Oatmeal Pancakes - My Boys' Favorite

These pancakes are a favorite in our house - they are the most often requested meal on any given day and almost always asked for the morning after a sleepover with their friends.

My boys are pancake "dippers" using a variety of small pools of syrup on their places - we are up to four flavors now in the fridge.  I told the little one the other day that his plate looked like a paint palette - he smiled and responded that the pancake was his paintbrush, sweet boy!

Happy Mother's Day!

Oatmeal Pancakes
Makes 10-12 pancakes

1 1/2 cup whole wheat pancake mix
1 cup quick one minute oatmeal
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 eggs
1 cup milk

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl.  Heat a griddle or non-stick skillet to medium heat and add some butter spray.  Using a 1/4 cup scoop, pour the batter into the skillet.  Once the pancake starts to form bubbles on top, flip it over.

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Bars

I recently received a spiral bound cookbook filled with recipes from my mom’s side of the family.  One of her cousins spent quite a bit of time collecting the recipes, adding old family photos, and even including the nutritional content of each dish.  I am so happy to have this in my possession now, what a great way to relive memories of food I was served as a child and start to make new memories for my boys. 

I wasn’t surprised to see the recipe for my mom’s Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Bars, I grew up eating these and they are a tried and true favorite.  I was reminded of them earlier this spring and during a visit in May, my mom brought down a batch from Colorado for my family to share.   

Oh, and on the same page as the recipe, is a photo of my maternal grandparents on their wedding day...August 31, 1940, so it's fitting that I post this to my blog today.  The hubby and I share the date with them, but our wedding was just 17 years ago today :)

After receiving the cookbook, it was easy for me to figure out which recipe I wanted to make first.  I made these in an 8x8 pan, but they could also be made in a 9x11 pan which would result in a thinner bar.  

I certainly hope that you will try this recipe and either come back to this post or visit my Facebook page to let me know what you thought of them!

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Bars
Can be made in an 8x8” or 9x11” pan

1 cup sugar
½ cup margarine
½ cup super chunk peanut butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 10-oz package of chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate chips)

Grease baking pan and preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, add sugar, margarine, and peanut butter.  Using an electric mixer, stir together combined.  Add egg and vanilla, beating until smooth.  Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt using a spatula.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Turn into prepared pan and spread out until even.  Bake in 350 degree oven 25-35 minutes or until set.  The smaller the pan, the thicker the bar, and the longer it will take to bake.  Cool; cut into squares.  Enjoy with a large glass of cold milk.  

Skylanders Birthday Party

For my son's 7th birthday, he wanted to have a Skylanders Party.  Unclear on what this means?  Skylanders is an interactive game where the figurine of each Skylander comes to life through the Portal of Power and the player can then manipulate that character on the screen through various video game systems (we use the Wii, but it can be played on XBOX, Playstation, etc).  It's pretty cool, actually. You can read all about Skylanders at www.skylanders.com.

I did some shopping on Etsy for party supplies - you can read more details here about my "shopping trip".  For the invitations, I found these very cool Skylander cards through DenimGraphics.

 

I also purchased files to create the personalized banner and favor tags from Kid Invitations and Lulu Cole, respectively.

For the cake (and favors!), I was inspired by Amy's Party Ideas blog post on the Skylanders Birthday she styled.  It was a lot easier than I expected to be and even got to have my BFF in town to help me decorate it!  Make sure you check out this blog post for step by step instructions on how to build your own Portal of Power cake!

For the food, I asked my son to help me make the menu based on what the Skylanders eat....so it was pretty random.  Then we took names of various Skylanders and made cards to go along with each item.  We served:  Pop Fizz's PB&J, Warnado's Watermelon, Tree Rex's Tacos (using my Crockpot Chicken Tacos), Prism Break's Pretzels, Cynder's Cinnamon Rolls, Chop Chop's Cheese, Eruptor's Eggs, and Ghost Roaster's Grapes.

Our party colors were geared towards the packaging of all of the Skylanders merchandise - and their logo of course. 

For entertainment, we hired "Tim the Balloon Guy".  We met him a few years ago as he is at the Chick-fil-a Family Fun nights and have hired him for some of our past parties.  He's quite talented - he made lots of Skylanders, bows and arrows, shields, masks, dogs, flowers, and even a Minnie Mouse.  A friend of mine shared a photo of the Skylander Hot Head with me that he took with his iPhone - it was impressive!  I took the other one of a party guest fully ready for battle!

We also played a game that my son came up with - "Pin The Tail On Spyro".  I found an image of Spyro along with the Skylanders logo and did a little work in Photoshop to merge them together and remove his tail.  I had it printed at Office Max on an 18" x 24" piece of paper.  Then I used Photoshop again to just get the image of the tail and printed those on card stock for the kids to use. 

Finally, for the party favors, I made white chocolate Wii remotes using this candy mold.  Once they were slipped into a bag, tied with colorful ribbon and a personalized favor tag attached, they were the perfect parting gift for our guests.

My son and I had a lot of fun planning this party together.  I hope he'll want to continue to plan future parties with me!

Candy, Cupcakes, and Beer | Photographed & Styled by Gretchen Wakeman Photography

This post is just a tad later than the actual event.....I just realized I still had it sitting in draft mode, what is wrong with me? This party was amazing!

My friend...and neighbor, Gretchen recently styled and hosted a birthday party for her little girl who was turning the big ONE! I was pretty excited when I received the invitation telling us this was going to be a birthday happy hour. The invitation read that the birthday girl's favorite things included: after-nap playtime + bottle + snack....which = happy hour!

Beer and cupcakes were served and a candy bar was available for the kids to attack and fill up their goodie bags with delicious treats. We also enjoyed chips, salsa, chicken burritos, rice, and beans as part of our happy hour.

There was a batch of lemonade for the kids and of course a tub of beer on ice for the adults. I brought a bottle of Wilson Creek Almond Champagne for my friend - one of her favorites. She was so excited she added it to the beer tub and enjoyed during the party. Oh, and I can't forget the chocolate fountain complete with pound cake, fruit, and marshmallows. This was the appetizer for the kids....at least, that's how they understood it!

Gretchen's mom made the gorgeous smash cake for her granddaughter....unfortunately, the birthday girl wanted nothing to do with it. Couldn't even get her to dive into one of those beautiful cupcakes made by my friend. The one year old did manage to eat several of the Oreo pops!

What are 5 year old big sisters for? Well, they are there to hug you when you don't want to have your cake and eat it too.....they are also there to set up an impromptu craft table for your party guests after the cupcakes are consumed and gifts are opened. They are available to walk around offering various treats from the candy bar to your guests throughout the party. It was so cute - and tough to resist her generosity. I never had a big sister - they seem pretty cool! I do have a sister-in-law who is older and have considered her MY big sister for the past 16+ years, she's awesome! This 5 year old is definitely a hostess in the making - her mom sets a great example.

I have included a few photos from the candy bar courtesy of Gretchen below - you'll have to check out her blog to see the rest. I took the photo of the wrapped gift and wanted to share, since we knew there was going to be a candy bar ahead of time, I topped off the packaging with a giant Whirly Pop in hopes that her mom will get some great photos of her with it. I love adding a little something extra to the top of a gift.

I wanted to include this party on my blog to give you more ideas for a great event! Enjoy the photos and get inspired!



photo & styling by www.gretchenwakeman.com

photo & styling by www.gretchenwakeman.com

photo & styling by www.gretchenwakeman.com



special touch tied into ribbon for birthday girl

 

My Favorite Valentines

I have a column for the Southeast Valley Ledger coming out with my favorite Valentine's next week - but I was so excited to share what I did for my boys this year, I decided to make it a blog post as well!

This year for my boys, I saw an idea on Oriental Trading’s site that involved a bag of Pop Rocks and a cute tag attached with wording along the lines of “You Rock, Valentine!”  While looking for bulk Pop Rocks, I enlisted my good friend and next door neighbor to try to find.  She is our family photographer and is also incredibly talented at design: cards, Facebook cover templates, invitations, announcements, you name it.  So, she designed a card to attach to the Pop Rocks for me. 

Here is a photo of the finished product!

We decided to leave them as bookmarks (rather than folding them around bag) and tie them to the top of a small bag of Pop Rocks with matching ribbon.  My friend designed “girly” ones for her daughter’s class – so cute!   You can check out more of her talents by visiting her website at GretchenWakeman Photography.

Here are some other cute ideas I have seen while searching for the perfect Valentine for my boys to give to their friends and classmates.

My friend, Gretchen, also created some very cute cards for her daughter last year using a photo of her and attached a Cherry Blow Pop to the card.  They were adorable – follow this link to the post and image on her blog:  ValentinePhoto Cards with Blow Pop.

Another one I saw used crayons, a silicone heart-shaped, muffin pan, and some packaging (even simple card stock will work!)  The result?  A heart-shaped crayon, full of different colors that can be attached to a card.  For more instructions on this one, make sure you visit the blog, For love of that Sillie Smile:  Valentine'sCrayon Craft.

The last one I’d like to share is more geared toward boys – but what kid doesn’t love some candy and a little race car?  “I Wheelie Like You” as the message stapled to the top of a bag - perfect.  For the image, check out the blog lilsugar:  Race CarValentine.

I hope you had fun this Valentine’s season – I know we did and our boys are super excited about giving their friends Pop Rocks AND a bookmark!

Snowmen and Reindeer Christmas Ornaments

In 2011, I decided to get super crafty with my boys and make some keepsake ornaments to give as gifts to teachers, babysitters, grandparents, special friends of theirs - you get the picture.

I found the idea for these two types of ornaments from A Little Bit Funky and decided, of course, to have the boys make both the Handprint Snowman Ornaments as well as the Reindeer Thumbprint Ornaments.  You can find the specific directions by following these links.   For the red Rudolph noses, instead of red craft paint, I decided to add a drop of glue and cover with red glitter!

What kind of holiday crafts are you making this season?

Christmas Cookies - The Creativity of Our Children

We are hosting our annual holiday party this weekend.  As a first, we decided this year to have a pre-party party at our home this week.  Our to do list was short, we had some good friends who were unable to attend this weekend - so invited a couple of families over to let the kids play, catch up, and have a few cocktails. 

This was a very impromptu gathering - surprisingly, I never know where we will be in the completion of pre-party tasks a couple of days before the party. The hubby is notorious for coming up with large projects to tackle right before our big event.  We had plenty to drink in the house - I put out some cheese, crackers, fruit, veggies, hummus and ranch dressing - it was perfect! 

I then thought it would be fun to have a cookie decorating station for the kids.  I made a bunch of gingerbread cookies in different shapes, purchased a tub of frosting, sprinkles, and some red hots.   We had 6 total children, 4 boys and 2 girls - all under the age of 7.  They had a great time! 

I told them they could decorate the first one and then eat it, but that I needed all of the other ones decorated for our holiday party dessert table!  The adults all looked at me like I was crazy.  This was great motivation for the kids - they were so creative and we were all super proud of them.  As they continued to lick their fingers and then go back to decorating their cookies, the parents still questioned my decision - I stuck with it. 

I was convinced tonight by the hubby that it would not be the best idea to serve these, but what a fun night for our children!  These are now safely packed away in storage containers and ready to hand out to the hard working children this weekend. 

I used to panic about doing something like this - I'm not a fan of cleaning up messes I didn't make.  But - I have lightened up over the years, this didn't stress me out at all.  In fact, I was so impressed by the girl (OK, there were two but one was a 1 year old and she didn't do much but eat her own cookie) who took her extra sprinkles from her paper towel, folded the paper towel in half, and poured over the finished cookies.   I know she has had WAY more cookie decorating experience than I have - but what a resourceful child!  My little one on the other hand had used so many green sprinkles on just one cookie, you could no longer see it!  Once un-earthed, I suggested that he use those sprinkles to decorate future cookies.  Not surprisingly, one of my girlfriends there said that my little one continued to eat those green sprinkles with his fingers but keeping an eye on me the entire time to see if I would catch him.  I love him.

This year, remember the joy of the season.  Look into a child's eyes to see the wonder.  I have finally stopped what I am doing to do just that this year - and it is a look I hope to never forget.

Halloween Cookie Decorating Station

This year, I volunteered at my older son's classroom Halloween party - and to no one's surprise, I volunteered for the snack station!  There were 5 total stations - snacks, spooky storytime, Halloween bingo, and 2 craft stations.

Everything had to be store bought - so went with a popular choice of "decorate your own Halloween cookie".  The hubby volunteered for the Halloween party in the Kindergarten class last year and was put in charge of snacks - his advice "those kids used a lot of frosting and a lot of sprinkles" - man, he wasn't kidding! 

I had anywhere between 3-5 children at my station for about 15 minutes each.  Just enough time to decorate and eat!  I gave them each a sugar cookie, then they decorated them with orange frosting and added LOTS of Halloween themed sprinkles - I mean LOTS.  They didn't seem to care that all of the sprinkles fell off if they didn't keep their cookie level once it was time to eat them.  Some of them thought it was even funnier when the sprinkles did fall onto their paper towels - then they could just eat them with their fingers!

Fortunately I remembered to bring a big package of baby wipes with me to help them clean up - their hands were covered in mostly orange, black, and purple - and many of the 1st graders left my table with black lips and teeth!

I added a few photos below of cookies being decorated as well as some of the final products - they looked awesome!   My oldest was super proud that his friends all said his mommy had the best station at the party (well of course they thought that....I had the cookies!)

If you are hosting a Halloween party or volunteering at a class party - this is always a great go to idea!