Meatloaf and Mashed Potato Cupcakes

Meatloaf and mashed potatoes are comfort food to me. I love them! My kids love them! And I love that my kids love them! But I wanted to kid it up a little. (We eat meatloaf a lot.)

So I made my regular meatloaf. It's nothing uber fancy. I buy the spice packet at the grocery store and ground turkey and follow the back directions. One trick is to use fresh bread to make bread crumbs, not the packaged/dried kind. If you just shred up soft bread it makes the meatloaf lighter and not super dense. I also add KC Masterpiece bar-b-que sauce. It's my favorite and adds a lot of flavor to it.


I put the meatloaf in muffin pans to make little meatloaf muffins. (Make sure you put a cookie sheet under them in case the grease spills.)



While the little meatloafs were cooling I made the mashed potatoes. I just make the boxed mashed potatoes. Don't get me wrong, I love homemade mashed potatoes but they take awhile to make. (How bad am I?!) But I give the boxed ones some kick by adding ranch dressing to them to make them creamier. They taste delish!

I put the mashed potatoes in my Easy Accent Decorator from Pampered Chef (I love that tool!) and there you have it... meatloaf and mashed potato cupcakes! My kids thought they were great!


They also discovered my Easy Accent Decorator and helped themselves to some mashed potatoes...

Delicious Balls of Goodness

A co-worker of mine first introduced me to cake balls. I had never heard of them before. Apparently I was totally out of it because they have been around for awhile and have been quite the thing. But in my little neck of the world, they were new.... and delicious!!! I immediately had to go home and try to make them.

What you will need:
* any cake mix and the ingredients to make the cake
* one tub of frosting
* chocolate chips or candy chocolate from a candy store

Sounds simple so far, right?

Make the cake according to directions and let it cool. This part is important. If it's warm it will melt the frosting and it'll be a gooey mess.

After it has completely cooled, crumble it up into a large bowl.


Add the tub of frosting. Get creative here. You can use spice cake with cream cheese frosting, chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, you name it. We chose to make vanilla cake with vanilla frosting because that's what my kids love.


Stir it up until it looks like a bowl of goo. Seriously, it kind of looks like throw up but it smells super yummy.


Scoop out about a tablespoon or so and form into a ball. We used our fantastic Pampered Chef large scoop because it was the perfect size (and we got tired of rolling them out.) Place them on a cookie sheet and set aside.



In a double boiler (or you can do this in the microwave) melt the chocolate chips. When the chocolate is smooth and creamy, dip each cake ball into it and remove. Place back onto the cookie sheet and let cool. Again, be creative here. We used chocolate chips for some of them but then we used white chocolate for some and even pink mint chips for some. My daughter loved those ones, of course.


Let cool and enjoy!

Me? A Guest Blogger???

WOW! This has been quite a week for me blog wise. An award and now a request to be a guest blogger. Who knew??? (Personal wise I'm exhausted and have a daughter with an ear infection but we won't go there right now.)

Stephanie over at Ten Talents asked if I would do a posting on the Homemade Magic 8 Balls that my kids and I made. How cool is that?!?! (Her asking, not the magic 8 balls. Although those were totally cool too!) So go check out her great blog. She has lots of fantastic things and TONS of giveaways. Serious! You'll freak when you see all the free stuff you can win!

So come visit me over there and say hi to Stephanie!

Mad Scientist Party - Part 2

If you haven't checked out part one of my son's Mad Scientist Party click here. It was all about the decor and preparation for this most excellent party.

This is part two, the experiments. This was so much fun! I bought most of the experiments on this sight here. It is the coolest site ever if you are into science and doing fun experiments!

We started and ended the party with the Mentos Geyser. The kids thought it was about the coolest thing ever. Make sure you do it outside because it's messy!


Then we went inside and the kids all made Atomic Slime. (Atomic simply means that it's glow in the dark.) I figured since the jello in the petri dishes was glow in the dark we better do something else that glows. There are tons of recipes out there to make your own slime. But I liked that this kit came with jars and lids and is called shaker slime. After the 2 ingredients are added the kids shake. The contents turn to slime. There isn't a bunch of liquid left over to dump out.

The glowing jars behind the black lights are baby food jars. I told the kids they were filled with toxic waste and then we talked about what that was. They were really filled with water and highlighter ink. I broke open a highlighter pen and squeezed out the ink. Highlighter ink glows. That simple!


Another HUGE hit was the instant snow. I had everything pre-measured so the kids were all given a cup of water to add to their tupperware. We counted and poured.


Voila! Instant snow!


We made spaghetti noodles dance. This one was kind of cool and very easy to do. The noodles would float and then sink over and over again. I told them it was magic. Okay, then I explained how it worked.


And all the kids learned about a tornado. This one was cooler than I thought it would be. The kids liked making a tornado and watching what they do. (I even talked to them about how they are formed!) We all learned lots of things today!


And our last experiment was making magic worms. This one was super cool. (Okay, they were all super cool!) I got specimen jars from the Drs. office and the kids put their worms in the little jars. (They were free! and they added to the awesomeness!)



So that was my son's 7th birthday party. Lots of smiles and laughter and hopefully lots of great memories!

Now THAT'S a Chip Bowl

A co-worker of mine retired this year. He was the PE teacher at the Middle School where I work. We've worked together for 14 years. We coached together for 8 years. I couldn't just let him leave without a proper farewell gift. So I made him a chip bowl. I know, so not appropriate. But I thought it was funny. Heck, I work in a middle school. I giggle when the gal that supervises the gym at lunch time says "it's time to put away your balls."

It was easy and yes, even my kids helped me. We just bought some unders and put them over a bowl. Then we soaked them with liquid starch and let them dry. We soaked them a couple of times to make sure they were good and stiff.

What do you think? Pretty appropriate for a middle school PE teacher, right???

Beautiful Blogger Award

Whoo hoo! Jasey over at Crazy Daisy has given me the Beautiful Blogger Award. I am touched (and completely surprised.) I can't say thanks enough to everyone for stopping by my little spot on the web. I just love doing things with my kids and love passing along my adventures and creations. And I LOVE hearing all of your ideas as well. There's no point reinventing the wheel, right?!?!

Make sure you go visit Crazy Daisy and see all of her great creations!

The rules for this award are:

1. Thank the person who gave you this award.

2. Share 10 things about yourself.

3. Pass the award along to 10 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic!

4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

Ten things about me...
1. Having my children has been the best thing I have ever done/accomplished! I thank God everyday for them and the joy they bring me.
2. My friends all tease me that I go to bed way too early. Hey, I'm a single Mom, I'm tired.
3. I would eat salad and french fries for dinner every night if I could.
4. I'm addicted to Vampire books. (I know!)
5. It absolutely cracks me up when my 5 year old daughter tells me that she just sprained her buttocks.
6. When I go to Chuck E. Cheese I love the games more than my kids. It's like Vegas!
7. People who sew amaze me!
8. Snuggle time with my kids is my favorite time of the day!
9. The best compliment someone could give me is that I'm a good Mom.
10. I was making Snoopy waffles and weird cakes even before I had kids.

10 amazing Blogs that deserve this fantastic award...
1. Christy
2. Homemade Mamas
3. Ma, What's For Dinner?
4. Random Thoughts of a SUPERMOM
5. The Pumpkin Patch
6. Stop and Smell the Chocolates
7. Secrets of a Super Mommy
8. No Apologies
9. Monster Mama
10. C.R.A.F.T.

Check out these fantastic blogs and say hi!

Thanks again!!!

Mad Scientist Party - Part One

My son just turned 7 this week. I can't even believe it. Where has the time gone?!?!?

Every year we start planning for the birthday parties months in advance. I realize that it would be much easier to just forget about it until a couple of weeks ahead of time and then plan like crazy. But I don't work that way. It's a disease. We talk about it and try to come up with cool ideas and then I hunt for great deals. It's nice because with so much time I can do that. I can surf the internet and find ideas and look for bargains. Everyone likes a bargain, right?

So my son wanted a Mad Scientist Party. Hmmm... How am I going to do that? So I surfed and found some great ideas over at Homemade Mamas. It inspired me. So we planned and planned and planned.

I'm doing this post in two parts because there is way too much to put in just one. We had too much fun and the party was a HUGE success. The look on my son's face was well worth the time and energy!


So this post is on the decor. Here's some of the things we did...

I bought test tubes and petri dishes here. There are tons of sites out there and they are pretty cheap. (Oh yeah, and they are plastic!) We filled the test tubes with skittles and some with skull candy.


I made glow in the dark jello and put it in the petri dishes. Yep, you heard me right... glow in the dark! It's so cool. Just make jello the normal way but instead of water use tonic water. The kids loved it! Before it set up we added a gummy worm. What do you think?


The goodies bags were a ton of fun to do. Inside were Nerds, gummy frogs, fizzy soda candy, and a magnifying glass. When the party was over each child got to take a test tube and a petri dish also. And then there were all of our experiments that we did. They got to take all of them home as well. (Atomic slime, fake snow and magic worms. You'll see more about these in part 2.) I made the stickers myself (super easy) and the magnifying glasses were 3 for $1 at the Dollar Store. Pretty good deal!


I made a jello centerpiece to look like a science experiment. It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped but the kids thought it was super gross (which was what I was going for.) I just made lime jello in a serving bowl and added lots of gummy worms and bugs. They gobbled it up!


But I thought the cupcakes were the best. My son and I made eyeball cupcakes for him to take to school.


We kind of liked how they turned out but we decided to make brain cupcakes instead for his party.


I'm not sure if you can see what the cup is or not. The wrestling coach at my work gave me a bunch of pee cups. (Yep, pee cups. New, of course.) The kids got a kick out of drinking out of them.


What a blast! I think this one will be remembered. It was crazy fun!


Make sure to come back and check out part 2 with all of the cool experiments that we did.

Candy Sushi

My daughter's pre-school class has been learning Japanese all year. It's so cool to hear her speak and she is so proud when she comes home and tells me the new words she has learned. At the school's Spring Fling Bar-B-Que her class sang "Jesus Loves Me" in Japanese! In Japanese!!! She's 5 years old! It was very impressive.

So when I saw this post over at Random Thoughts Of A SuperMom! I knew I had to make these for their last Japanese class. Aren't they adorable?!?!

What you will need:
* Rice Krispy Cereal (6 cups)
* Mini Marshamllows (10 oz. bag)
* Butter (3 Tablespoons)
* Gummy worms
* Fruit roll ups (green)

Make the rice krispy treats according to the package (melt butter, stir in marshmallows until smooth, add cereal and stir).


Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray and press the rice krispy mixture onto the cookie sheet. Make sure you pack it down fairly well and don't leave any holes.


Let it cool a little while.

Lay the gummy worms about an inch from the edge.


Roll the Rice Krispy treat up until the gummy worms are completely covered. Cut along the side of the "tube" with a sharp knife or pizza cutter. (I use my pizza cutter all the time!)

Shape it with your hands so that it's not falling apart.

Now wrap the long tube with a fruit roll. I had a hard time finding the small Fruit By The Foot that was green so I had to use sheets of the fruit roll ups. It worked great! (and green was easy to find).


Cut into 1 inch pieces.


Enjoy! Or should I say Tanoshimu!

I've linked up with:
C.R.A.F.T.
Just Something I Whipped Up Monday
Keeping It Simple
Under the Table and Dreaming
Between Naps on the Porch
Crazy Daisy
It's A Blog Party
These Creative Juices
Santa's Gift Shoppe
Look What I Made
Somewhat Simple
PonyTails and Fish Scales
A Few Of My Favorite Things

Homemade Magic 8 Ball

I remember as a kid I used to love playing with a Magic 8 Ball toy. We would sit around and ask it all sorts of questions and all giggle at the answers. Okay, who am I kidding. I work in a middle school. I still play with the Magic 8 Ball in my office and ask it all sorts of questions "Should I leave work early?", "Should I have a burger for lunch?", "Should I eat this last brownie?" You know, all the important questions in life. So when I saw this idea in Family Fun Magazine I was so excited.

What you will need:
* Small glass jar (I used a baby food jar)
* Styrofoam or wet foam
* Sharpie Marker
* Foam Sheets
* Clay or Play Doh
* Glue gun

It's super easy!

Clean out the small jar and fill it with water.

Cut a small square out of the styrofoam (about 1 inch.) I couldn't find any styrofoam so I bought some wet foam in the gardening dept. It's really easy to cut and works great.

Cute out 6 one inch squares from the foam sheets and write on them. You can write whatever you would like. We chose "yes, no, maybe, ???, for sure and ask later".


Use your glue gun and glue the sides onto your square so it looks like a dice.


Put the square in your jar and put the lid on. Shake it around a little to make sure you have enough water in it and not too much. If you have too much water in it the "dice" won't turn very easily and you will end up getting the same answer over and over.


Once you have decided you have enough water in it, run your glue gun around the top to seal the lid. You don't have to do this but with our baby food jars they kind of leaked. You don't want any water escaping!

Wrap the play doh (or clay) around the jar leaving the bottom of the jar exposed. You can use any kind of clay that hardens. I first bought the kind of clay you bake. That was a major bust. Not the baking part but we couldn't even start to use it. It was too hard to kneed. And the other modeling clay at the store said it "never hardens". That's not a good thing for this project. So we just made our own play doh (see my post here) and used that.



Now decorate the sides however you want.



Let it sit out and dry. This may take 24 hours or longer depending on how thick the clay is.

And you are set. Start asking it questions and see how much fun your kids will have. We ask it about dinner (should we have teriyaki chicken tonight?) or TV (should we watch iCarly right now?) It's a hoot!

I've linked up to:


Frugalicious Friday
It's Fun to Craft