Guest Post on MoneySavingMom.com

Crystal, at MoneySavingMom.com has provided me with the opportunity to be a guest blogger and post how to make homemade baby wipes. 

MoneySavingMom.com is an amazing resource and tool for tips, couponing, frugality, and home management.  Check out my guest post, here.

Happy Thursday!!

Candice S.

Healthy Additions and Happy Tummies: Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Look at her face!!  :)  Priceless.

This household can consume pancakes, preferably chocolate chip ones, at a ridiculous rate.  Actually, we have an obsession with chocolate chips but anything that we can stick in the batter to make it delicious is usually the aim!  :) 

Sunday was a breakfast night for us.. and here it is, Thursday night and I want pancakes.  "Harmony, do you think that you and your baby brother can eat some pancakes?"  .. I ask as if I don't know the answer.

Here's the recipe.  Yes, it is from scratch but literally took about five minutes to prepare, with about 30 minutes total IF that!

From Scratch Pancakes:

1 1/4 cups of flour (Wheat is a healthy alternative!)
1 cup of milk (We used Almond Milk)
1 tsp of Vanilla Extract (opt)
1 tablespoon of Baking Powder
1 1/2 tablespoons of oil (I use applesauce-healthier!)
1 tsp Salt
1 Large Egg
2 tablespoons of Chocolate Chips (opt)
1 tablespoon of Cocoa Powder (opt)

Add banana's, chocolate chips, apples, berries, etc. or cocoa powder 

Great recipe for a family of four.

Our breakfast for dinner consisted of chocolate chip pancakes, a boiled egg, sliced cucumbers, and thinly sliced apples.  It was amazing!  We topped it with sugar free syrup, or you can use one of our favorite's:  yogurt!

... and then we did a little bit of this...

Have a great evening!

Candice S.

Healthy Additions and Happy Tummies: Alphabet Soup (Chicken and Veggies)

OOoOOOlaa who doesn't love yummy chicken, broccoli, carrots, and alphabet soup!!  It came out beautifully.  All I did was use the chicken stock from boiling one chicken breast (we stretch chicken around here!) and added a ton of spices and herbs.  Then I added the vegetables, as they take a little while to cook thorougly.  Finally, finished up by taking my soup off of the burner and added in the alphabet pasta. 

Total time was about forty-five minutes to one hour.
My children LOVED this!!  Mark Jr. who is 13 months old gobbled it right up and Harmony who is almost five ate it with EASE..  It is definitely beyond kid friendly and extremely fun!

Enjoy!

Candice

Healthy Additions and Happy Tummies: Chicken and Veggie Egg Rolls

Goodmorning!!  I do quite a bit of cooking.  One of my personal goals this year has been to develop and explore healthier ways of eating that allow your kids to enjoy the benefits, as well.  It's hard to eat healthy and to keep your kids geared towards fruits and veggies than it is to just feed them chicken nuggets and mac n cheese- nothing wrong with that though.  I'm pretty sure that I thank the creators of chicken nuggets and easy mac at least once a week!  We experiment at our house with new foods frequently so I've decided to start sharing some of these recipes with you once a week.  You would be surprised at the substitutions and minor changes that you can do for your daily meal intake.  You will see benefits around your waste line, you'll have more energy, and you will find that those yucky veggies you thought you didn't like before, are actually very good! 

Sooooo, here we go!  I made these AWESOME chicken spring rolls last night.  They were amazing.  I used my own portions of veggies and chicken and rolled them up into fresh egg rolls (which were on sale at Sweetbay for $1.00!!!)..

Started off by cooking the veggies:

1 cup of spinach (frozen)

1 whole zucchini

Handful of carrots

2 Tbsp of Ginger

2 Tbsp of Teriyaki sauce

Half of Green Bell Pepper

Half of Yellow Bell Pepper

Grilled Chicken on George Foreman- and then shredded

Take your egg roll and lay it flat.  Add about two tablespoons (or what you see fit) in a diagonal line from one point of the egg roll to the other.  Roll from one corner and tuck in sides.  Lay open end down on greased baking sheet or baking dish.

 Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes- flip over to brown other side.

Waaaaalaaaaa!! 

Now, on to the sauce- You can basically make a sweet n sour sauce out of any type of jelly or jam you have in your house.  Take about 2 tablespoons of jam, I used guava, and then 1 tbsp of Olive Oil, and 2 tbsp of vinegar.  There you have it, you're ready to eatttt!  :)

 This dish was a hit!  Harmony LOVED it and it was beyond filling.  We will definitely start added this to our menu.  Only downfall- prep time is a little on the longer side, with baking time probably about an hour to make this dish.  The plus side, egg rolls and sauce are under 100 calories and they are filled with nothing more than what YOU put in them.



Happy Wednesday!

Candice

Valentine's Paper Weight

Aren't they pretty?  They're paper weight's that Harmony and I made for Valentine's Day. 

Ingredients and Supplies:

Baby Food Jar

Corn Syrup

Food Coloring

Construction Paper

Mod Podge

Brush

Scrapbook Stuff

Hot Glue Gun

Total Time: 10 Minutes

I so love the fact that I found another great use for those baby food jars (and my husband LOVES to see them go!).  Fill the jar up with corn syrup, have your little one add a few drops of food coloring, and then stir away!  Mod Podge some construction paper (tray a larger lid for size) to cover the baby food jar lid.. and then add some jewels or accessories to spruce it up.  I also used some hot glue to seal the around the edge's of the lid so you can't remove it. 

On the label I wrote, "Your love weighs down my heart."  Super adorable and perfect inexpensive gifts for your loved ones!

Happy Early Valentine's Day!

Candice S.

I'm linking this to....

Science Experiment #1: Liquid to Solid

For 2011, I wanted to start incorporating Science into Harmony's preschool lessons.  I thought that this was important and provided Harmony with a hands on approach to observation and analysis, even if she is only 4 1/2.  In our first attempt at a science project, we decided that we would create an observation book where we could record, collect our data, and write our hypothesis down to clearly define our experiment. 

Next, I was looking for an experiment that we could do that coincided with our thematic unit: Winter.  *You will get to see more Winter Themed projects that we have completed in the next few days.  

Step #1:  I started by having Harmony pick some small toys that could fit into a zip lock bag.  I ended up finding some jewels that Santa had brought for art projects to put in the bag.  After this, we fill the bag up with water, sealed it tightly shut, and then dried off the outside.  

Step #2:  Write down your thoughts in your observation book.  I asked Harmony questions and we wrote them down with her answers.  The questions were:

What does the bag feel like?  

Is it hot or cold?

Is it hard or soft?  

How many objects are in the bag?

What color is it?

Step #3:  Place in freezer on a flat surface.  Allow it at least 6-12 hours of freeze time.  We placed ours in the freezer overnight.  Harmony observed the bag for about an hour or two, but seeing as we did freeze it overnight, we didn't check again until we were taking it out the next day. 

 Step #4:  Take it out of the freezer, open the zip lock bag (was a little hard to get off) and remove the entire bag to reveal a beautifully shaped block of ice.  

Step #5:  Ask your questions again and observe your original hypothesis.  Make sure you teach your child vocabulary that contains "liquid" for water and "solid" for ice.  Harmony took very well to observing this experiment and because it was so basic (I'm sure you kids see ice all of the time AND water so they know that there IS a freezing process) it is still FUN to focus on your hypothesis of the likely hood of the water freezing.  

Step #6:  Grab a meat cleaver (with strong parental supervision) and watch your little one make a game of your lesson plan by hammering away.  

Harmony did this for about 30-45 minutes with ice flinging EVERYWHERE.  After she was done we watched it return to water, which we observed about two hours later.  I explained how it was returning to it's original state because of the temperature in the room.  We also put it under hot water to see it melting, which was another fun lesson of practical use.  

This experiment was given a score of a perfect 10!  We loved it!

Candice S.

 Inspiring Winter Book's:

     

Holiday Traditions, Gifts, and Family Fun.

I love Christmas.

I love the season, the cold, family, eating, and fun festive activities that we all love to do with our family.  I'm going to miss it, dearly.   So, to keep the Spirit of Christmas alive I want to share some of Rattles and Redheads, and your's truly, family traditions that are old and the fresh new one's that were welcomed into our family this holiday season.  Some of them I posted about, other's I didn't get a chance so it'll be your first time seeing them!  :o)

• Having Pinkie Pie watch over us during the month of December until he/she flies back to the North Pole to report on our behavior.

• Opening PJ's on Christmas Eve and other presents with our extended family member's.

• Setting out Reindeer Food (made of oat's and glitter) and Homemade Cookies for Santa.

• Our Christmas Activity Box is so fun that I might make one themed for each month!

• Buying Christmas Santa Claus Storybook

• Watching a Christmas Movie

• Receiving Santa's Bell (Polar Express Idea)  We bought the bell from The Dollar Tree and put a pretty ribbon on it.. Only those who believe can hear it.  :)  What fun!  

• Homemade Ornaments and Gifts

• Family Handprint Christmas Tree.  This is my all time favorite present that we could have made this year!  I love, love, love it!

Merry Belated Christmas and to a Happy, Happy New Year!  I hope that your holiday was as special as our's!

Candice S.

Christmas Advent Jar

How cute did this come out?  I was quite impressed, myself.  HEHE.  I love it and I love what it contains.  I recycled a jar and cut some wrapping paper into square's to make this advent jar.  

For each paper that you pull out, thirteen square's exactly, you will read the following information.. :)

Make Christmas Present

Read a christmas book

Make a tent in the living room and have dinner in it

Make a reindeer Christmas Ornament

Bake Christmas Cookies

Watch Christmas Movie

Hot Chocolate Night

Learn a new Christmas Carol

Discuss the meaning of Christmas

Drive around neighborhood and look at Christmas Lights

Create Family Handprint Tree

Make baby food jar snow globe

Make Christmas Ornament

I added one extra- just in case we wanted to do an additional Christmas Activity!  :) 

Merry Christmas!

Candice S.

Cinnamon Ornaments

I have seen wonderful recipes for making cinnamon ornaments that use applesauce, glue, and a boat load of cinnamon!  ...Lets just say.. after about 4 hours of kneading my heart out, I dumped the sticky gunk in the trash and called it a day.  

..Because I had a very eager and wanting little girl who needed to make ornaments for our tree, I decided the next best thing would be to make our salt dough recipe that we used for our fall leaves.  I added two extra ingredients to the mix: 2-4 tablespoons to applesauce and a ton of cinnamon.

Baby Brother doing his part, having fun with the plastic cookie cutters.

I added red food coloring to a portion of the dough that I sectioned off.  You flatten the dough, add a few drops of food coloring, and then quickly start folding in the dough.  Keep folding in the dough and kneading the dough until you see even color.  Add more color for more bold colored dough.

Place in oven at 150 and bake for about an hour or until desired dryness is reached.  Whalllaaaaa!  :)

Happy Holiday's!

Candice S.

Check out Rattles and Redhead's holiday section:

I've linked this project to:

Homemade Paint

Store bought paint for kids can become expensive, especially when you are using it as often as we are in this house!  When Harmony turned two years old I started looking for alternatives to store bought paint that was inexpensive, easy to clean off of furniture (and everything else), and was not harmful if consumed...

I found one!   :)

Ingredients: 

1 Tablespoon of Flour
1 Tablespoon of Water
1-2 Drops of Fooding Coloring

I take about a tablespoon of flour and equally parts of water, mix together.  After that I add or mix our colors.  I use food coloring to do this because it's safe.  I'll do this in different containers and then whatever we don't use up I just dump in the sink.  If you want thicker consistency add more flour.  I tend to try to get it where it is not too runny, but just right!

Love it!

Candice S.

Sensory Trays

Get excited!  Come on.. My excitement is radiating all over me right now as I'm looking for excellent idea's to create a sensory tub/work table for Harmony.  I have seen so many amazing, AMAZING idea's for sensory tubs and how they apply to your child.

Ok.  So what is it?  A sensory tub is an array of learning objects (think I-Spy) thrown into a tub.  You can do this with little thought or pick a theme and go with it.  For instance, you feel that you want a fall theme, then you collect fall leaves, acorns, add in a small bucket or cup for pouring, and let your child go at it!  The point is this.  You want your child, from ages 2-5 (as long as they don't eat anything) to utilize the tools that you have provided for him/her by using their five senses. 


The best thing about sensory tubs is that you are promoting learning and development in the following areas:

• "Fine motor skills (eye-hand coordination)
• Creativity (artistic skills)
• Creativity in play (deciding how to use the materials)
• Social skills (sharing, cooperating)
• Emotional development (tension releasing, soothing, failure proof, and confidence building)
• Knowledge of science (experimentation, evaporation, gravity, physics, construction, and engineering)
• Knowledge of math (1:1 correspondence, counting, and concepts like grouping, sequencing, weight, volume, and measurement."

Preschool Education Articles. (2010). Sensory Materials. Retrieved on November 8, 2010, from http://www.preschooleducation.com/art30.shtml

Colored Rice

I finally found an idea that would be perfect for our fall themed preschool week.  We made a sensory bowl and then put it into a tray for better access!  First, we started by coloring our white rice to stand for our red and yellow fall leaves.  After, we even added pipe cleaner's that are converted into apples and oranges to use for our pinecone/tree's.  Harmony has played with this every single day since last Monday.  She has added objects to it to fit to her liking.

Enjoy!

Candice S.