I am a crazy marshmallowaholic. At any given point in my day, you could probably catch me with a handful of mini marshmallows or a couple jumbo ones, a terrible addiction, but hey, it could be WORSE! When I ran across these, it was like love at first thought! S’mores… into a cookie… duh!! Delish. They disappeared with in hours. Okay, maybe a day or two, but they never really stood a chance!
You can find the how to and other delicious recipes at Jane’s Sweets & Baking Journal blog! Enjoy!
Who doesn’t love the idea of shooting a marshmallow clear across the house?! My kids went crazy over these. I recommend using them outside (unless its super rainy and crazy hot, then go ahead and shoot them inside!!) Be prepared, we made these a few months ago, during the rainy season, and we are STILL finding hard as rock marshmallows!!!!
Here is where I found my inspiration!
Simple and cheap, can’t get any better than that.
First, gather your supplies! If you don’t want to scatter your house or backyard with mallows, use shmuzzies (pom poms) instead! You’ll need plastic cups, ammo, balloons and don’t forget the scissors!
VERY CAREFULLY cut the bottom of the cup off.
Next, tie a balloon off and cut off the tip of it, enough to get it around the rim of the cup.
Now, STREEETCH the balloon around the rim of the cup
Depending of the strength of your cup, it might be a little difficult. Don’t give up, keep trying!!
Taadaa! You’re very own marshmallow shooter! I think I was more excited than the kids were!
Shoot one at a time or a bunch! What ever their little hearts desire!
So simple and so fun! All you need is some imagination and a roll of blue painters tape! Seriously, that’s it.. then just start sticking it… to the floor… in a city like manner!
And then you start to look something like this…
Then you add your hot wheels, littlest pet shops and monster trucks and monster truck arena!!
It lasted forever! We vacuumed over it and played other things over and around it! Its amazing how great painters tape is!!
When it comes time to pull it up, it might break off into smaller pieces, but we didn’t have any problems with it sticking “too much” or anything like that.
So go and let your imaginations drive wild! haha!
We had a random rainy day in April, it doesn’t happen too often out here in the valley. It’s usually dry from March until November. Terrible really. The kids were super excited for rain. I LOVE LOVE Pinterest. Not sure if its an addiction yet, but it has brought on some pretty amazing ideas and crafts for the kiddos. Its more of an inspirational tool, I think. Well, I found an amazing cloud craft that made it rain colors… duh! How much more amazing could it get! The I found a print out to learn about how it rains (here). Perfect for a rainy day.
We started with clear plastic cups and some old fashioned shaving cream! Nothing fancy here. Fill them about 3/4, maybe less, full and then top with shaving cream.
Then start drip dropping the food coloring over the shaving cream! Tada! Rain!
Add a little…
He calls this one his twilight sunset! Gorgeous!
or a lot like this silly girl!
Go to town and make some rain!
It has been a while since I have updated. Life is crazy right now and having two blogs doesn’t make it any easier! I really wanted this crafting blog to work out, soooo I’m going to try harder to make it work, I can do this… really!!!
I’ve been trying to keep the kids busy this summer with crafts and fun things to do. The worst words to hear are the dreaded “I’m Bored!!” words! I just can’t stand them! There are waaay too many things in this house to even thing about those words! But, they happen and I do my best to head them off before it gets out of control
Here are a few things we’ve been up to.
We made a bird feeder out of a milk jug, the big one gallon kind. Its AMAZING! So simple and the birds go loco over it! The kind of crazy that brings on crazy bird madness! Birds were literally fighting over the thing! Love. Just pure love. The kids love to eat breakfast and stare out the back door and watch dozens of little chickadees and finches go to town. Its fairly easy on the wallet too, the cost of a gallon of milk and a big bag of seed (which has lasted us nearly three months so far!), not too bad I think.
We also did the grow some grass in a cup thing. That was really great too and it helped the kids practice their patience (which has been at an all time low lately!) We decorated clear cups with permanent markers and added our soil and seed and waited… and waited and waited some more. About a week later it all sprang up out of the blue!
Hard at work decorating their grass cups! Concentration is key…
Covered and ready to go!!!
They grew like crazy and it took just long enough to keep them interested and surprised!
That’s just a smidge of what we have been doing, more to come, I promise!
Pinterest has been a great source of kid fun for us. Lots of AMAZING arts and crafts and other fun things to do. Can’t wait for summer to really kick in! I’ve got lots of fun and messy things to do with the kids and summertime will make it even better!
Found a blog that made RAINBOW GLUE!!! Amazing stuff! The kids loved it!
Directions on how to make it and more inspiration at the Pink and Green Mama blog.
The kids working hard with their new rainbow glue!
She’s my little arts and crafts monster, she loves everything messy!
Lately, I’ve been trying to create and add my own little twist to recipes. I’ve found myself with the food version of writers block. I don’t want to cook let alone think anything up or run to the freezer to figure it out. I found a couple of good soup recipes that I liked, one for tortellini soup and another for Italian veggie soup. Why not have the best of both worlds? I took what I liked from each one and taadaa! A new recipe was born and even better, the crockpot can do most of the work for me!
So, here is to the end of my food block (or so I hope!)
Enjoy!
Tortellini and Vegetable Soup
1 can diced tomatoes, with juice
2 cans vegetable broth
1 can chicken broth
2 tablespoons Olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 small yellow zucchini squash
2 small green zucchini squash
1-2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
About 9-12 oz. tortellini, fresh or frozen
Salt and pepper to taste
Add one can of veggie broth and one can of chicken broth to crockpot and turn on high. Add Italian seasoning.
Chop zucchini into bite size pieces and chop the onion into desired size, mine were diced, not quite minced.
Heat a skillet on medium heat. Add olive oil. Add onions and cook until translucent and tender. Add garlic and cook another minute. Add can of diced tomatoes. Bring to a simmer and add half a can of veggie broth. Bring to a simmer again.
Add tomato mixture to crockpot. Add zucchini. Stir to combine all ingredients together. Cook on HIGH for about 3-4 hours. Check your veggies around the 3 hour mark to make sure they don’t over cook, nothing worse than soggy zucchini.
Add tortellini in the last 20-30 or so minutes of cooking. I checked my tortellini every 10 minutes or so to make sure I didn’t over cook them either. Turn cooker off or to warm to keep it from over cooking.
Serve with your favorite garlic bread or grilled cheese!
The best part of this recipe, you can totally customize it to your liking! Use carrots and celery or artichokes and zucchini, really what every you like, add some chicken or use a different pasta, one that isn’t filled with cheesy goodness! Possibilities are endless!
