Baseball Cookies

Getting in the baseball and summer spirit here... We made baseball cookies!! YUM!!

Here is what you need:

1 cup flour
1 cup coconut oil (melted)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Vanilla frosting

Red icing

Note: This only makes about 6 cookies, so we two batches.

How to:
1. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda) into a bowl.

2.  Add the coconut oil and vanilla to the dry mix, and roll out the dough in little balls.

3. Flatten the balls into little circles.

4. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees, and bake the cookies for 10-14 minutes, or until light brown/golden.

5. Once the cookies are cooled, spread vanilla frosting on the tops of them.

6. To represent the stitching of a baseball, put a skinny line of red icing on two sides of the cookie.

7. Enjoy!! :)

Baseball Pancakes

We love baseball!!! With baseball season starting, I decided to kick off the season with homemade baseball pancakes..

Here's what you need to make the pancakes:
1 cup flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons coconut oil (melted)
1 egg
1 tablespoon applesauce

How to make the pancakes:
1. First, mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt) in a bowl.

2. Next, in a separate bowl mix the wet ingredients (coconut oil, milk, egg, and applesauce) together.

3. Combine the two bowls together and mix well.

4. Heat a burner on the oven to medium heat, and put a little bit of coconut oil in a pan to grease the pan.

5. Pour the desired amount of pancake mix into the pan. (You can make them whatever size you like.)

6. Cook until the surface of the pancakes have some bubbles. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned underneath.

7.Transfer to plate, and set aside.


To decorate the pancakes:
What you need:
15 raspberries
1/3 cup of sugar
1/3 cup of vanilla yogurt
Green food coloring

How to decorate baseball pancakes:
1. First, in a small bowl, mix sugar and green food coloring together. Once mixed, put it on a plate to represent the baseball field.



2. Place one pancake on the plate, and add raspberries on each side to represent the stitching on a baseball.

3. Next, add three small scoops of yogurt around the "field" to represent the bases.


4. Enjoy!!

A creative way to make eggs..

Spring is here!! Well sort of... We had a fancy lunch for spring time. We made flowers out of peppers, eggs, spinach, corn flakes, and brown sugar.

Here is how you do it:

1. First, hollow out the pepper, and cut two pieces off of it.



2. Then place the pepper pieces into a pan, and turn the burner to medium heat.


3. Then crack open two eggs, and put one in each pepper. Let sit for about 10 minutes or so.


4. Using 4 spinach stems and 4 spinach leafs, decorate the plate as if you are making a flower. Then add a little bit of brown sugar at the bottom for dirt.


5. Once the eggs are cooked, add them to the plate, and put 4 corn flakes in the middle of them. Enjoy!!!

Sugar cookies

I have posted in a few blogs about making holiday cookies, but I never posted my recipe! Here it is:

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups flour
1 cup salted butter (2 sticks, softened)
1 cup of sugar (or applesauce)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract


Here is how you make them:

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. (Note: It helps if the butter is already slightly soft.)

2. Next, slowly add the vanilla extract and flour until everything is blended together.

3. Once the mixture blended and a dough is formed, wrap it up in cling wrap, and refrigerate for about 15 minutes.

4. Put a little flour on your counter or hard surface, and roll the dough out.

5. Make your own balls, shapes, or what you want your cookies to look like, and preheat the oven to 350F degrees.

6. Place onto a greased cookie sheet, and bake for about 12-22 minutes, depending on how large or how small your cookies are. (Note: your cookies should be light brown.)

7. Cool and enjoy!!

8. To store, I put them in a container, and I put two slices of bread on top to prevent the cookies from getting hard.

Here are the cookies we made using this recipe:
(Note: My toddler aged son helped me with the cookies, so they are not the greatest quality, but they were made with love.)

Thanksgiving cookies using Harry's handprints:


Reindeer cookies using pretzels and skittles:


Valentine cookies:

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Cars, cars, cars!!!

This week we focused on cars because Harry loves cars!! Harry's dad works for GM, so it's in his blood! We are quite the car family. ;)

We centered our books, activities, lessons, and projects around cars this week, and we had quite a fun time doing it.

Here are the things we did:

Sunday:
I made a sensory road for Harry using black beans, penne noodles, and foam circles. You can find my post on my blog, or here is my link about how to make it:

http://stephabethanie.blogspot.com/2014/03/sensory-road.html




Monday:
Harry enjoyed a banana made into a car for breakfast and a sandwich made into a car for dinner! You can find my recipes on my blog, or click these links:

http://stephabethanie.blogspot.com/2014/03/edible-banana-car.html

http://stephabethanie.blogspot.com/2014/03/car-shaped-sandwich.html






Tuesday:
We did 3 activities on cars today!! First we played with car puzzles in the morning..


Then, we painted with car tires.. All you need is paint, a container, paper, and a car. Put some paint in the container, dip the car tires into the paint, and drive the car across your paper!



Next, we made a truck using shapes. I drew a truck using shapes, cut out shapes to match, and Harry had to match the pieces together to make a truck. This is a great matching lesson and activity. We will be practicing this a lot too.



Wednesday:
We did 3 more activities about cars today!! First, I made a race car out of Harry's footprint.


Next, Harry made his own model car using a toilet paper roll and black construction paper. He painted the toilet paper roll first, and then I helped him glue the wheels on it.



Lastly, we had a car wash for Harry's cars!! Fun!!! All you need is a blanket or towel to put down, cars, a wash cloth, and two containers. Fill one container with soap and water, and fill the other container with just water.



Thursday:
I made rainbow rice for sensory play, and we used it to play hide and seek with the cars today! You can find my recipe for rainbow rice on my blog, or the link here:

http://stephabethanie.blogspot.com/2014/03/rainbow-rice.html




Friday:
We read the big and "fancy" books on cars this morning.



We also played with cars and had races, which is Harry's favorite!! :)


Car books:
We read a variety of books this week too.

Rainbow Rice

Rainbow rice.


Sensory play is extremely important and crucial for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers because of the experience and ways it lets them LEARN. It gives children the opportunity to simultaneously use several of their senses while letting them control and manipulate the objects, toys, environment, etc... Sensory play can done through so many different types of things such as paint (both edible and non edible), rice, beans, water, etc. It's fun. It's messy. It's explorative! Most importantly, children are learning AND having fun at the same time!

Rice is great for sensory play. To spice things up a bit and make it more exciting, I decided to make rainbow rice! I made red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple rice. How cool!

To be honest, it's quite a long process, but your kids will love it!! It's totally worth it!!

Here's what you need:
8 freezer bags
1-2 boxes of food coloring
1 five pound bag of white rice
1 bottle of hand sanitizer (preferably a big bottle)


Note: I went the cheap route because let's face it, you are using the rice for play!

Here's how you make it:
1. Put 2 cups of rice into 6 freezer bags. This should use up your entire bag.



2. Add 10-12 drops of food coloring to each bag. (Note: For orange, add 8 drops of yellow and 8 drops of red. For purple, add 8 drops of red, and 8 drops of blue.)

3. Then 2 tablespoons of hand sanitizer to each bag, and seal up the bags.

4. While the bags are closed, mix the rice, food coloring, and hand sanitizer with your hands from the outside of the bag until the rice is colored. (Note: You can shake the bag, and roll it to help mix it together.)


5. Let the color absorb into the rice for 20-25 minutes.

6. Then heat the oven to 170F degrees, lay each bag out on a cookie sheet, and dry the rice in the oven for 15-18 minutes. (Note: Repeat for all 6 colors.)



7. Once cooled, separate the rice into 2 bags!


8. Dump into a tote, pan, or bucket. Enjoy!! You can put cars, toys, or anything that your child likes to play with into the rice. Give them measuring scoops, spoons, etc... and watch them learn!





Note: Always supervise your children during sensory play. Small pieces can be a choking hazard.