The only thing cuter and more fun to eat than a cupcake is a mini “baby” cupcake.

My mom gave me a Baby Cakes cupcake maker for Christmas and I have had a ton of fun playing with it!

One of the first treats I made with my cupcake maker were chocolate cupcakes.

After forgetting to buy chocolate cake mix at the grocery store, I rummaged through the pantry and discovered that I had everything on hand that I needed to make homemade cupcakes.

These were so much better than the mix!!

I topped the cupcakes with vanilla frosting that I colored blue. And added silver sprinkles to the top.

To make vanilla frosting, beat 1/2 c. softened butter until creamy. Add 3 cups confectioners’ sugar and 3 tablespoons milk and beat until creamy. Then beat in 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. This makes enough frosting to frost 12-16 mini cupcakes. I doubled this for frosting the chocolate cupcakes I made.

Do you have a favorite sweet treat?

Post linked to: Works for Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family

One of my goals for the new year is to make better breakfasts for my family.

I realized last year that we have gotten into a terrible rut with having cold cereal for breakfast most mornings.

While I do love cereal, I don’t think a steady diet of it is the best thing for our family. My goal is to make non-cereal breakfasts at least five days a week.

On Monday when my husband came in from his morning run, I offered to make Egg McMuffins, but he reminded me that he had a cholesterol test coming up later that morning…not a great day for egg sandwiches.

So I offered oatmeal instead, thinking of the oatmeal packets sitting in our pantry. He suggested real apple cinnamon oatmeal…something I’ve never tried before!

Not being one to turn down a challenge and opportunity to delight my husband, I gave it a go.

He found a recipe on all recipes for oatmeal that we were able to adjust for our family.

Judging by the words of my family, ”Yumm!” and “I want more!”, I am happy to report that my first crack at cooking "real oatmeal" was a huge success!!

My goal of making better breakfasts for my family has also been a success thus far.

I’m trying all kinds of new recipes and some faithful stand-bys as well. One thing that I have done that has helped to keep me accountable in this goal is to tweet and/or facebook our breakfast each morning.

Letting others know of a goal you’re working on and asking them to keep you accountable is always a great way to be successful in meeting your goal!

What goals did you set for the new year?

Our Bible lesson yesterday called for the use of two cookies…one large and one small.

We’ve been studying the story of Abram and Lot and how Abraham unselfishly gave Lot the first choice of land.

In an application lesson on being unselfish, the plan was to ask my girls which of the two cookies (large and small) they would choose.

Well, I couldn’t use just any cookie for this lesson.

I wanted to make a special cookie for my girls, but as I began making plans I discovered that I was out of butter and I knew better than to use a stick of margarine in cookies. I learned that lesson in my first year of marriage.

“Oh, well…” I thought, I would just have to substitute an Oreo and break the second one in half.

Lame!

We had a terrible morning of homeschool.

Everyone was cranky.

As I was looking around the fridge to come up with a plan for lunch I discovered one lone stick of butter…YES!!!

It was just what we needed to turn the day around!

So as the children ate their lunch, I busily made up a batch of peanut butter oatmeal cookies and even decided to add in some chocolate chips that were calling me from the pantry.

The cookies were delicious!

Our Bible lesson was taught.

Smiles returned to the faces of all of my little ones.

I even had a plate of cookies sitting on the counter for my husband to have when he came home from work.

I made the third dozen of these cookies smaller than the others for our Bible lesson. To do that, I made round balls by scooping them with a teaspoon. Also, these smaller cookies only baked for about 8-9 minutes.

And speaking of that Bible lesson…which cookie would you choose?

On the way home from the park I gave my kids two choices for lunch, “PB&J sandwiches or octopus?”

“What!?” was their reply.

They had never heard of having octopus for lunch. {honestly, nether had I}

After a little convincing they were daring enough to give the sea creatures a try.

To make your own octopuses for lunch you’ll need a package of hot dogs and spaghetti noodles.

Cut the hot dogs in half (or even smaller pieces) and poke four spaghetti noodles through each of the pieces to make eight legs.

Place these into a pot of boiling water and boil until done as you would normally do for spaghetti or hot dogs. They’ll cook together.

I did add spaghetti sauce on top of the cooked hot dogs and noodles.

The only thing I would change is next time I will cut the hot dogs into smaller pieces to look more like an octopus.

It was a super fun lunch and Will even proclaimed that Octopus was his favorite lunch!

My inspiration for this lunch came from these squid dogs I found on pinterest.

Pinterest has become inspiration for lots of fun crafts and projects around our home lately!

What are your favorite creative lunches to make for your kids?

I made Rainbow Cupcakes for Jenny’s 1st birthday party and they were so tasty, easy and delicious to make!

To make them all you need is a box of white or vanilla cake mix (I used vanilla), all the things that are called for on the cake mix box (eggs, water, oil), food coloring, cupcake liners and muffin tins.

First, place cupcake liners in the muffin tins. With one box of mix, you can make approximately 24 cupcakes.

Then mix up the cake batter per the instructions on the box.

Divide the batter into six bowls as evenly as possible.

Use food coloring to color each bowl of batter into a separate color of the rainbow.

Remember ROY-G-BIV from science class?

Red

Orange

Yellow

Green

Blue

and

Purple (I combined indigo and violet)

Use can use regular food coloring or gel food coloring that is used to tint icing for cake decorating. I used the Wilton gel colors because I think they do give a bolder color.

After you have made all of your rainbow colors, it’s time to start filling the cupcake liners.

Place a small dab (about 1 tbsp.) of each color of batter in the cupcake liners.

I started with red, filled all the liners with that color, then moved onto orange, placing a spoonful of it in each cupcake liner, and then moved on to each color in ROY-G-BIV order.

Bake according to the box directions, cool and decorate.

And then wow your kids and maybe even some party guests with your creative cooking skills!

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MC read the word “cinch” in homeschool today and I explained to her that it means “easy”.

She said, “Yeah…like easy peasy”.

Just like that.

And that’s what this pie is.

A cinch to make.

Easy.

Peasy.

It made a regular ol’ boring Monday night dinner extra special this week!

And it’s delicious, too. Even my husband who isn’t a huge fan of pies raved over this one!

Ingredients:

6 whole reduced-fat cinnamon graham crackers
2 Tbsp. butter
11 oz fat-free sweetened condensed milk
2 large eggs
approx. 4 lemons (enough to make 1/2 c. lemon juice)
1 Tbsp. lemon zest

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Squeeze lemons to get 1/2 lemon juice

Use good processor to make fine crumbs from the graham crackers. If you don’t have a food processor, you can use a plastic bag and a rolling pin to crush the crackers.

Place crumbs in a small bowl.

Melt butter and pour over crumbs. Mix with a fork until moistened and press evenly in bottom of a 9 inch pie plate.

Place crust in the refrigerator while preparing the lemon filling.

In a medium bowl, combine the condensed milk and eggs. Mix them until they are smooth.

Add lemon juice and the lemon zest. Stir until incorporated and pour into the prepared crust.

Bake the pie for 15 minutes.

Cool completely and serve chilled.

Enjoy!!!

P.S. Yes, I do believe it is impossible for me to actually take a picture of food BEFORE I eat it. Sorry about the half eaten pie.

Post linked to: I’m Lovin’ It at TidyMom and This Week’s Cravings at Mom’s Crazy Cooking