Monkey Dip

Dip makes everything taste better, right? Look at these ADORABLE dip containers perfect for a lunchbox.





Here is the site for these cute containers

more spooky food...that I haven't made yet

My kids LOVE to turn food into something else...roasted broccoli are always little trees, spaghetti noodles are worms, so they LOVE this fun food. I'm adding these to my "to-do" list (page 527, I think)

Octo-Pot-Pie

Jello EyeBalls

Sweet and Sour Eyeballs

Spider Bite Pretzels
I think I'd use shredded coconut for the body..mmmmm

Sand-Witch
The possibilities on this one is endless...pumpkin shapes, ghosts out of mozzarella...

This last site has a bunch of spooky food...some of it too gross for me! Logan and Shawn would probably LOVE it!

http://superpunch.blogspot.com/2010/10/halloween-fun-food-ideas.html

Our Spooktacular Dinner

Mummy Dogs and Spider Web Soup with Ghost Pops for dessert
To kick off Halloween weekend, tonight for dinner we had some spooky foods.

First the Mummy Dogs...SUPER EASY!

Roll out the biscuit...I used a little over one biscuit to cover each dog, which works out since there were 8 dogs and 10 biscuits.
Start the wrapping, first secure it around the top, where the mummy's head would be. Then keep wrapping it around. Be sure to leave a space for the eyes! I then gave them a quick egg wash to get that golden brown gloss.
Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes...wah-lah!
A couple dots of mustart to make those glowing eyes and you are done.
Spiderweb soup started off as Creamy Tomato, added some thinned sour cream from a squirt bottle.
And then did a little trick I first saw done by Martha. Drag a toothpick from the center to get that "web" look.
Add a spider raft garnish (one olive, cut in half and then cut again to make 8 legs each on a piece of toast).
And dessert...frozen bananas covered in White Chocolate. These turned out great and were super tasty! Here is a tutorial for the ghost pops.

BOO!

More Spooky Food

more soon!

Spooky Food part 1

Nutter Butter Ghosts

These are super easy! All you need is a bag of white chocolate bark, chocolate chips and a nutter butters. Melt the bark according to directions, dip the cookies, let them cool, melt the chocolate chips and with a toothpick, draw on some faces. My 7 year old and I did most of them, you can spot the few done by my hubby, the artist.

Halloweenie Spaghetti Spiders

Again, these are super easy. Cut up a hot dog into about inch thick pieces, shove UNCOOKED spaghetti noodles through the hot dog piece to make the legs, plop into boiling water and cook according to noodle directions. I made a web on the plate using ketchup, the condiment of choice for the boys.

Check back, there will be more...we love Halloween and we love to make fun food!

Train Party **re-visit**

This is a re-blog (is that even a word?) from my family blog...thought I'd share my two year olds party from May since we're on a birthday theme.


So Caden's new obsession is TRAINS. Once that seed was planted, I started the search for ideas...Look what I found here and here...and then there was this! and THEN, my sister-in-law, Chelsea (who is one of my three regular reader "HI CHELS!") sent me this link, which uncovered my NEW Favorite Blog.

So, with all this wonderful inspiration, I put together Caden's bday party. The invites obviously came first, I simply searched google images for a free train silhouette and colored it in photoshop. The other labor intensive part were the favors. I decided to make Kool-aid scented playdough and included a train shaped cookie cutter in the bag. I think it came out super cute! The bag was simply a sandwich zip-lock and printed label double sticked on top. I also loved the train shaped PB&Js. My mom and I put those together in no time, assembly line style. And possibly my favorite was the train cake. I used a cake pan from William Sonoma. (coincidentally, a gift from Chelsea...THANKS again, Chels!) And with Trader Joes Vanilla Cake Mix, it was super easy and DELISH! Did you notice the ADORABLE handmade train pinata in the lower left corner? That will be in his bedroom for years to come. As for games and activites, since our guests ranged from 4 weeks to 7 years old, I needed to be creative and I'm not a big fan of competitive games at a bday party (Why should only one person win at a party?). We had the train table, which I found on Craigslist for $10 (I repainted the sides glossy cherry red and the top with Chalkboard paint). I also had Play-dough Station, Bubble Junction, Ball-pit Express, and Bookmark Stop. For games, I found "Pin the Smoke-Stack on the Engine" and we also played "Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo" a version of duck duck goose, which was fun for adults and kids both.

Of course, I had one additional obstacle...all this stuff had to be carted to the park...but that's where the train is, so off I went on Saturday morning at 7 am to ensure we'd have a prime park spot. Shawn and the boys showed up a little later to help finish setting up. Shawn went right to work blowing up a purple balloon...WHAT?!? He will probably tease me forever over my reaction when I saw that balloon :) OK,OK,OK...I was a bit stressed to finish up before the guests arrived, but come on....RED AND BLUE EVERYTHING! But I'm happy to say, one purple balloon really was the only hitch in our wonderful birthday celebration for our little man.

Now a few months off til September, our Birthday marathon month.

Lego Madness 2010

I can't take credit for most of these ideas...I stole most of them, you can find the inspirations here.

Here was the invite...I sent it out as an email this time, trying to go a little green : )

I like to set the scene at the front door...it ramps up the excitement and specialness of the day.

Since we were building legos, I used some construction caution tape and made a couple signs. One read "Lego Construction Zone Ahead" and the other "Brick Building Experience Recommended" using the Lego font that I found on line and using photoshop was able to give it a yellow glow, black outline and filled in with white, just like the LEGO logo. (say that 5 times fast!)

We played all sorts of games. I found lego shaped candy that actually clicks together, so they built then ate with those, we had a timed tower building contest, Lego Bingo and then did some lego racing, similar to the test track room at Legoland, where Logan and his buddies could spend the day. I found simple car sets on sale at TRU, so using that set along with another box of misc Legos, they built their own creations and ran them down the track over and over again. We made the track using 3 rain gutters and then I added the start and finish lines for fun.



I had a lot of fun with the snack table!

I made the signs using a minifig font, downloaded for free.
Those minifig paperdolls were probably the most difficult element. I'm not the best folder/cutter so they were rough at best, but you definitely get the idea. I spray painted bubble wrap to get the green stud background. Best to be done on a non-windy day...I was chasing that bubble wrap all over the yard the day I was trying to paint it.

The cheese studs were cut out using an apple corer. I had the guy at the deli slice the cheese super thick, so all I had to do was swivel the apple corer thru several slices at a time and then separate them onto the crackers. I had planned to used cream cheese to "glue" on the cheese, but time got the best of me. And that Lego bowl on the right is a one of these that we filled. Logan put a Lego Minifig on the bottom, so when the watermelon was all gone, you discovered the stuck guy.

Logan wanted brownie cupcakes, so not lego cake (been there, done that) Instead, I used a Lego ice cube tray to mold candy melts for cupcake toppers.

The drink station may have been the biggest hit...these boys were THRILLED to serve themselves. By the end, there was some fun mixology going on.

I even put a little lego touch in the bathroom!

And finally, as party favors, they took home their lego candies, their custom race car and personalized key chain. I was lucky enough to find a kind Legoland store employee who didn't mind if I took 10 extra bags☺ Then I printed labels using sticker paper and the minifig font.

The keychains were really fun, I got a bunch of studs to give as prizes for each of our games, they just added them to their keychains.

It was a super fun party. The boys had a blast!