“DAD” hoodie

This was a very personalized gift, inspired by this little guy, and what he wrote too. In the fall, I took a pictures of how he wrote DAD on the sidewalk. I thought it was so cute and had to remember it for a project later on. Cue Christmas (or Father’s day, but our case was Christmas)!

For little G’s Christmas present to Grant, I had him write another ‘DAD’ and put it into the Silhouette Studio & made the DAD hoodie. Simple, fast & a very personalized memory as a gift!

I could have had little G write it with a sharpie or fabric pen directly on the hoodie, but this way it will stay forever and there wasn’t a chance of an accident or wild imagination of a little boy. I pictured him writing dad, then scribbling it out and trying something else. Then he would draw a face & his name with dots all over and some crazy scribbling. You get the picture. Maybe it would have been cute, having the extremely personalized touch, but I opted for the cleaner approach!

{what I used}
  *Blank hoodie from Wal-Mart ($10)
  *Teal heat press vinyl (about $1)
  *Handwritten DAD (priceless)

Monster Birthday Party!!

This little guy had a monster party this weekend for his 2nd birthday. I’m working on becoming a better party planner or party “thrower” for my kiddos. Thank goodness for Pinterest!  I probably should have broken this post up into each DIY project that went into making this party, but I didn’t. Scroll down for lots of fun ideas & how-tos!

[bow tie from The Baxter Boy, Monster shirt - DIY below]

First came the invitations. I found THIS on Pinterest and did my best after that.

[our personal info is censored, in case you were wondering what that mess was under the date!!]

Monster Party Invitation how-to:

1. Take a picture of the child with a large blank space in the photo – use a wall or, in my case, a bed sheet!
2. I don’t have a photo editing program, so I used Power Point to make the invitation!
     FONTS – Highland Perk & Ice Age
3. Add some cute monsters all over the invitation. I almost drew my own monsters and scanned them in to use on the invitation, but instead I just searched on google images.
4. Print photos. I used Wal-Mart to print these invitations, cost less than $2 for all of them.

Then came the party stuff.

I made a monster shirt for the birthday boy to wear to his monster party! Again, I love my Silhouette. Super easy to make shirts, especially at the last minute.

 
Note: DO NOT wear white shirts for birthday parties. It is now nicely stained with pizza sauce, frosting, playdough, etc. Oh well!

Monster Shirt how-to:

1. Buy a solid/blank shirt (Wal-Mart & Target usually have good deals for the littler kids, Joanns & Michaels has good deals for the other kids/adults).
2. Find Monster clipart on google or wherever you like to search.
      *import image into Silhouette studio
3. Cut vinyl. I used these colors:
      *Cyan Blue, Yellow, Red & Green.

I converted some party hats & sippy cups into monsters with just some googly eyes & a hot glue gun (inspired by THIS). How-to: add glue, add googly eyes. EASY!

 
[the googly eyes & hot glue can be removed from the sippy cups with a little effort, or you can give them away as party favors!]

After everyone showed up, I gave them a coloring page of a monster without any eyes (find it HERE). First they colored it, then they got a little tub of playdough and had to find the googly eyes hidden in it. They glued them on their monster coloring page and made some really crazy looking monsters!

 

We had a mid-morning party, so I served them lunch. We had monster mini-pizzas and some veggies (sliced carrots & peas). The mini pizzas are just a few simple ingredients & cook in less than 10 minutes. This picture shows the easy steps:

Monster mini-pizza how-to:

1. With a can of Pillsbury biscuits (or store brand!), roll them out flat & spread out on cookie sheet.
2. Add sauce – I use Ragu
3. Add cheese
4. Add Canadian bacon (or pepperoni) & top with an olive slice – to make the eye
5. Cut a sharp teeth mouth from cheese. I thought this would turn out a lot better after it cooked, but it was just a blob of melted cheese, so you could skip this step if you want!
6. Cook according to directions on the biscuit can.

Kids love them (despite the very unenthusiastic face of little G mid-bite)!!

Then came my boys’ favorite part, the monster cupcakes. These were so fun to make. I’ve never been into decorating cakes, but I love watching Cupcake wars & the like. I didn’t make anything from scratch, I’m not that hardcore. But I did make the teeth, tongues, & mouths.

Monster Cupcake how-to:

1. Bake the cupcakes, from a box if you’re like me, and after they’ve cooled top with a thin layer of frosting.
2. Using a Multi-Opening Decorating Tip, Ready-To-Use Icing Tubes (I used blue, green & orange) and a standard coupler, start adding the monster “hair/fur”. I’m definitely not an expert at cake decorating, but I did one outer layer of “hair/fur” and then filled in the very center with it.
3. Stragically place the candy eyeballs.
4. Finish with the mouth & tongue or teeth using Airheads and black candy melts (see below for more details!).

This is how I did the teeth, tongues & mouths, and I recommend making these before you start decorating the cupcakes. I found some little cookie cutters to experiment with, the star & the gingerbread man worked the best. I used a bunch of different colors of Airheads & made teeth with the tip of the star cookie cutter, and tongues with the head of the gingerbread man cookie cutter. A finishing touch with the tongues is a little intend using a toothpick. As for the mouths, I melted some black candy melts and used a sandwich baggie to make a piping bag. On wax paper I drew different kinds of mouths, turned it over (so I didn’t pipe on the marker) and piped out a bunch of mouths. Once they dry, they are ready to use.

Final step for our monster party – Sing ‘Happy Birthday’, blow out the candles & chow down!

 

(I thought about doing more “monster” games and activities, but they are only 2 and mainly wanted to play with our toys.
So I let it be and they had fun anyway. You can find more of my Monster Party ideas on Pinterest.)

[bow tie & suspenders from The Baxter Boy]

 

 

{FEATURED ON}

Cub Scouts – Wolf Achievement 3

This past week I did Wolf achievement 3 in Cub Scouts. It was a pretty fast den meeting, but we covered all of it and a few other electives.

Achievement 3a. I made this Habits of Good Health Chart for them to take home and keep track of their health habits for 2 weeks.

Achievement 3b. We talked about how to prevent spreading colds (ie: covering your coughs & sneezes with your elbow instead of your hands). It’s a pretty easy achievement to check off.

Achievement 3c. I brought some Band-Aids with me (and made sure they were crazy so the boys thought they were cool!). I made them roll play with each other and told them who had a “cut” and who had to take care of them. By the third boy, they all had it down pretty good – and they looked great with their Band-Aids on their faces, necks, hands, etc!

Another Achievement done!
(for more cub scout ideas, click HERE)

Teaching nutrition to 8 year olds (Cub Scouts)

I’ve been a Wolf Den Leader in Cub Scouts for about a year now & I’ll admit it’s pretty fun. My boys are definitely not old enough (starts at 8 years old, mine are 3 1/2 and almost 2) but now I’ll be ready for it when they get into cub scouts!

Anyway, at our last den meeting we worked on NUTRITION, which is right up my alley (ahem, cue Bachelors degree in Nutrition & Food Management). For those of you reading this for the cub scout aspect, we accomplished Wolf achievement 8 a & b, the belt loop requirements #1 & 2 & pin requirements #2 & 6.

Ach. 8a) Study the Food Guide Pyramid.  Name some foods from each of the food groups shown in the pyramid.

You can find “My Plate” at ChooseMyPlate.gov. I printed out this guide for 8 year old boys and we discussed the food groups, what they should eat, and how many calories & water they need and how much exercise they should get.

Ach. 8b) Plan the meals you and your family should have for one day. List things your family should have from the food groups shown in the Food Group Pyramid.  At each meal, you should have foods from at least three food groups.

I printed out a simple menu that I made on Microsoft Word. They looked at the food guide and filled out breakfast, lunch and dinner and made sure to have at least 3 different food groups for each meal. (I love their spelling!)

[translation -- Breakfast: orange, dark [chocolate] pancake, and 2 glasses milk.
Lunch: fish, yogurt, and carrots, water. Dinner: Veggie burger, toast, and apple juice]

Nutrition Belt Loop #1) Make a poster of foods that are good for you. Share the poster with your den.

I cut out pictures from a grocery ad - healthy foods & junk foods. Last year I let the boys cut it out themselves, and it took 3 times as long. This year I cut out beforehand and had it all ready to go, and it didn’t take NEARLY as long for them to make the poster! Instead of just a poster of good foods, I had them divide it in half and glue “good” foods & “junk” (not ‘jump’, see picture below!) foods. Then they shared with everyone in the den what was on their poster.

 

Nutrition Belt loop #2) Explain the difference between a fruit and a vegetable. Eat one of each.

This one is always controversial with the little boys. Some boys think something is a fruit, other boys thinks it’s a vegetable, sometimes they are both right depending on who you are talking to. With 8 year olds, I just had them list off easy fruits (ie: bananas, oranges, strawberries) and east veggies (ie: broccoli, celery, carrots). When it came to tomatoes, avocados, corn, etc. we had a small discussion about them and let the boys say what they thought each was then dove into the eating part! That is always a win with boys!!

Nutrition pin #2) Read the nutrition label from a packaged or canned food item. Learn about the importance of the nutrients listed. Explain what you learned to your den or family.

I brought a granola bar for each of them and they looked at the nutrition label. Each of them found a certain nutrient or listing (ie: protein, calories, sugar). They found how much was in it, and more questions were raised – “what’s a calorie?” “how big is a gram” “what is saturated”. I did my best to explain, but in the end, they only cared about eating it! Now they at least know what that label is and the info they can find on it.

Nutrition pin #6) Make a list of healthy snack foods. Demonstrate how to prepare two healthy snacks.

This one I helped them out with by printing off a list of snack ideas from ChooseMyPlate.gov. We read over this list and then made #3 & 5 snacks. 

They still have more to do with achievement 8, the belt loop and the pin before they can get those awards, but that’s a start! Now hopefully they are more aware of what is good for them, what they need to eat & how to plan and prepare what they eat.

One step closer to moving up in their ranks!
(for more cub scout ideas, click HERE)

*also posted HERE