Archive for the ‘kids do’ Category

At Lily’s request I made Peanut Butter Cup cookies for the first day of school.  This meant an extra trip to the grocery store for Peanut Butter Cups… but these cookies are a favorite of all three of my kids and I wanted to make something special for the first day of school.

I was secretly hoping I could stay away from this cookie better than I do from Snicker Doodles… with a wedding and the attendant family pictures coming up in a few weeks…  but I’ve had three cookies today so that plan went right out the window!  Someone please come and take them away before I eat more.

They really are delicious…

There are two tools that you need to make these cookies, the first is a couple of mini muffin tins.  I bought very cheap pans several years ago and use them more often than I expected… cheap works just fine.  The second tool that is extremely handy in making these (and other) cookies is a Cookie Scoop.  It is essentially a mini ice cream scoop.  If you don’t have one and like to make cookies, it is well worth buying one.  It makes it so easy to quickly and evenly scoop your cookies.  At Christmas, I help my mom with her cookie business, and my mom along with my sister Brooke and my sister-in-law Marcie will make 100 dozen cookies in a morning.  One person armed with a cookie scoop can scoop 5 dozen cookies every six minutes (not without pain I may add!)

A friend of mine made these cookies when Ben (age 6 at the time) was playing at their home… after eating one he asked if he could have the recipe.  Needless to say she was quite amused and sent the recipe home with him.  Here it is:

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

• 1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ cup butter, softened
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup peanut butter
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg, well beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk
• Approximately 40 miniature peanut butter cups

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In small bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking soda; set aside.  Cream together the butter, sugar, peanut butter and brown sugar until fluffy.  Add beaten egg, vanilla and milk and mix until well blended.  Add the flour mixture 1/3 at a time and mix until blended, but do not over mix.  Using a cookie scoop or a spoon roll into 40 balls and place each into ungreased mini muffin pan.   Bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately press a mini peanut butter cup into the center of each cookie. Cool remove from pan.

Click over to Tasty Kitchen for the printable recipe.

It’s an old joke that children have more fun with the box their gift came in, than with the gift itself.

I can vouch for that!  My children have always had a thing for cardboard boxes.  Apple boxes became cars when they were smaller… shoe boxes have been made into leprechaun traps… and they love to paint boxes and cut out windows and doors to use with their favorite action figures…

That’s why I knew I had hit a jackpot when I found Mr. McGroovy’s Website.

Ben’s birthday was coming up and he wanted a pirate party.  I was looking for ideas and ran across Mr. McGroovy’s instructions to make this pirate ship out of refrigerator boxes.   I know our ship isn’t fancy… especially compared to the the ones on the website… but it was a major hit and lasted for almost 2 months after the party.  (…and saw many swashbuckling adventures, I might add.)

I had to call around town to find the refrigerator boxes.  I finally found them at a large furniture store’s delivery warehouse.  They were free.  Then all it took was a little time and paint.  I didn’t order Mr. McGroovy’s grommets, because I didn’t have time to get them before the party, so we made two holes about an inch apart and looped a cable tie through the two holes.  We did this at every spot you were supposed to use a grommet.  Once it was constructed and everything pulled snug, we trimmed all the loose end of the cable ties.

We made the pyramid for Ben’s 8th birthday party last year… an Indiana Jones party.  The door looks ripped because it is.  I created the door with butcher paper covered with hieroglyphic symbols that the kids had to decode before entering the pyramid.  Once inside it was filled with plastic snakes, green glow sticks to make a spooky aura, and glow in the dark paint hieroglyphics on the walls… and their treasure of course!  This party goer said he didn’t like the snakes…

The pyramid was equally fun and long lasting. And even though I didn’t take the time to paint the pyramid, the kids didn’t seem to mind.

If you are looking for cheap adventure for your kids… why not transform an old cardboard box into something really fun.  I know we enjoyed making the projects as much as the kids loved playing in them.

Check out Mr. McGroovy’s very groovy site… there are lots of free instructions for wonderful projects.