By now you must know that we love snacks.  The kids would claim that any snack is the BEST snack ever. But, I personally believe that the muffin is a pretty fantastic snack. Portable. Yummy.  Hand-held.

The mini muffin is even better than a regular sized muffin.  Its bite sized.   You don’t get a million crumbs on the floor because, again, its bite sized.  The kids can grab a few and be excited with their pile of muffins. You get the idea.

My Kids Make Berry-Blue Blueberry Mini Muffins, and yours can too! Watch the video and check out the pictures!

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Last week we got a lot of snow.  Since then, there has been lots of talk of sledding and snowboarding and building snowmen!  The snow we got was really powdery, which unfortunately made it difficult to build with. But alas! We can still have a snowman…..

My Kids Make Snowman Pancakes, and yours can too! It is fun, and tasty.

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Here is a little Math to keep your mind sharp:

Winter  = Cold + Snow

Kids + Cold + Snow = Cold Cheeks

Want to know the cure for the common cold cheek?  Hot Cocoa.  But not just any hot cocoa will do. It has to have marshmallows (or so my kids would say).  And what is better than just regular marshmallows? Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Pops!

My Kids Make Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Pops, and yours can too! Get your hot cocoa ready……..

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If you are planning on baking up some holiday cookies with your kids this weekend, then you have come to the right place!  We recently made Gingerbread Men (boys, girls, whatever…) and wanted to share the fun with you.  These cookies are fantastic.  Ours are all already gone, or I would be eating one right now. Seriously. They are yummy.

My Kids Make Gingerbread Men Cookies {Gluten Free, Dairy Free}, and yours can too! Watch the video, check out the pictures, and start baking!

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Yesterday we spent the day making Christmas Sugar Cookies.

When I say “the day” i really do mean that in the fullest sense. As in, it takes up most of the day.

The kids loved using the cookie cutters and decorating the cookies.

The day flew by without us even realizing it was nearing dinner time and fun was had by all (all the cookie snacking helped too).

My Kids Make Christmas Sugar Cookies {Gluten Free, Dairy Free} and yours can too! Watch the video to see the yummy creations:

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On Thanksgiving this year I did something I haven’t done before.  Maybe you are thinking to yourself, “Wow, did she host dinner for a large crowd and totally rock?” or maybe,  “Wow, did she carve the turkey?” The answers are NO and NO.

What I did do though was volunteer to make dessert (in a strangers house) with 7 totally awesome kids helping me.  {Yes, I did say 7.}  I have to say, it was awesome. The kids rocked. The desserts rocked. We all had fun.  Here’s a look into our impromptu Thanksgiving Cooking Class:

I had to improvise a little since this wasn’t my kitchen. You will notice that we used a large pitcher to mix apples/cinnamon/sugar in.  A large lidded bowl would have worked here, but alas, we could not find one!

We were recently reading “The Popcorn Book” (Tomie dePaola). It is a cute kids book that tells the story of two brothers making popcorn, while simultaneously researching the history of popcorn.  The book recounts various methods that popcorn has been popped over the years {throwing kernels into a fire, burying popcorn kernels in a clay pot filled with hot sand, etc}. This gave us the idea to have a little popcorn experiment in our kitchen.  After reading the book we set up 3 different popcorn poppers and away we popped!

My Kids Make a Popcorn Experiment, and yours can too! Get popping……

Air Popper, Stir Crazy Popper, &  Pot on the Stove

The results are in, and everyone decided that the “Pot on the Stove” method tasted the best!  Here’s Silas write up of our experiment:

“The Popcorn Book” says that there was popcorn served at The First Thanksgiving. Did you have any popcorn at your table this Thanksgiving? We didn’t, but maybe next year we should!

We are busy baking and getting ready for Thanksgiving, as I am sure most of you are as well.  Just wanted to say, Happy Thanksgiving. Hope you have a wonderful day with family & friends.

From our kitchen to yours….

p/s. Looking for a last minute pumpkin dessert recipe? Check out what we will be making today

You know what goes really good with Turkey (read: your upcoming Thanksgiving dinner)? Applesauce!

We had a bunch of apples left over from our apple picking this Fall, and the kids decided they wanted to make applesauce. Homemade applesauce is SO easy to make, and it has the added bonus of making your house smell delicious all day long!

My Kids Make Homemade Applesauce, and yours can too! Watch and see how easy it really is:

Directions

• Peel Apples

• Cut apples into chunks.

• Put the apples in a huge pot, add a small amount of water and let it cook.  You can leave it simmering for a while (which makes the house smell great).

• Sometimes we add cinnamon and even a little sugar, but honestly I think it is great without anything added at all.

• Silas likes to smash the apples with the potato masher, but if you like your applesauce chunky, or dont want to play with your food, then just leave it as is.
• Ta-da! You  now have applesauce
• 

Lets face it: Not every project goes as planned. Or maybe I should say, not every project even goes.  I was planning on cutting up the pumpkins we had and cooking them (seeds and pulp).  Silas had said he really wanted to help, so right after breakfast we got to it (note the jammies in the pics). We cut the pumpkins open, scooped out the flesh, and then….. he was done. {Sydney was done before we even cut them open.} So there I was, with a gigantic cut open pumpkin to roast, seeds to roast, and inevitably a mound of pumpkin to puree …and, wait……what’s that sound? Oh yes, that is my kids fighting over toys in the playroom. Thats right, because they both bailed on the pumpkin project and I was alone in the kitchen.  It made for a bit of a tough day as I didn’t really want to leave the pumpkin half done with a giant mess all over the kitchen. And I do mean ALL over. I wanted to finish and clean up.  At the same time, the kids wanted to move on to other things.  Not all projects go as planned, or even go at all!  In the end (after a lot of frustration) I decided I had to leave the pumpkin for later and attempt to move on with other things. I should have stopped sooner than I did, it would have saved me a lot of aggravation.

I know some of you have the same experience.  You start projects with your kids only to have them up and run a few minutes into it (of course after all the materials are out and scattered across the house).   Some of you might not even want to attempt projects because you figure your kids will have no staying potential.  I hear ya.  But, there are the times when I do find a project they are interested in,  and it seems to be all worth it.  They sit, the create, they make, they learn. Its a wonderful thing. Seriously. It. Is. Wonderful.  So, if you hit a bump in the road like we just did, try to keep moving forward.

My Kids Make roasted pumpkin seeds {sort of}, and yours can too! Find out more:

~UPDATE: In the end, the roasted pumpkin seeds came out great and both of the kids couldn’t stop munching on them.  I also cooked up the pumpkin and now have TONS of pumpkin puree (read: lots of pumpkin recipes in the near future)