Mint Oreo Cupcakes

We just celebrated a FIFTH birthday in our house!  I can't believe our baby girl is 5 already.  We had her party at the dojo where she takes karate, and there is a lot to be said for a party in which all Mommy needs to do is show up with the guest of honor and a batch of cupcakes.  This was their first time having a birthday party there, and the dojo owners did such a great job.  They played lots of fun games and learned some basic martial arts skills.  It was really great to see their daughter demonstrate her award-winning kata to a very impressionable group of 4-5 year old girls.  See, girlies, it's "cool" to be pretty AND strong--princesses aren't the best thing going :)

This photo is not from the party, but shows C "sparring" with a classmate.  The objective is to catch your opponents flag, while protecting your own.  A sneaky way to teach agility that the kids LOVE.

And now I finally explain the title of my post, these yummy Mint Chocolate Oreo Cupcakes.  C looooves mint and chocolate together, and I needed to find a way to make a "fun" cupcakes.  Here is the recipe:

Mint Chocolate Oreo Cupcakes

(makes 30 cupcakes)

Make a boxed mix of chocolate cake (I used Devils Food cake).  Add 1-2 teaspoons mint to the batter.

Place one mint oreo in bottom of each cupcake liner.  Pour batter over oreos, filling 2/3 full.  Bake as directed on box.

Frosting:

¾ cup butter or margarine, softened

3 cups confectioner’s sugar

2-3 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

3 drops green food coloring (I also added 1 drop blue). 

Combine until smooth, adding small amounts of water if necessary.

Frost cooled cupcakes and top with a mini oreo if desired.

This recipe was adapted from this Mint Chocolate Cake recipe, a favorite in our house that I’ve also made as a layer cake with mint frosting in the middle.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/mint-chocolate-cake/detail.aspx

Cloud Dough

We recently made cloud dough after reading the post at Tinker Lab.  This is so easy and kids love it!  We had a 3rd grader, two pre-kindergarten students and a two-year old digging in, collaborating, and absorbed in play for over 20 minutes.  My kids and I have played with it often, and keep it stored in the garage so we can play outside and worry even less about clean up, but this stuff really is a nice sensory product.

 (This photo was taken on a different day, while the little man was busy digging in the dirt.)

I just googled cloud dough and found this blog with some variations.  I have a giant bag of flour from Costco and I bought some cheap baby oil (rather than using my more expensive olive oil supply) so this is a very inexpensive project.  I think we'll try the lower flour:oil ratio just to see what we get and of course my kids will LOVE adding glitter.  And of course we have lots of shells around, I'm not sure why I didn't think of using those before.  The silicone baking cups have been a big hit, too.

(Random photo of S waving good-bye to Daddy.)

I haven't done much sewing lately, except to alter some old clothes to fit my expanding baby belly.  Perhaps I'll take some photos eventually...

Pirate Looks at 40

Mother, mother ocean, I've heard your call

Wanted to sail upon your waters 

Since I was three feet tall...

(Jimmy Buffett)

My dear hubby turns 40 today!  He's been planning a "Pirate Looks at 40" trip a la Jimmy Buffett for a few years, and is now on his way to a much deserved boys-only Key West vacation.  He's worked so hard ever since I've known him, never had a serious break from all of his training, going straight from fellowship to working hard for our family.  To celebrate, the kids and I made a pirate cake.  Hopefully he'll get a real live boat in the near future--he deserves it!

Half Marathon

I recently completed the Savannah Rock & Roll Half Marathon.  It was SO MUCH FUN!  I started training in August with a group of friends here on the island.  To fit our runs into our busy "mom" schedules we ran at 5am on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and met at MY house--so no getting out of it!).  We did our long runs on Sundays at 6am.  The training paid off because I enjoyed every minute of the race and felt great when we finished.  We really savored every step, too, high fiving the wonderful people of Savannah who came out to support the race, getting on stage with one of the bands, and eating a Krispy Kreme en route (thanks to that little boy handing out free donuts--I was HUNGRY!).

How does this post fit into my "crafty" blog?  We embellished some Target shirts with the logo "SSI Moms Rock & Run" and made matching do-rags out of black knit.  Thank goodness we had those matching outfits--the streets were crowded and it was a good way to keep a visual on my running partners.

Crossing the finish line was such a great moment!

What an inspiring group of women.  We had a marathon pro (aka our fun-loving leader), a breast cancer survivor and a recent widow in our group.  It was the first half marathon for four of us.  We took a week off after the race, but missed our early morning chats, so plan to continue the group runs on a more laid-back schedule.  We're already planning to do some shorter 5K and 10K local runs, but I will definitely do another half again, too.

Making Play Dough

Little Man and I finally tried making play dough.  It was so easy and fun, we should have done this a long time ago!  We did a stove top method because I've read that it will last longer.  When it was cool enough to knead, I let him go at it.  His very favorite part of the process was shaking glitter onto the dough and kneading it in.  He sat at the table for over an hour and did not want to stop when it was time to get C at school.

It was so much fun we made a pink batch when C got home from school.  She has always loved glitter but I don't love the mess.  Glitter on play dough is fantastic because it doesn't fly all over the place.

We used tools from the kitchen and some plastic scissors that don't cut paper, but are great for play dough and they played for another hour.

This was so much fun we are going to do it again at the toddler play group in a few weeks.

Paper Dolls

I mentioned before how, when I've really got things together, I'll have some after school projects already set up for C.  Here's one that has often been requested, mostly by her Thursday play date pal, so we've had lots of fun with it.  The project was posted on This Mama Makes Stuff.  I've tried using fabric scraps as she described but found that for four-year olds, it's best to use paper.  They especially like it if I've pre-cut some dresses, shorts, etc but I don't always do that.

Here's a hodge podge of decorating bits ready to go.

And some finished dolls.

C's friend loves these so much that for her recent birthday I purchased a small three drawer container from Target and filled it with pre-cut dolls, clothes, new markers, scissors, glue, googly eyes, etc.  It was one of the last birthday gifts opened at the party, and I was afraid she'd not be sure what it was and just toss it aside.  You know how the gift giver--C--waits so long to see the birthday girl's reaction and I was afraid after the plethora of Barbies and Little Petshop that perhaps I'd made a bad choice, but the birthday girl was so excited.

Vegetarian Eating

I don't like to cook meat. We're not vegetarian, but if I'm in charge of the meal (as is the case most weeknights), it's not likely going to include meat.  Also, if I'm in charge of the meal, I'm going to make enough for more than one night.  These burritos are a perfect fit.  My sister-in-law gave me the recipe years ago, and I still use the basic idea.  I don't bother measuring quantities, rather just cut up one each of every vegetable I'd like to include, add LOTS of cumin (the kids enjoy it) and two cans of beans.  I was so inspired by all of the beautiful colors that I took a photo during the cooking process.

This batch contains most of a butternut squash, three small zucchinis, one onion, lots of garlic and one each of red, yellow and green bell peppers.  C helps assemble (don't forget fresh cilantro--my favorite part!) and we always have enough left to wrap individually in foil and place in the freezer for baking on another day.  The kids truly love these and I love that they are a meal all in one.  Yummy!