Homemade Popsicles

We used fruit juice to make popsicles today. 
Do you have any good popsicle recipes?

Christmas: Christmas Tree Pancakes

Cynthia(Nanny):
Anytime you can incorporate a theme into your kid's meals do it!

Not only will they make more learning connections, but your reluctant or picky eaters will be more willing to try foods if they are in fun shapes or designed to go with the focus of your lessons.

Today I made the girls pancakes, but in the shape of Christmas trees since that's our theme for the next few days.

Gingerbread Cookies and Gingerbread Playdoh

Arielle (mommy):

We have so many different gingerbread stories including several versions of the Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Pirates, the list goes on.  This is my first Christmas staying home with the kids and I'm so excited to be the one to get to share these fun stories with them!  

Of course after reading one of these stories the first thing we wanted to do was make our own gingerbread cookies!

We didn't make ours from scratch, we used a Krustease box mix, but we had fun mixing, rolling, and cutting out the doh.  

O was taking a nap, but Lil had such a good time rolling the dough and using the cookie cutters I knew we had to make gingerbread Playdoh.  We used this recipe.  It smells amazing!  

I found a shape gingerbread mat here and some more here (they had tons of other great gingerbread printables), printed them, laminated them, and put the kids to work!  

Fall: Cooking with Apples

Cynthia (Nanny): Crock Pot Apple Cider

Today the twins and I used a simple recipe I found on allrecipes.com to make Apple Cider.
It was a big hit and the girls loved that they were able to add in the ingredients.
As soon as their mom walked in the door, they wanted her to try it. They were so excited to tell her about it.
We took advantage of the chilly weather outside and took their cider cups outside. Great, easy recipe for kids and your house will smell like Christmas. :)

Ingredients Needed
64 oz Apple juice
2 c Orange juice
2 tbsp cinnamon
3-4 cinnamon sticks

(After testing it, I decided to add one diced apple to the pot for extra flavor)

Add all ingredients to a crock pot. Let it simmer on low for about 6-7 hours. Stir occasionally. 

Cynthia (Nanny): Apple Muffins

Today we made Apple muffins using a Jiffy brand muffin mix.  I diced and added in half an apple to add extra apple flavor.  

The girls really enjoy taking part in these cooking activities.  Their favorite part was stirring the batter.  It's always fun to let kids help with cooking.  

Snack attack

Arielle (mommy):  

"I'm hungry hungry hungry" from Lil and "I want eat" from O are heard around our house all day long.

When they aren't saying those words they are scavenging through the pantry and raiding the fridge for whatever they can get their hands on.  They don't always make the healthiest choices and sometimes they go for the same foods over and over.

It's nothing super innovative but it's helped me to give each of them a snack pack.  I had Lil help cut fruits and veggies and gather other healthy snacks to put in an empty strawberry container (with the lid cut off).  We put small portions of a variety of foods inside and put it on the bottom shelf inside the door.

Now when Lil tells me she's hungry I tell her to go get something from her snack pack.  Once one food is gone its gone.  If she asks for more of it, I tell her to go look and see what other snack she can have (otherwise she would eat a pound of strawberries in a day!). 

Popcorn Science

Cynthia(Nanny): 

Today we incorporated sound into cooking by using an air popper to make popcorn. We started out gathering ingredients and tools we needed. Then, I explained the quick process of what we would be doing and asked them to pay attention to the sounds they'd hear. Next I let the girls scoop out the kernels into the cap. 

They were a little afraid of the noise but once they could start to hear the popping sound and see the popcorn, they were very excited! We talked about the sounds, they imitated the popcorn popping up and snacked on popcorn before lunch.