Caramel Apple Sweet Potato Pancakes

I was experimenting in my kitchen and was thinking this would make a good breakfast the morning after Thanksgiving. I usually have leftover canned pumpkin or mashed potatoes (just mash the sweet potatoes so they are on the creamy side - not so much thick and chunky for this recipe). The picture of the apple below shows a Gala apple but I HIGHLY recommend using a Granny Smith apple.


Dry ingreds:
1 1/2 c flour
3 TBLSP sugar
1 teasp baking powder
1/2 teasp each baking soda and salt
Wet ingreds:
1 c buttermilk
1/4c-1/2 c mashed sweet potato (you can also use canned pumpkin)*
1/2 stick butter, melted
2 eggs
1/2 teasp vanilla
Combine dry and wet ingredients with wisk - just until combined.

*Start with a 1/4c see how your batter looks if its not too thick then add a little more but I wouldn't add more than 1/2c.

You can always use a box pancake mix and just add the pumpkin or mashed sweet potatoes. 


Get your pan nice and hot and warm up some butter on it. Then place your apple circle on top of the bubbly butter for a minute or two.

Pour your batter over the apple slice.

I served this with my favorite caramel ice cream topping and sprinkled with chopped, toasted pecans. 

Beating the sick-at-home-blues

Mason and Jaxon are at the point of annoying one another because they have been home all week with colds.
I have this long pillow I used when I was pregnant. So I thought we'll make it sled so I can hear laughter instead of bickering.
I asked the boys, "what do we wear to play in the snow on a sled?"
"Vests!"
"Hats!"
So they got dressed up and hopped on our "sled" and I pulled them down our hallway. I couldn't believe how much they laughed, I wasn't going all that fast. But then they wanted to take turns pulling the sled which was great because it wore them out.
DING! Point for mom.

Giving thanks activity

I thought this scarecrow bowl would be a perfect table topper for November. It's not very sturdy so I didn't want to throw fruit in it.

Hmmmm.

But then I thought, it will be our "I Am Thankful" bucket. 

Every night before bed we will talk about what we are thankful for every night leading up to Thanksgiving Day. On each entry I wrote down name, date and what they were thankful for. On Thanksgiving day we will read them. I will let you know how it goes!

Space Angry Bird Cake

My oldest turned 6 yesterday and I was a little sad about it. I mean happy he is a growing, healthy boy but a little blue that he is getting so big so quickly.
So I was thrilled when he said, "mom can you make me my Angry Bird birthday cake?"
Of course, love!

Thankfully he had an Angry Bird coloring book and with some wax paper I was able to trace the a picture right from the book.

First I did the black and stuck in the freezer:

Then I filled in the red frosting and stuck it back into the freezer. Took it out and filled in the yellow and so forth.

I had the whole frosted picture in the freezer for about 20 min and I thought it should have stayed in their longer but the kiddos were chomping at the bit for cake. I tried to peel off the wax paper and broke it in a few places. But thankfully no one could tell. 

Brant said he wanted all these layers in his cake: red, white, chocolate, white, chocolate and red. I talked him into just doing red and white layers. He also picked out this blue frosting at the store so I used it as trim. I'm not very good at decorating cakes but Brant was happy about his cake and that's all I cared about. 

Halloween tid bits

Thought I would share some of my favorite Halloween 2012 tid bits.

LOVE this spider web bowl - especially when its filled with oranges.

The boys go crazy over painting so they were thrilled to make these sun catchers (which I bought on sale for a buck each).

My mom bought this garden frog in Michigan at a fair and I love it. I thought Miss Froggy would enjoy dressing up and look - she totally pulled off this hat!

I saw this cake on Pinterest and gave it a go. It was easy to make and very festive.

It was a hit with both kiddos and adults. Here is the recipe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DYQl2O8hTk

And of course my FAV tid bit is all of my lil tid bits having the time of their lives with their favorite people!!!

Halloween class party

Somehow I ended up being head room mom for Brant's Kindergarten class this year.
Not a big deal just didn't know what I was doing.
But I talked to a few seasoned moms and organized the Halloween party. I sent out a note about a month prior explaining a few things about the party then at the bottom had a "check the box" section. I can volunteer, donate juice boxes, donate treats or donate paper goods. We had a great turnout...drinks, treats - two moms even helped out at the party.
The kids returned from lunch and we sat them down for a few treats. While they we were eating we set up stations. We had a craft station (we made ghost suckers), jack-o-lantern bozo buckets, pass the pumpkin (hot potato) and pin the haunted house onto the ghost (I have a few laminated ghosts that I hang at home. I stuck one ghost onto a poster board and had felt, haunted house stickers for the kids to stick on). Time flew by and everyone had a great time. Phew!

Halloween Dance Party

To kick off the weekend last Friday I told my cranky little boys that we were having a Halloween dance party. They kind of looked at me for a sec then dashed downstairs to grab two drums, a mic, keyboard and guitar. It changed their moods instantly.
When they came back upstairs I had all of the lights off except for our orange Halloween ones and of course turned on all of our jack-o-lanterns. I thought they would be a little scared but they were ready to rock.

Here was the music lineup that they picked out: Blur "Song 2" (three times in a row because they all took turns singing it), MGMT "Kids", Gotye "Somebody I used to know" and Peter Bjorn and John "Young Folks."
Since then we have had two more dance parties. They are fun and I love when my kids are taken by a song - watching their dance moves, their expressions...it's great.