Tag Archives: kid friendly

Halloween Birthday Party!

BOO!  Two white cakes decorated simply. This was by far the easiest party cake I’ve ever made!

It’s almost time to celebrate Fred taking another turn around the sun (2 years flew by!), so I thought I’d share his adorable little birthday party from last year.   We have a lot of friends with birthdays in October, so we decided to celebrate his a little late each year closer to Halloween to free up earlier weekends for other parties.  I’m sure someday he’ll insist on having a non-Halloween themed party closer to the actual date of his birth, but until he has an opinion about it, we’re leaning way in!  Who doesn’t love a costume party anyway?!  Here’s the round-up from his last party and I’m sure I’ll be repeating a lot of it this year because it was so stinking cute!  Continue reading

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Easy Kid-Made Valentines!

IMG_6716I used to love making little Valentines for my classmates and I distinctly remember refusing to hand out store-bought ones several times.   My mom probably just didn’t want to spend money on all of the supplies I needed to make them (and who could blame her), but denying an art-loving child their opportunity to make something is a pointless battle!  Since I became a parent, I have tried to teach George, and someday Fred as well, that handmade gifts, handwritten cards or even just proper Thank You notes are important and valued.  What better way to show you care about someone than giving them something that took some thought or time?   That being said, asking a toddler with little to no fine motor skills to make something for Valentine’s Day is obviously not realistic.  Last year, I figured out something that we could make together for his classmates and he loved it!  Continue reading

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Yummy Homemade Trail Mix Bars

img_6431I discovered the most delicious trail mix a few weeks ago at World Market but I realized the cost per ounce was insane so I decided to make it myself after my son and I downed the whole bag in a few days.  A week later, I had already ordered and received each ingredient in bulk from Amazon Prime and got ready to mix it up.   After filling a few of the giant-sized baggies with all the mail order yumminess, I realized I had a big problem…I have a tendency to eat trail mix like it’s popcorn…could I handle this much trail mix?  Could my thighs?  No.  Probably not. Continue reading

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Delicate Milk and Rice Flour Pudding

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Longing for something simple and creamy, we ordered “rice pudding” for dessert from our favorite Mediterranean restaurant one evening.   What we got was anything but simple and I immediately became obsessed.   After lots of recipe research, my best guess is that it is actually called Malabi, an Israeli milk and rice flour pudding.   The texture is smooth, creamy and soft.   It holds its shape easily like a flan, but the rice flour and rose-water gives it a light, delicately floral flavor.   The restaurant drizzled their version with a rose water syrup and sprinkles it with coconut and pistachios, but the flavors and toppings vary from recipe to recipe.   Once I found my favorite version of the pudding itself, I made it a few times to perfect my version.   It is extremely quick and simple to make…and our toddler adores it, so it’s a great recipe to introduce new and exotic flavors to a child who might be a little skeptical.  Continue reading

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