Cereal ring

As hard as it is to admit, Brian usually doesn't eat my creations. :o( That doesn't stop me from creating because on some days he LOVES what I make him.....This just happens to be one of those creations. :o) Brian has been somewhat sensitive to food textures since he was a baby, and still is to a degree. When he was a baby, any type of baby food with chunks in it would come right back out of his mouth. He also had a huge aversion to chicken which is getting much better as he gets older. Rice was another one of those texture foods and is still hit or miss.

Brian started preschool this past summer and we began to realize that his favorite food is anything crunchy. We refer to them as "crunchies" now. They hide Brian's crunchies from him during lunch until he tries everything else, or else he wouldn't eat anything besides them. I was looking around my kitchen trying to come up with a lunchbox treat for Brian and noticed all the extra cereal I had in the cupboard. I decided to make him a cereal necklace but by the time it was complete it looked more like a cereal bracelet. Whatever you want to call this treat, it has been Brian's absolute favorite so far. He saw it before they could hide it and they said he was trying to rip it apart to get to all the tasty cereal. :o) FINALLY a treat he loves!

I used pull-apart strawberry twizzlers. I pulled one long string section and used that to hold all of the cereal, pretzels and vanilla wafers. I used a toothpick to put holes in the centers of the vanilla wafers, and chex cereal. It was a bit difficult getting the cheerios on the rope but I found the ones with the largest centers and they seemed to work well. The vanilla wafers I used were the mini ones that are 3 or 4 different colors. A definite hit with my sweet little man! :o)

Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Pumpkins

This idea is from the Halloween Pillsbury magazine. I only made about a third of the recipe since I only needed a few pumpkins for Brian's lunch. I'll type the directions below in case any one else wants to try them out....They are really tasty!

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Start to Finish: 2 Hours 30 Minutes
Servings: 36 candies

1 Bag (10 oz) peanut butter chips (1 2/3 cups)
1 Container (1lb) vanilla ready-to-spread frosting
1/4 teaspoon orange paste icing color (not liquid food color)
12 small pretzel twists or thin pretzel sticks, broken into 1/2-inch pieces

1. Line cookie sheet with waxed paper. In 2-quart saucepan, melt peanut butter chips over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Remove from heat. Stir in frosting and icing color until well blended. Refrigerate until cool enough to handle, about 1 hour.

2. Shape mixture into 1 1/4-inch balls; flatten slightly. Use edge of rubber spatula to make grooves in each ball to look like lines on pumpkin. Press 1 pretzel piece into top of each for stem; place on cookie sheet. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving. Store in covered container in refrigerator.

* I used my Wilton orange icing color. When rolling into balls some of them got a bit tacky so I just put them down, washed and dried my hands, and then finished rolling them so they weren't as tacky. I also colored a bit of coconut with green icing color for my picture. :o)

Website for fruit sushi

A friend sent me the sushi recipe and in case you can't read the recipe below.....Here is a website with the same recipe. http://www.chex.com/Recipes/RecipeView.aspx?RecipeId=45872&CategoryId=447

Fruit Sushi

Here is a fun treat from General Mills... :o)

Sandwich fun

Sometimes you have to go the easy route in order to get some much needed sleep! :o)



That is supposed to be some mice and a piece of swiss cheese. :o)

I love Brian with all of my heart! I'm one lucky mama!

Cookies! :o)

Cupcakes! :o)

Here are some cupcakes that I've recently made. The sunflower cupcake idea is from 'Hello, Cupcake!'....an awesome book! The Yo Gabba Gabba cupcakes were my very first order. :o) I made the pumpkin pull apart cupcakes after seeing it on www.brightideas.com for my son's preschool class. Another week my son's preschool class was learning about apples and I decided to make apple cupcakes for them. The apple cupcakes are fondant as well as the Yo Gabba Gabba ones. The others are buttercream with additional decorations.