly. Little, individual size snack bags work perfect. Grapes are good, easy to eat and no peel to worry about. Put drinks in drip-proof sippy cups or sports bottles. Juice boxes are great but no matter how neat your kids are, the juice squirts everywhere. Tip: If you end up eating breakfast in the car as you head out, make sure you don’t order anything with biscuits. They crumble everywhere!
Garbage Bag – Always have a bag in the car to throw out trash. Trust us, you don’t want to hold a snotty Kleenex or ketchup covered wrapper or banana peel for 4 hours. (Trust me on this. I’m speaking from experience.)
Pillows, Snuggle Buddies, or Neck Wraps – If the stars are aligned and Holiday fortune is smiling on you, the kids will fall asleep for awhile. While most kids are resilient and flexible, they shouldn’t have to kiss their navel while they are napping. Give them some support.
Antibacterial Wipes/Hand Sanitizer – You have kids. Need I say more?
Boredom Bag – You’ll need plenty of entertainment to keep the kids (and adults) amused during the long car trip. In my next post, I’ll give you some ideas on how to fill that Boredom Bag for younger and older kids.
What items do you take on your Holiday Road Trips?
Another Holiday tradition that we do every year with the kids is decorate a Gingerbread House. We buy the kit where the pieces are already made and all we have to do is decorate. (Saves a huge amount of time!) We have even used old Halloween candy as additional decorations for the house as a way 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, kits or tips on how to best tackle a gingerbread house barn raising, try the Fork & Bottle site.
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 Gingerbread Hannukah Cottage online. 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!
Here’s a question for you. Does your family eat the gingerbread house after you have made it? We don’t. We let it sit out for a few days as decoration but we don’t eat it. (No, not the gum drop buttons!) However, we want to know if you do.
A Stimulus Package for Fun Family Holiday Traditions – 10 Ideas to Banish the Bah Humbugs!
Here’s a list of ideas to stimulate you into creating or adding enduring Holiday Traditions for your family. Have fun!
1. Holiday Tea Party. Mother & daughter, sisters, friends, Grandma & Granddaughters. Check out your favorite place or host one yourself.
2. Hide ‘n Seek Traditions. A fun way to usher in the Holiday Season is with Holiday hide and seek traditions like Elf on the Shelf , which we sell at www.ChocolateCakeClub.com because we love it so much, or the Christmas Pickle.
3. Bake Holiday Cookies. There is no better way to spend quality time with your family than in the kitchen cooking, eating and talking. Or, try a new cake recipe each year. Everyone at the table gets to vote on their favorite recipe. Check out our post on making Gingerbread Houses.
4. Create a Holiday Scrapbook. Together as a family, create a scrapbook of the previous Holiday family gathering. Everyone can decorate their own page and it’s a nice way to sit and talk about what you enjoyed last year.
5. Holiday Movie Marathon. Pick a day, keep your jammies on, and watch your favorite Christmas specials or movies. Everyone can choose their favorite show and you can watch them back-to-back together. If you have any home movies of Holidays past, this is the perfect time to watch.
6. The Competitive Holiday Spirit. Why not organize a Holiday Olympics to get the competitive juices flowing? If you have a Nintendo Wii console, your family can see who’s the best at bowling, tennis, or 3-Point Shoot-Out. Or, make a contest out of the Holiday tasks you need to do – Who can wrap a present the fastest? Who can untangle the first string of lights?
7. Extreme Gift Exchange. Sometimes the weirdest gifts are the most memorable. Why not inspire some creativity in your family by creating an oddball gift exchange? Have everyone in the family come up with some silly ideas for a gift theme and then sit back and laugh as the gifts are opened. Some ideas we have done in our family include:
Give a piece of funny (or incredibly ugly) artwork (kids and adults can draw pictures for their contribution, too)
Funny T-shirts
Socks (the uglier the better)
Pick a country out of a hat and buy a funny gift that represents that country
Choose a letter out of a hat and the gift must start with that letter
8. Have Fun Giving Back. Teach your kids the importance of helping others. Help pack Christmas Care Packages for the troops. Buy gifts from the giving trees at local libraries and YMCA for kids in need. Have a wrapping party where everyone in the family wraps their “giving” gift. Create cookie care packages for a local nursing home. Make bird seed “ornaments” with Styrofoam, peanut butter, and bird seed to decorate trees outside and feed the birds in winter.
9. Make the Annual Ornament. Every year, pick an ornament that everyone will make together. Put them on the tree or give them as gifts. Don’t forget to mark the year.
10. Create a Neighborhood Decorating Contest, Progressive Dinner or Tree Looking. Get all of your neighbors to put out Snowmen each year. Then have a party and ask everyone to vote on who has the best “themed” decorations. Or have a progressive dinner where people get to go “tree looking” and see everyone’s Holiday decorations.
Help us add to this list. Tell about some of your favorite Family Holiday Traditions.
Here is our last list of “ingredients” to help you brainstorm, plan and enjoy family Holiday traditions. To make your holiday traditions more fun and memorable, don’t forget to add these: “Make it a Party,” “Rediscover Your Family Room” and “Ask the Experts.”
Make it a Party. No one said that you have to limit family traditions to just family. (Some families need to bring in some ringers to add more fun to the proceedings. Hey, I’m just saying. Not every family is a barrel of monkeys.) Some of our favorite traditions involve our best friends or neighbors. Every Christmas, we have a gift exchange with some of our closest friends. 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 in downtown Chicago. We have gone for several years now and the kids love it. We head down to the Church for the concert, performed by the Tower Brass, 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. (FYI-This year the concert is Dec. 19th at 5 p.m.)
Our neighborhood has 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 then all meet for a party at a neighbor’s house. During the party the whole group puts on their coats and marches around the block in the dark and the cold, voting on which house has the best snowman “spirit.” Try it with your neighbors this year and let the competition and laughter begin. (If anyone knows how to create a giant snowman to put up on our roof, let me know. We really want to win this year.)
Rediscover Your Family Room. There are so many activities around the Holidays like plays, concerts, and parties to keep your family in the fun. But don’t forget to stay home. It can be so nice to just relax, maybe light a fire, admire your decorations, and have fun in your home. Stay in and watch Holiday movies. Bake Christmas cookies one night and listen to your favorite Holiday music. Invite some friends over to see your tree, try a new recipe, or see your handmade Menorah. Best year, wear your Holiday PJ’s while you are doing it all. It’s your house after all.
Ask the Experts. The final ingredient to planning on having more fun this Holiday season is to ask the experts – other families – what traditions they enjoy during the Holidays. I recently started speaking at various Moms groups on “How to Create Family Holiday Traditions” and I love listening to the ideas that they share with me on what their family does to create memories. (I have to admit, I love the silly and funny traditions the best.) So, ask your extended family, neighbors, and friends what they do each year and see if you can find some inspiration. Don’t forget to check out the local websites that list what Holiday activities are going on in your area for events you might want to check out. Your local newspaper or local parenting sites like www.kidwinks.com here in Chicago are perfect for ideas. Or check back tomorrow when we’ll start our series “Stimulus Package for Fun Family Traditions – 10 Ideas to Banish the Bah Humbugs!”
Do you have any Holiday Traditions that involve more than just your family? We’d love to hear about them.
In the third part of our recipe for Creating Family Holiday Traditions, two additional ingredients we suggest for “spicing” up the family fun is Be Creative and Try Something New.
Instead of putting on your Santa Hat, try putting on your creativity/imagination hat and think about 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. (Oh yes, I’ve seen Office Space and know that “flair” has a negative connotation but in this case changing up the way you do your traditions can be good.) Every year, ask the kids to come up with a new twist on a favorite tradition and you may be amazed at how fun it can be just brainstorming ideas. If you all bake Holiday cookies together, try a new recipe or one that sounds really wild to be adventurous. If your family runs in a local Turkey Trot or 5K race before Thanksgiving dinner, make T-shirts with a funny saying so you look like a team running together. If you talk about what makes your thankful at the Thanksgiving dinner, this year try bringing something to show everyone instead of just talking.
The other ingredient to creating family Holiday traditions is to Try Something New this year. Be adventurous and try a new activity that you’ve heard or read about. If you love it, do it again year after year. So, if you always go to see the Christmas Carol play, try the Nutcracker Ballet this year. If you have 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.)
The second ingredient in our recipe for how to create and enjoy more Family Holiday Traditions is to Prepare Now! If there are any tasks that need to be completed to schedule or prepare for the tradition, do them now while it’s not so busy. Send out invitations, buy tickets, call Grandma to get that cookie recipe, check on Holiday Tea Times, or investigate volunteer opportunities with your favorite local charity. If you take care of all of the details now, you won’t be scrambling and making more stress for yourself in December.
So, if you are planning a Holiday party – buy the invitations, invite people now to get on their busy calendars early, plan the menu (you can check out MemorableEntertaining.com for some great Holiday entertaining tips and menus), even do some of the baking now and freeze it for later. If you want to go to the theater for a Holiday event like the Christmas Carol or Nutcracker Ballet, call now and get the tickets.
If you want to check out what Holiday activities are available in your town, like ice sculpture contest or gingerbreadhouse displays, check your local paper, museum sites, or parent-friendly activity sites like www.gocitykids.com or if you are in the Chicago area, check our favorite site www.kidwinks.com.
If you have a tradition of sending out a family newsletter with your Holiday cards – don’t do what I do and wait until the last minute so I end up sending New Year’s cards – get it written and printed now. If your kids are old enough, have them each write their own section of the newsletter to make it a little easier for you.
I spoke at a Newcomer’s Club meeting last night for a terrific group of Mom’s about Creating Family Holiday Traditions and one of the Moms shared that her family goes to see “It’s a Wonderful Life” every year at a local movie theater, for a charity event the theater holds every year. If you are interested in something like that, call your local theaters to see if they are doing any special screenings of some of your favorite holiday movies.
Bottomline, do yourself a favor and get all of the details taken care of now so when the Holiday Season hits in earnest, you’ll be ready to just enjoy and smile. Check back for the next ingredient in our guide on how to create and enjoy more Family Holiday Traditions.
No babysitter for Valentine’s Day this year? No problem! You can still have a fun and romantic evening, even with the kids. Last year, we couldn’t get a babysitter for Valentine’s Day. But we recovered, by putting the kids to work. That’s right. Putting the kids to work.
My husband and I love to cook, mostly because we love to eat great food. We rarely get the time to cook together so being forced to stay in and cook on Valentine’s Day was actually a treat. While we were cooking mushroom soup, beef tenderloin topped with blue cheese and panko bread crumbs, cauliflower au gratin, and roasted potatoes, the kids were busy. I asked my kids if they could help put together a romantic evening for Daddy and I. They took it on as a challenge and were quite creative.
First, after they ate one of their favorite dinners (Mac ‘n Cheese), they put on some nice romantic jazz music while we cooked. My daughter, the artist, spent some creating a menu for us complete with drawings of animals frolicking in the woods. You don’t get that at a fancy restaurant! She then proceeded to set the table beautifully with a tablecloth, candles, cloth napkins (ooh, Mommy, what are these?) and decorations like small glass marbles, sparkles, and flower petals. Did I mention that my daughter is an artist? And she’s 6? Her tablescape would have made Sandra Lee jealous. She learned the art of setting the table from my mother so I can take no credit. But I digress.
My son meanwhile designated himself as the waiter. He got his suit jacket out of the closet so he could look fancy. He then placed a towel over his arm and drew a snazzy, French mustache on his face to complete the transformation. When my husband and I finished cooking, he then served us using his best French accent. (Although my son is great at mimicking accents, unfortunately his only French role model is Steve Martin in the Pink Panther movie. He was disappointed that we weren‘t having Hamburgers.) He even handed me a rose from my Valentine’s Day bouquet as I sat down. Ooh la la!
While we ate, the kids quietly went and watched a movie in the family room so that we could have alone time. When we were done eating, it was time to put the kids to bed, and then we were free to do what we wanted alone.
So, how can you do something similar?
1. Decide whether you are going to cook or order in from one of your favorite restaurants. We enjoy cooking but if you don’t, treat yourself and get carry out.
2. Ask the kids to help by setting the table, dressing up as a waiter or waitress, creating a menu, and any other creative thing you can think of to create a romantic restaurant atmosphere. If your kids can play an instrument, have them serenade you. Your kids will feel special that you asked them to help create a romantic evening for Mommy and Daddy. You’ll be surprised with how much they get into it.
3. Put in a movie or turn on the Wii and let the kids amuse themselves in the other room while you enjoy a romantic dinner together.
4. Once they are in bed – watch a movie, slow dance in the family room, or um, whatever.
Optional: Share this fun with another couple by inviting them and their kids over. You’ll have a lot of little helpers and the kids will have even more fun together while you are eating.
Have any other ideas on how you can have a romantic dinner at home … with the kids? We’d love to hear them. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Two years ago, my husband had to travel on Valentine’s Day. Since we usually don’t celebrate on the actual day, I wasn’t too upset that my Valentine was in another city. We usually wait until the weekend rolls around and then go out or do something special. For some reason though, my daughter was very upset that Daddy wasn’t home on Valentine’s Day. To cheer her up (and get her to stop moping), I bought her one red rose and gave it to her when I picked her up from daycare. I told her it was from Daddy and that he was sorry he couldn’t be with his little valentine that day. Shazam! She was lit from within! She was beyond elated. She was happy to infinity and beyond. Before we went home, she showed every teacher, every student and every toy that looked like it had ears that her Daddy had given her a rose.
Of course Daddy gets all the credit for this little act of love, but I got to see the reaction.
Don’t underestimate the power of surprising your children with a little token of love. It doesn’t take much to help them walk on air. Best of all, you get to walk up there with them.
We were on a roll crafting and baking this past Easter and we were able to make and put our own spin on 5 different ideas we found on Pinterest. (If you didn’t see my previous two posts on how to make an Easter Egg Bouquet or Mustache Easter Eggs, which we found on Pinterest, check them out.) 
