Moving!

Hello, all two of you who read my blog :) 
Exciting news, we  have a new address! Check it out and update your subscription at
http://cookiesandkiddos.com/

Strawberry Ponies, Strawberry Lambs

I wasn't sure what to do for this week's blog because I have had so much going on with the end of the year. I was doing research on Pinterest to find a cute idea for end of the year teacher gifts. I was sort of in a jam... jam... jam.. JAM! In a stroke of serendipity I came across the lovely blog of brown paper packages. The page of teacher gift ideas I was looking at had a link to another project she had done, making strawberry freezer jam. She had even done it as part of a project revolving around children's books. A favorite book at their house is Jamberry by Bruce Degen. Guess what! A favorite book at our house is Jamberry!

I seriously read it to the Boy King once, or ten times, everyday before he takes a nap. Suddenly I had all my answers in one tasty little jam jar. An end of the year gift AND a book/cook craft for my blog!  She even includes a link to these cutie patootie printable tags.

I assembled my jam jars, sugar, pectin, lemon juice, and strawberries and was ready to go. When my Sweet One got home from school we turned on the Wiggles to distract the Boy King the set to work. The recipe for making the jam was right inside the box. We used Sure Jell liquid pectin. My Sweet One measured out sugar while I mashed up strawberries. I didn't have a potato masher so I used a biscuit cutter to chop them up.

The process went very quickly. This is a no cooking recipe which is supposed to yield a "fresher, fruitier" tasting jam. After my Sweet One mixed everything up I portioned it out into the jelly jars. I used the printables from brown paper package's site to label the jars with a cute "jam" label and then used some hemp string to tie a bow with a "thank you berry much" tag. I used scrapbook paper as a backing to "pretty it up" :) I packaged it very cutely, if I do say so myself. Once I labeled the jars I put them in brown lunch bags and tied them with hemp string. So cute!

Since I'm going to be using these as gifts I also typed up a little description explaining that the jam can be stored in the freezer for up to a year. It is good for 3 weeks in the refrigerator. Once frozen you can thaw it in the refrigerator when you are ready to use it. I made 2 batches so I would have enough for my assistant, the Boy King's teachers, and My Sweet Ones teachers. Oh, and that left 5 jars over for us :) Hee hee. I can not wait to try it out tomorrow! I'm going to make some toast and jam to eat while reading Jamberry to the kids!

Edwina's Chocolate Chip Cookies

So... cookies and kiddos. I love the idea of sharing recipes and I was trying to come up with a way to add a little something "extra" to make my postings unique. So, here is what I came up with... baking with a kiddo twist. Each week I'm going to share a recipe as well as an excellent children's book that goes with it.

For our first week I'm going to share an excellent chocolate chip cookie recipe as well as a sweet story by one of my favorite authors, Mo Willems. Mo Willems writes the most beguiling children's books. He has really simple pictures, witty banter, and is engaging and clever enough to keep even parents entertained. Edwina, The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct is the story of a dinosaur (obviously) who befriends a town and, much to the delight of it's inhabitants, is not only super helpful, she makes them delicious chocolate chip cookies as well.

These chocolate chip cookies, inspired by Kelsey at Apple A Day, are so delicious. I modified the recipe, due in large part to the fact that my 2 year old woke up from a nap right as I was adding in ingredients; I was distracted and accidentally mixed up some quantities. However, with a little tweaking I was able to recover and the results were delicious!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup softened butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/3 cup AP Flour
2 tsp corn starch
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350.
Begin by creaming together the butter and sugars (**have I mentioned those are some of my favorite words**). Once light and fluffy add in egg and vanilla extract.
In a separate bowl mix together dry ingredients. Slowly blend into the butter/sugar mixture. Once thoroughly blended stir in chocolate chips and, if you like, pecans. (I generally make one pan of cookies with just chocolate chips, then adding the pecans into the remaining dough while the first batch bakes.)

I always line my baking sheet with parchment paper and I swear that this will make your life, and clean up, so much easier! I generally am able to fit 16 cookies onto one sheet.

Bake in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. The tops WILL NOT brown. It's okay. When the edges are golden, they are done!
Remove from oven, place in cooling racks, and for goodness sakes, let them cool enough that you don't burn your lip on a hot chocolate chip!

Once appropriately cooled, grab some cookies, your kiddos, and Edwina,The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct and enjoy some cuddling and cookie munching time!

National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day!

So, apparently yesterday was National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day so I feel remiss in not doing some sort of blog about it! I'm working on something for today because after all, it's never too late for a good chocolate chip cookie!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day on Sunday! I love Mother's Day. I love being a mom. I love my kids. It's a day celebrating what a good job I'm doing. I hope. Anyway, it's one of those days I like to hype up before it gets here since I believe my husband might just let it pass by without really thinking about it since he's less of the "Hallmark Holiday" type. However, since each and every day of my life for the past 6 years has revolved around the care and comfort of first one and then two little ones I reserve the right to have one day a year that it's all about me. Mwah ha ha. ;)

Here is my fantasy Mother's Day: I awake gently, not because there is a toddler screaming for me, or a 5 year old wanting me to turn on the tv because it is **almost** 7 am, but gently and happily because I smell the sweet aroma of Belgian Waffles and crispy bacon wafting through the air. After my delicious waffle and bacon breakfast (which I do not have to clean up any of) I will get to have a blissfully relaxing massage. After the massage is over I will get to take a nap (because really after a relaxing massage wouldn't it be wonderful if they would just leave you alone and let you go to sleep for awhile in their relaxing room) and since this is an imaginary scenario they can just roll the massage table outside into the sun and if they can just flip me over like halfway through my nap so I could wake up evenly tanned, that would be fab. This is as far as my fantasy Mother's Day imaginings have gone since I just can't imagine it getting much better... except this version doesn't include any of the wonderful people that actually make me a Mom and I don't think they have tanning naps at the spa...
So, my real hopes for Mother's Day are to wake up at the "real" 7 and not almost 7. Then I'm going to go and enjoy a wonderful worship service with my family. Then I do hope to go out to a nice brunch (hint, hint ;)  In the afternoon I hope to snuggle up with the boy king (my lovey little wild 2 year old) and take a nap curled up with him. Then when he wakes up we'll have what my daughter calls a "family hug" where we all snuggle and laugh. Next we'll probably go for a golf cart ride and look for alligators and fox squirrels. If we're lucky we will happen upon the ice cream man, who has the most AMAZING ice cream sandwiches ever! After dinner once the boy king goes off to bed I'm going to spend some "big girl" time with my sweet one. I love the mother/daughter ritual of painting her finger and toe nails. She loves picking out multiple colors and deciding on a pattern. "No Mommy, this hand will be pink, red, pink, red, pink but that hand will be red, pink, red, pink, red." It's such a sweet time as she's so concerned to sit absolutely still so she doesn't "mess them up." Then we'll go curl up on her bean bag and read some chapters from her latest fairy chapter book. Then she'll go off to bed to. Once the little darlings are off in dreamland the hubs and I will settle down to check the dvr list and just hang out. It's a simple not fancy day but it is just the thing to make me happy. I've been blessed with an incredible family and I'm thankful for them every day and try to be the best mom and wife possible every day. Love you guys!

You're Welcome

In order to make up my long absence to you I will share with you the most amazingly easy yet delicious recipe ever. I found it on Pinterest. It was so simple it didn't even link to a page, the directions were just right there under the picture. Take 4-6 chicken breasts. Put in the crock pot. Dump in one jar of your favorite salsa and one envelope of taco seasonings. Cook on high for 4-5 hours. While you are doing other things because you don't have to worry about complicated preparations for dinner you can pause every so often to sniff appreciatively and think "what is that that smells so good" and then think "oh yeah, it's my dinner." After 4 hours take chicken out, reserve 1/2 cup of broth. Shred chicken (another Pinterest tip, if you have a mixer with a paddle attachment simply put hot chicken breasts in mixing bowl and mix using paddle attachment about 15-20 seconds yields perfectly shredded chicken.) Put chicken back in crock pot and pour reserved broth over. I serve this with taco shells and the usual taco fixins'. It makes enough to serve 4 adults and 2 kids and have leftovers. I think tomorrow night I'm going to serve the leftovers with rice and beans. Easy peasy and super yummy!

The Blog That Wasn't...

So, I started this blog with good intentions, but (judging by the underwhelming number of posts) not a lot of motivation. Lack of motivation/endurance is something I'm going to try to work on this summer...
so, here we go again :)