Easter Peep Ideas

Peep Bunnies in a french toast sleeping bag.
The pillow is a piece of white bread.
I had a brunch for Mason's 4th birthday and I made these for Adam's nieces and nephews. The youngest, who is 7, saw these and looked very disturbed. "Did you cut off its legs?" I was afraid to answer. "Uh, no I cut off the ears." Needless to say she did not eat one.

Hatching Egg Peep

Cupcake topped in green coconut. White chocolate for the "egg shell" and then a peep chick.

Nutella Banana Boats

Nutella is a weakness. I try not to keep it in the house but when I saw this No-Bake Nutella Cheesecake recipe on Pinterest, I had to try it.

The recipe has the same ingredients I use to make Adam's fav pudding dessert so I had everything on hand.
Just need 1 8oz tub of cool whip, 1 brick softened cream cheese, and Nutella (at least 1/3c).

I beat the brick of softened cream cheese and added my Nutella until combined. Then I folded in the thawed Cool Whip.

I LOVE Nutella and bananas. So I made these Nutella Banana Boats.

And the other half of the Nutella filling went to this. Just pick a crust - I tried Oreos and decided to make a parfait. Add melted butter to your crushed Oreos (or whatever cookie you choose) and press into a pie pan for a Nutella Cheesecake.

Shrimp-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

I see seafood stuffed mushrooms all the time at the grocery store so I thought I would just make my own. I think I made these on Labor Day to test the recipe. Now when I make these, its the first dish to disappear. You can use any cheese you want, but we are big cream cheese people and I was trying to keep the recipe cost-effective.

Recipe:

• 4 portobello mushroom caps
• 1 lb of shrimp, cooked, peeled, deveined 
• 1 brick of softened cream cheese 
• 2 TEASP grated parmesan cheese
• 1-2 TEASP fresh dill chopped
• 1-2 TEASP fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley
• 2 clove garlic minced
• Black pepper to taste
• 1/4 c Panko bread crumbs

Pre-heat oven to 400 (I have also done these on the grill).

In a medium-sized bowl I combine both cheeses, herbs, black pepper and garlic. I add my shrimp and combine well. Scoop as much of the filling as you can into each mushroom cap. Top with bread  crumbs and bake just until golden and bubbly. 

My version of Potato Pancakes

After our second doctor's appointment this week I thought I would cheer up those tired faces with some fun pancakes.

I used my scooper for the batter because I wanted a little "body" of pancakes. I thought I was making a snowman. But after it was cooked, I saw the hash browns in the pan and thought how great it would be if that was the hair!

"Potato Pancakes" were born.

I broke out the candy eyes, used licorice for the mouth and skittles for buttons. If I had bacon I would have used that for arms but we were out.
The boys perked right up and inhaled everything on the plate. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

BEFORE

AFTER

Chocolate-Seed Flowers

My lil Mason will do anything for a chocolate chip.

I was in the middle of eating raw pumpkin seeds when he asked me for a treat. I said, "I'll give you some  chocolate chips if you eat it with these seeds."
To my surprise he agreed. To entice him a bit more I made little flowers on the table: 4 seeds to one chocolate chip. This way I could keep track at the number of seeds and chocolate chips he was consuming.

This is one of those things where, yes, the chocolate chip isn't the best thing for him but I'm willing to be flexible on it because the nutrients in those seeds are still going to do good once inside his body. If I can get this combo going and down the road add a dried fruit to make a trail mix, I would be thrilled.

Shamrock Cupcake

I was experimenting with recipes for my blog and made these cupcakes for the boys.

Just a little green dye for the batter, cream cheese frosting, a clover (made from melted white chocolate) and some green sugar sprinkles and everyone was happy (for a whole 5 minutes before someone was fighting over a superhero toy).

This is the "BEFORE" picture:

AFTER:

And this is where it sat for the next few hours. I thought for sure someone was going to finish it but nope. Just two big bites and off Jaxon went.

How we are beating cabin fever PART 4

We turned Jaxon's closet into an "Elevator."

My buttons are lame because I'm totally out of craft supplies (would be cool to make them out of colorful construction paper) but the boys still had fun with it.
They were making beeping noises when pressing the buttons. One time Brant came out of the elevator and pretended he was giving a tour of "his firehouse" to his brothers. He gave his guests a snack and everything.

At bedtime, I told Jaxon to pick out some books to read and he came back with the elevator buttons. He wanted to count them, talk about all of the circles, etc. It was cute.