Homegrown Explorers Thanksgiving '09

This year was our 5th homeschool group Thanksgiving! We had lots of fun making food and crafts and then the best part...eating! Here are some pic's from our day:

We made these super cute paper pumpkins! Thanks Cindy A. for setting this up! You can find the directions online here and see them again here.

Here is Danyelle and James with their pumpkin crafts!

More crafting!
James with his pumpkin!

Emmy and Chandler with their pumpkins, Emmy's is now more like a gourd!!!

I didn't get any pic's of preparing the food =-( but here are some of EATING it!
Can you see what Ethan is reaching for??? His favorite Thanksgiving treat!!

James and Danyelle enjoying their meal! We used the pumpkin craft as their place markers!

Emmy and Hannah! Emmy went back 3 or 4 times for more turkey! Auntie Sarah and Uncle Zack calling her "Turkey" must have rubbed off on her!

Smile girls!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!!

Diaper Cake Tutorial

After being inspired by tons and tons of pics of these cute "diaper cakes" online I brought it up to my sis and a friend and we decided it would be a fun gift for and upcoming baby shower! I built the "cake" part of it and took pics as I went! Here is how I did it:

Here is what I used to build the basic cake base:
1 box of Pampers Swaddlers size one
1 bottle of sparkling grape juice
fun ribbon
1 large platter
yarn

Start out by placing the sparkling juice in the middle of the platter. Then pull out some yarn and form a circle around the bottle about the size you want the base to be. Then start filling it with diapers by taking 3-5 at a time and fanning them in your hands and then wrap them around the bottle. Keep going until it is the size you want and is pretty firm. You may need to adjust the yarn once you get the diapers all the way around.

Then go ahead and start the next layer with the same technique. This time you will want to make the layer a little smaller to get a layered cake look.

Here the second layer is finished.

Then again do the same with the top layer making it a little smaller! We had about 10 diapers leftover and played this game at the shower! Be warned before you check out the link that it is not for those with weak stomachs!!!! It was funny to see peoples faces though!

The little blue thing in the top is a bottle brush that I jammed down into the center. Next is the fun part of decorating the cake! I started out with a couple of wide ribbons with fun patterns!

This is the very simple finished base with only a couple of gift items stuffed inside! Those are burp cloths on the top stuffed in the hole in the middle and then fluffed up a little to make it look nice.

Then my sis and friend came with all the little toys and trinkets to add on! The monkey on the top is a hooded towel, the little booties were added to the top, a great baby grooming kit from Carters were the perfect accessories to stuff in the ribbon all around the cake. Then we stuffed the little bag (from the grooming kit) with cute little onesies! We covered the bottom layer with a soft and fuzzy blanket by folding it into thirds and then pining it in the back! Then we added a couple of cute toys!!
This is the finished cake at the shower!

This is my sis Sarah and friend Crystal getting ready to carry it over to Britt (the new mom) as I took lot's of photo's!

Britt was thrilled with the "cake" she wanted to see all that we had added to it but did not want to take it apart so she could take it home to show her hubby!

We can't wait to meet the baby now! He won't be here until early next year...I wonder how long the diapers will stay in cake form???

It's My Turn...

So I am finally going to post this like I promised!!! I remembered that I was supposed to when Elizabeth asked me if I wear hats??? I can't wait to see what she makes me! I was also inspired by a super crafty idea I saw online! So here it is:

Pass It On...

Here is the deal:

The first five people to comment on this post will get something made by me.
My choice.
For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations: I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. What I make will be just for you. It'll be done with-in a year. You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. No guarantees, I may sew or stitch or bake something. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure! I reserve the right to do whatever I want!

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your own blog and offer the same deal to 5 of your own lucky blog readers. So, the first 5 people to leave a comment telling me they are in, win a homemade gift by me! Be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it.


My Inspiration
Scroll down through...there are several!
And because of the rules there is really no guarantee that one of these is what you will get!!!

Cake Pops and Egg Decorating

Muria turned me on to this web site called Bakerella and she does some AMAZING things! We loved her Easter cake pops and decided to make some. Ours did NOT come out like hers, although we did not really intend them to but they were fun and the kids really like them!

First we started with a baked box cake a large bowl and can of frosting.

Then comes the fun, the kids were shocked when I told them to dive in with their hands and crumble the cake into the bowl. They loved it!!!

Her they are with their messy hands! We then mixed in most of the can of frosting (for exact directions you can check out the link to Bakerella at the top).

Mollie even got a taste here and there, I know she's not 1 yet but oh well!

We used the small Pampered Chef scoop to make the balls even in size and the kids and my Mom rolled them.

James has got some great rolling technique going on here:

We then placed them on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer to harden a little and realized how late it was so we decided to call it a night and decorated eggs and the cake pops a few nights later.

Here are our finished cake pops!

And a couple pics of egg decorating too!

Hope everyone had a great Easter!!!

Spruce Up Old Plastic Easter Eggs

I saw this project on someones blog somewhere and was just going to link to it but I can't find it anywhere so I decided to post the whole thing!

You need some Mod Podge, plastic eggs, a paint brush and some fabric scraps.

(Let me know if you want any scraps we have tons!!) Piece by piece add the fabric scraps by layering Mod Podge then fabric then more Mod Podge until the whole egg is covered.

We used an empty egg carton to dry them in.

Here is James with his, Ethan ditched us to play outside (in the MUD).
It seems like the dark colors worked best, you can see through the light blue and white but maybe if I had matched the light blue with a blue egg it would be okay.

Check out the Kid-Craft Jamboree at Kiddio for all kinds of SPRING crafts!

Peanut Butter Play Dough and Easy Peanut Butter Presses

I was trying to think of a way to keep Emmy happy while I did her hair and decided to make peanut butter play dough. This is a fun edible dough that is great for the little ones who love to eat the real stuff! We have made this several times in the past but have switched to natural peanut butter and that is what we used, it did not come out the same! It was very dry and crumbly. I tried adding liquid and more peanut butter but nothing seemed to work. The only thing I can think of is that it is the peanut butter. Anyway here is the recipe:

2 1/2 cups peanut butter (not natural)

2 cups dry milk

2 T. honey of molasses

Mix all ingredients until an soft dough is formed.

Have FUN!

Here are some pics of the kids:

Mollie was really wanting some, sorry babe not until your bigger!

You can see here how crumbly it was!
In the end we had a ton leftover and decided to make Easy Peanut Butter Presses from the Pampered Chef cookbook. They didn't come out quite the same but was better than throwing it all away!

Here is the recipe:

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
Combine until you have a soft dough and then fill your cookie press (or just place balls of dough on the cookie sheet and then flatten). Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes.


I just figured out how much crumbly dough I had in place of the peanut butter in the recipe. After baking we drizzled them with chocolate. The kids all really liked them!

Check out the Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap for more recipes!

Please leave a comment, I love to see who is dropping by!

Our Edible Tabernacle

After learning about the Tabernacle the Cowlands joined us in this fun activity of recreating it out of graham crackers and frosting.

Here Ethan is making one of the items that went inside (the bowl I think) out of starburst. They are great for molding into all sorts of things after just a few seconds in the microwave.

James, Ethan and Emmy could not keep their fingers out of the frosting!!!

Here are the boys with their finished project.