Spinach Muffins

Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup pureed organic spinach
- 1 tsp all natural vanilla extract
 - 2 brown eggs
- 1/4 cup coconut or sunflower oil
- 1/2 cup of organic cinnamon applesauce
- 2 cups of white unbleached flour
- 3/4 cup raw sugar
- 2 tsps baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt

All you need to do is steam the spinach and puree it, then add the next 4 ingredients into the blender as well and keep pureeing until they're all mixed together. Meanwhile, put the remaining ingredients into a bowl and mix them together. Add the ingredients from the blender into the ingredients in the bowl and mix them together until they are just combined. Fill muffin tins with liners up 2/3 of the way full and bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

It's so fun and educational to have your kids help out in the kitchen as well. We did this as a preschool baking lesson.

Marshmallow Transfer Tot Tray

As part of our Arctic theme this week we did this fun tot tray!

First off, how cute are those polar bear pajamas? Charlie got them as a gift from her great grandma and they are just perfect for this themed week. 

So, we got out the blue tot tray, some cool colored bowls, and some clear plastic tongs. These tongs were sold in a pack with quite a few of them. I'm not sure if they were from Dollar Tree or if I had found them somewhere else. 

I filled up one bowl with marshmallows and then instructed my daughter to transfer them to the other bowl with her tongs. This is a practical life skill that's good for fine motor. My daughter's fine motor skills are honestly so great and have been for a while now from doing these activities. I keep her doing them just because she finds them fun and I think they are educational and like I said it's a practical life task. As a reward she got to eat a few of the marshmallows!

Fine Motor Tot Tray

I'm just gonna share a super simple tot tray to do with colored rice. If you have some colored rice, just put it in a bowl and give your little one a spoon and another container to put it in. When working on fine motor skills with preschoolers the littler the spoon/opening of the container the better as they are advancing in their abilities. I really love the glass jar with tiny wooden spoon I got from Hobby Lobby. It has a little hook for the spoon and a wooden lid as well. Really good quality and wasn't very expensive.

Play Dough & Loose Parts Ocean

Do you ever wonder how you can spark your kids creativity? Do you ever look for opportunities to introduce loose parts? Well here's a great idea for your toddler or preschooler to do just those things! 

This, like most other great ideas, was inspired by/brought on by my daughter herself. She grabbed her blue cut up straws and I asked if she wanted to use them with play dough and she said yes. So, we set that up. Then, since our play dough was blue I decided we could take it a step further by turning on the sounds of the ocean on our sound machine and adding a few more loose parts. You too can inspire your child to create an ocean with their play dough and loose parts without having a sound machine. I'm sure you could find some good sounds of the ocean on Youtube. Incorporating the sounds was so great!

The other things I added were two colors of green cut up straws, in addition to the blue. I put them in a little plastic bowl that had flip flops on it because I thought that was fitting for the ocean scene. I also gave her clear glass accent gems. You can find these at Dollar Tree or Michael's. She was thrilled by those and decided she wanted a gem filled ocean. This made for a really great sensory/tactile experience when she was done we rubbed our hands over the play dough with all the gems in it.

I also gave her the little sharks and whales from her Animal Planet tube. She decided against using them though. She used a few of the cut up straws. We talked about how the blue ones could be waves, and then she all on her own decided to add some green ones for seaweed. What a little genius! 

The rolling pin was out from the initial smoothing out of the dough.

Sugar Cookie Math Bath

So, my daughter got some Frozen Sugar Cookie bubble bath for her birthday and it inspired me to create a math bath with a sugar cookie theme. 

All I did for prep was cut out two gingerbread cookie people from brown craft foam, a few sugar cookies from light brown craft foam, and some little squares for chocolate chips for the sugar cookies from dark brown craft foam. 

In the bath I added the sugar cookie bubble bath for scent and then stuck the cookies to the wall and left the chocolate chips floating in the water. My daughter had to count how many she put on each cookie, and then add each cookie's chips up together.

Hositng the Perfect Christmas Cookie Decorating Party

So, I know Christmas is over but this could still be really helpful for next year or for anyone who wants to have a cookie decorating party anytime of the year, these ideas could be tweaked a bit to fit their individual needs.

We had a Christmas cookie decorating party that included craft time, bingo, and a visit from Santa himself! See how below.

The first step to having any great party is keeping track of what you'll be serving, doing, and what still needs to be done. So I had my list going and then the other important part is letting your child help with the prepping for the party so they really feel like the little hosts/hostesses that they are since the party is for their friends/classmates/cousins/etc. 

 

So, some things my daughter helped me with in preparation for the party were putting the cupcake wrappers in the pan, and whisking the homemade eggnog. Which, I'll share here the awesome recipe I found for dairy free homemade eggnog.

So we had our party at 11am, which would also be a great time to do a "north pole brunch" theme, which I thought about doing. We just did some sweet treats. We had Santa cupcakes (which I'll share how I made), some peppermint chocolate chip cookies, the eggnog, and this vegan hot chocolate. For the vegan hot chocolate I also gave some candy canes, marshmallows, and organ whipped cream. 

Now, I saw some Santa cupcakes on Pinterest that looked pretty similar to this, but I'm just going to share how I made these ones. I had my daughter put the Christmas cupcake liners in the baking pan, and then poured some yellow cake mix into each one and baked them according to the directions on the box. Once they cooled I iced them with some vanilla icing. Then it was time to turn them into Santa's. What you'll need:

- organic coconut flakes

- gluten free dairy free mini chocolate chips

- marshmallows

- red sprinkles

- red m&m's

- a sharp knife

- two paper plates

So I first cut up a bunch of marshmallows in half so they'd be able to be stuck on and look right for the Santa hat's. You can follow how it looks in the picture. The sprinkles made the hat, the chocolate chips for the eyes, and the m&m for the nose, coconut flakes for the beard. I say you'll need two paper plates, one for slicing the marshmallows in half and one for putting on the sprinkles and the coconut flakes. 

We also had water bottles that I put these printables on to make them say "melted snowman" with a picture of Olaf. 

Now, I don't know what a Christmas party would be without a Santa coming! Luckily we have a family friend who dresses up as Santa every year and takes pictures with children and does parties and what not. So, we had him come to the party. 

 He stood outside and jingled his sleigh bells while the kids were doing their craft. Their craft by the way was a big pack I got from Hobby Lobby of a craft foam gingerbread house and lots of sparkly stickers and things to add to it. Toddlers and preschoolers love stickers and since that was the age group I decided that would be good. There was also a lot in the pack, so Charlie was able to make some as Christmas gifts for other family members too. To make them purposeful I also gave them magnet stickers to put on the backs of them so they'd be able to use them as Christmas magnets on their fridge. 

Anyway, Santa came in and surprised the kids. They were so excited! He had a sack with him in which he had gifts for each child (a small treat, a big chocolate candy cane). He also had a list that he looked at while he asked each child their name and told them they were on the good list. Then he took pictures with each child and we got one of all the cousins together with Santa.

After Santa left, we decorated the cookies. I gave each child two sugar cookies along with their own tube of gel icing, and then had some red and some green sprinkles sitting out on the table for them to share. The cookies and icings were grouped together in small cups so they were easily passed out to each child. They decorated and ate them.

After that, we played this Christmas bingo that I printed out. We used red and green m&m's to play it with and the prize for the winner was a Santa tic-tac-toe set from Dollar Tree.

As you may have noticed there is a Little People Nativity set out on the table above as decor and something the kids could play with if they wanted. The counter with the cookies and cupcakes was also decorated a bit.

I had out the Little People Christmas village set, a couple Christmas trees made of tinsel that I got at Dollar Tree last year, the cookies, the cupcakes, and the water bottles. I also had my ipod doc going with a Christmas play list I made.

It really was a great party!

Favorite Christmas Activities for Kids

Here's a post where I'm going to share some of my favorite holiday/Christmas activities to do with my daughter. Just thought I'd compile one list. I do apologize that I haven't been posting much lately, we've been busy with all the holiday seasons.

1. This is probably the absolute easiest to set up, and requires very little. You probably already have all or most of what is needed. Christmas Cookie Cutter Prints. 

To set this up all you need to do is put some washable tempera paint (preferably red or green) on a paper plate and then put out a piece of paper and a Christmas cookie cutter. We decided to use a Christmas tree shaped one. It really made a cute piece of Christmas decor.

2. Christmas Play Dough Mats. 

 This is a really good activity for when you're busy making the Christmas meal or addressing your Christmas cards or whatever. It's also good to do with your kids too. I found a few different printables for play dough mats with Christmas themes, and then laminated them with contact paper. Then gave them to my daughter with some homemade play dough.

3. Christmas Movies with Matching Stuffed Animals.

My daughter loves to watch Christmas movies with matching stuffed animals! The best way to make this happen is to go shopping on the sales after Christmas and get some Christmas stuffed animals for a low price. We've done Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas with Christmas Mickey and Minnie's, Rudolph with Rudolph and Abominable Snowman stuffed animals, and Frosty with a Frosty stuffed animal!

4. Advent. 

This is the first year my daughter has been really into doing the advent thing, and I'm so glad that her aunt gifted this to her. It's really nice quality, wooden, and has magnetic pieces that are so cute. You can buy one here.

5. Make a Christmas Necklace.

All you need to make a Christmas necklace is dry pasta (penne works well), two ziploc bags, red food coloring, green food coloring, some string that looks Christmas (I had red and white), rubbing alcohol, and tin foil. So all you need to do is put some pieces of pasta in one bag and some in another bag, and then you add just a little bit of rubbing alcohol into each bag (enough to coat the noodles, it helps the color stick). Then you put a few drops of each color into their bags and shake the bags up to coat all the noodles in color. Pour them onto some tin foil so they can dry and get rid of the alcohol smell. Have your little one string them onto the string in alternating order (this is a good fine motor activity). And then tie it around their neck!

6. Decorating Christmas Trees with Grandparents.

If you're able to take your child to their grandparents houses so they can help them decorate their Christmas trees I'm sure they would absolutely love it. Great bonding moments between grandchildren and grandparents.

7. Cinnamon Bear Craft

Now, this was something that Charlie got to do at a craft time at our library. I thought it was cool so I'm going to share a little bit about it. It reminded me of a gingerbread man. You cut out the shape of a teddy bear on tan cardstock and then have them draw on a face and glue on different buttons and Christmas ribbons. What made them cinnamon bears was how they cut out pieces of sandpaper for their bears hands and rubbed a cinnamon stick on the sandpaper.

8. Fine Motor Sticker Ornaments

This was another craft they did at the library. They just had them cut out an ornament shape onto construction paper and stick on craft foam stickers of various shapes. My daughter chose really little stars and when she was peeling the backs off she was definitely honing those fine motor skills.

10. Reindeer Play Dough.

Whip up a batch of chocolate play dough and give it to your little one with some googly eyes, brown pipe cleaners and red pom poms.