All Ages

Puppy Chow Recipe

2010

This recipe has been a favorite in my family since I was a little girl. You have probably had it before, but know it as another name. I like this recipe because it does not have any extra butter or oil to add like a lot of other Puppy Chow recipes do and it is very simple. A great recipe for little helpers to do.

What You Need:

4-6 cups Chex or Crispix cereal (generic is great)
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
Powdered Sugar
1 large bowl
A small pot or a microwave safe bowl
Long wooden or plastic spoon

Directions

Step 1: Pour 4 cups of cereal into a large bowl. I buy whatever cereal is the cheapest, which is usually the generic Chex and I will buy one box rice cereal and one box corn to use for this recipe.

Step 2: Combine peanut butter and chocolate chips. Heat until just melted. I usually use the microwave and stir it every 20-30 seconds. It usually takes no more than 1.5 minutes.

Step 3: Pour melted chocolate peanut butter into the large bowl over the cereal a little at a time stirring it into the cereal. Try to cover all the cereal with chocolate, so keep mixing. If you need to, add more cereal. How much cereal you add depends on how chocolate coated you want each peace to be. If you use all 6 cups your cereal may be a bit dry.

Step 4: Add the powdered sugar. Stir it in until everything is covered. If you are like my little sister you want a TON of powdered sugar!

Step 5: Enjoy!

Variations:

Once you have mixed in the melted chocolate peanut butter put the mixture in a gallon sized sealable bag. Then add the powdered sugar. Seal the bag and shake. This can be less messy and it keeps the cereal from breaking up like it can when you are stirring with a spoon.
Divide up melted chocolate peanut butter mix into smaller sealable bags, so each of your helpers can shake up their own powdered sugar.

A funny story:… a few years ago I made some of this and grabbed a handful to take with us to the playground. A couple of friends heard me calling it Puppy Chow and giving it to my son. They finally came up and asked me what I was eating. When I told them I got the funniest look from both of them. So I opened up the paper towel I was holding to show them and told them how I made it. They both started laughing. They thought I was giving dog food to my son because they always called it something else growing up!

Filed Under: All Ages, Cooking with Kids, Kid Friendly Recipes Tagged With: Recipes

Quick Drying Pinata

2010

Oops! There is a double post of this that many are linked to. Please go HERE to check it out!

When I think of 4th of July parties, for some reason I always picture a pinata there, too. And so I am currently working on one with my kiddos right now. Unfortunately, it is not done, yet (hopefully tomorrow) and so I am unable to post any pictures. BUT, I wanted to get this recipe out before the 4th so anyone who wants to do one has plenty of time.

I love this method for the pinata because you can do all 3 coats at once (instead of doing one layer at a time and waiting for it to dry before putting the next layer on.

Go HERE to see the rest of this post!

Filed Under: All Ages, Games

Quick Drying Pinata

2010

9 Comments

When I think of 4th of July parties, for some reason I always picture a pinata there, too. I love this method for the pinata because you can do all 3 coats at once (instead of doing one layer at a time and waiting for it to dry before putting the next layer on.

What You Need:

Water
Flour
Pot or pan (a pan is easier to use)
Newspaper
Other paper (white, colored, lined, etc)
Balloon or other items to create an amazing pinata frame.
Tape (optional)

Directions:

Step 1: Create the paste. 2 parts water to 1 part flour. (Make sure you use cool water to create the paste. Warm/hot water makes it thicken to quickly). Mix flour and water together in pot or pan of choice and place on Medium heat for 3 minutes while stirring. You want the mixture to just begin to thicken. It should look like gravy or potato soap. If it ends up too thick it will not work right.

Step 2: Prepare newspaper strips. Tear newspaper into 1-1/2 inch wide strips

Step 3: Hang balloon or frame by a string to something above your table. Or you can place it in large a bowl to keep it sturdy. The bowl works well for balloons because it is not swinging all over the place, but for odd shaped pinatas, the string works well.

Step 4: Apply your first layer of newspaper. Dip 1 newspaper strip at a time into paste. Squeeze off extra and then apply to balloon. Cover the entire balloon except for a small area near the top.

Step 5: Repeat Step 4 with the “other” paper. It helps if you a different paper than newspaper because then you can see if you covered everything completely for a second time.

Step 6: Repeat Step 4 and apply the last layer. If I am going to paint it, I will do the last layer white paper or colored paper close to what I will be painting, so I do not have to try and cover up the newspaper or other patterned paper.

Step 7: Hang to dry. It should take 24-48 hours for it to dry completely. You can also just leave it in the bowl, but make sure you rotate the bottom up so it can dry, too.

Step 8: Once it is dry pop your balloon and pull it out. Decorate you pinata to your hearts content using crepe paper, paint, etc.

Enjoy!

***UPDATE***

I have created a flicker group for anyone and everyone who has made their own pinata and want so show it off!
Go here to add your pictures!

Filed Under: All Ages, Games Tagged With: Crafts, Fun

Watermelon Jello Bowl

2010

21 Comments

(Just for the record, they came up with this pose on their own. I just asked them to get near the watermelon!)

My friend made a water melon bowl for a BBQ last week and all the children there were fascinated….and I think my two ate more than anyone else, so I thought it would be fun for us to recreate it. Again, my kids were still very fascinated with it and ended up being great helpers! Fun, cheap, easy and yummy…what is not to love about it!

What You Need:

Watermelon – about the size of a Volleyball/Basketball
3 Bowls
- 1 - large enough to support watermelon while in the fridge
- 1 – to hold all the watermelon once it is scooped out
- 1- to mix the Jello in
Melon scooper, ice cream scooper or large spoons
Jello of choice – 2 large boxes
Measuring cups
Knife (the larger, the easier)
Plastic Wrap
Fruit (optional)

Directions:

Send your kids away while you cut off the top of the watermelon! My little helpers hands were all over the place, so I sent them to go tickle their dad!

Scoop out the watermelon guts using a melon scooper. We don’t have one, but discovered an ice cream scooper works well as long as I didn’t care if the watermelon fruit did not looked pretty coming out. =D

You now have your Watermelon Bowl.

Get fancy and cut a V-design on the edge of the watermelon to fix the “it’s a plain watermelon” look.

Place Watermelon Bowl inside of a large bowl to give it support while it is setting in the fridge.

Boil water for Jello and follow Jello instructions and mix up in a separate bowl. Using ice for a 1/2 cup or so of the cold water helped cool off the water quickly, so it was not too hot before adding it to the Watermelon Bowl.

Add Jello to Watermelon Bowl. Cover and let it set in the fridge. If you want to add fruit to the Jello, wait about 1 hour to an 1.5 hours then add the fruit. I was surprised at how fast the Jello set even though it seemed like it was pretty deep. It was finished chilling 5 hours after putting it in the fridge!

My kids were so excited about eating from this bowl that they went down for naps with no fights because they were told they could have it if only they took a nap! They also tell everyone that comes over about their creation. It was a lot of fun and really easy to make!

Enjoy!

Filed Under: All Ages, Indoor fun, Kid Friendly Recipes, Spring Project, Summer Project Tagged With: Recipes

Chalk Paint

2010

6 Comments

Chalk art is fun, especially outside on a nice day! While at the store I saw some liquid chalk and thought, “I wonder if I can make that at home?” The answer…”Yes, I can!” In fact, can you guess what it is made from? Cornstarch! I am going to stock up on a few boxes of this stuff for some summer fun. There is so much you can do with cornstarch!

What You Need:

Cornstarch
Water
Food coloring
Container(s) – cupcake tin, mini cups, etc
Paintbrush or mini sponges

Directions:

This is super easy! The basic recipe is 1 part water and 1 part cornstarch. Combine and mix together.

(We used 1/2 cups cornstarch and 1/2 cups water)

Disperse mixture into mini cups (if you mixed everything together in a bowl). Add food coloring. We added 2 drops per mini cupcake tin/slot (Blue seems to leave a slight hue…it looks like it will easily fade, so avoid or dilute if you do not want it)

Mix the colors in.

Lots of fun colors!

Give them the rules…”no painting on the house, the dog, or mixing it in the dog food“…or something like that. Put the chalk paint outside and give them their paint brushes and let them get creative!

We used sponge wedges for their art work.

It looks just like chalk when it dries and it comes off easily, too!

Additional Fun:

We discovered that when we got to the last of our chalk paint and there is not much water left, that we get Monster Goo! The kids had fun creating mini colorful balls…a very fun unexpected surprise!

It looks wet, but it is a lot thicker than it looks!

This had to be one of my favorite parts of playing with this paint… My son decided that it would be more fun to paint his body than the ground. He kept saying “My dad is going to Lll-uh-ve me all painted” and then he tried to paint me again saying, “Daddy is going to Lll-uh-ve you!” He was so proud of his body art that he did not want to wash it off later!

Have fun!

I’m linking this to:

Filed Under: All Ages, Outdoor Fun, Summer Project Tagged With: Recipes

Chia Pet Head

2010

9 Comments

What fun we had watching seeds grow as hair from our chia pet’s head! Creating your own chia pet (or head) is super easy and a great activity for everyone to see nature in action!

What You Need:

Soil
Sawdust (optional. It is just a filler)
Nylon – (Can get knee highs for pretty cheap at the store)
Chia seed, wheat grass seed, regular grass seed, or any other herb seed
String or rubber bands
A little bowl for your creation to sit in

Directions:

Cut nylon to size you would like your chia pet to be (you can always make it smaller later). Get nylon wet. Add seeds to toe area or where you would like “hair” to grow. Add plenty of seed so you have a lot of hair! Keep the directions for the seeds so you can refer to them later. Add 2 handfuls of dirt on top of seeded area. If you don’t have enough dirt, you can add sawdust to fill the rest of the nylon until you get desired size. Allow room for give so you can “design” your pet.

Now you can create your pet into something other than a potato! You can make a head, caterpillar, or anything you want. My son thought it would be fun to do a head! You can use rubber bands or string to tie off different areas. All I had was string from when I used to do cross-stitching and it worked great!

Tie off the area you would like and then shaping afterwards is easy (like, if you wanted a more pointy nose instead of a round nose).

Our “Man” with ears and a nose

Then decorate. My son said he needed eyes and eyebrows.

After “Man” has been shaped a bit more and given some more features.

Place your creation in the little bowl in an area where everyone can watch its hair grow. Our seed directions said to keep the dirt wet until seedlings appeared, which took about 5 days. We made him on a Monday afternoon and by Saturday night you could see a few tiny sprouts that were able to get through the nylon. By Sunday morning he had a full head of hair and by Monday morning ( a week after he was created) he had an inch of hair!

If I could have…I would have bought the Chia seed and invited a ton of mom/kids over and made these. We could not find any wheat grass seeds or chia seeds in small packets (we looked everywhere!). We finally found some chia seeds at the health food store, but they were $14 for a pretty big bottle and I didn’t want to spend that much or have that much seed leftover. So, we ended up using regular grass seed that we used for our backyard. It worked nice, but it would be fun to have something growing we could use.

P.S.

Keep a good eye on him. After a good morning of cleaning and play, I noticed “Man” was missing! The kids claimed they did not know where he was. I finally found him under the trampoline and now my son admits (2 days later) that he moved him because, ” ‘Man’ wanted to hide from the sun!”