Food Projects

2010

Here are some of the fun and simple Valentines’ Day Traditions we are starting to share within our family each year:

Tradition #1

Boxes of Chocolates on Beds

Growing up on Valentine’s Day my mom always made our bed and left a box of chocolates and when I was away at college she would mail me a box. It was always a fun treat! This year I was trying to be sneaky and grab the chocolates without my kids seeing them and accidentally bought a Transformer box for my daughter instead of the girlier one I meant to get her. Oh well, it will save me on the fighting!

Tradition #2

Decorating

I had a lot of fun making these with my kids…or my kids watching me make them! They helped in the beginning, but lost interest after the first little bit. They were real simple to put together and the kids enjoy looking at them hanging now in the kitchen.

Each year I like to put hearts on the walls. This year now that the kids can help we sat down one night and had everyone write one thing they love about another person in the family. Once they are all written down we read them aloud and then put them on the wall where we can see them all month. I love to glance at them throughout the day! It is fun at any age to see what they put down, but I think it is especially fun when they are young because you get phrases like this,

and like this,

hmm, he must have liked those muffins I made!

Tradition #3

Making Valentines

My son was asked to bring Valentine’s Day cards to preschool and since he recently had a couple of days off we used the time to make some. They are not super fancy, but he is pretty proud of them. Anything to do with sparkling confetti and glue is cool, right? And since we used basic shapes and letters that he recognized we were able to talk about them while he was “designing” them.

Tradition #4

A Fun Valentine’s Dinner

I had so much fun planning this dinner and it made for a fun night together! I made Heart Shaped Calzones from my favorite pizza dough recipe and stuffed them with our favorite pizza toppings (a little cheese on bottom, toppings and a couple T. of pizza sauce). And for dessert…

Yum! I made Strawberry/Cherry Jello Jigglers cut in to squares and topped with strawberry yogurt and strawberries. I don’t know about your kids, but mine always seem to eat their food better when it is cut into smaller chunks and they gobbled this up!

I loved it and I think they did, too!

No matter what you do, big or small, do not forget the point is to share your love for those special people in your life!

What are your Valentine’s Day Traditions? I’d love to hear them!

Food Castles

2010

(Don’t forget the GIVEAWAY below)

Playing with your food was never so fun! And if your kids are like mine, they like to play with their food! I discovered this by accident (See below)

I left the peanut butter out after making lunch by accident and my son went to wash his hands….next thing I know there is art work being made on the counter. But I discovered they liked to spread peanut butter.

My son likes to call these “food castles” or “marshmallow castles,” whatever we happen to make it out of, since he gets to stack all his food up. It’s a great snack time activity because they will snack while they work on those fine motor skills. It seems so simple but the kids really seem to enjoy it.

What you need:

Some sort of cup for a base. I used some yogurt cups. You can also use a disposable cup and if it is too tall, just cut it down.
A disposable plate to glue the cup on
Plastic knife of popsicle stick for spreading
Glue or some sort of sticky substance. I used a hot glue gun, but I guess you could use peanut butter or something else that would hold down the cup if you didn’t have anything else available.
Some sort of substance for the food to stick to. i.e. frosting, peanut butter, yogurt, pudding frosting. I used crunchy peanut butter because I already had it on hand.
Toppings. Whatever you have will work! I used marshmallows, craisins, sprinkles, and apple bits.

Directions

To begin, it helps if you have everything ready to go before you begin and I would not put it all with in reach of the kids until you are ready for it. My kids would not leave me alone while I was trying to put everything together and glue the cup to the plate, so I let them help me! I gave each of them their own plate with an apple slice and a plastic knife to help me cut the apples.

Step 1: Glue the cup to the plate. I used a hot glue gun. You do not need much glue. I discovered that I didn’t even have to go completely around the cup (my glue gun was being stubborn!). I just had a little bit of glue on each side and it was very sturdy.

Step 2: Start spreading. I gave each child a bowl with some peanut butter in it and a plastic knife. Younger ages may require more help when it comes to the spreading. My son is almost 4 and I just had to help him by holding his hand on the knife the first few spreads and then he caught on. My daughter is 27 months and if my son wasn’t there for her to watch she would have had a hard time. So, I probably would have put all the PB on first if she was by herself and then let her decorate it.