Mardi Gras in September

This month was my two oldest nieces birthday.  Every year they decide on a theme for their party and this year their theme was Mardi Gras!

I was not personally born in Louisiana, however, the majority of my family is or was born and raised in Louisiana.  Being from a family who was raised with the type of cultures and traditions that is shared among all of those who are from there, I was also taught many of their cultures and traditions, including one of the state favorites, Mardi Gras.

Mardi Gras facts and a slight history:
To read about the history click here.  This will open the East Jefferson Parrish: The History of Mardi Gras website and you can read it all.  

For the girls birthday party we made the majority of their decorations and activities.  Any of you who enjoy celebrating or are interested in celebrating would have loved our party.  We had games such as:  Pin the baby on the King Cake (our own version of pin the tail on the donkey), a doubloon hunt (our version of an Easter egg hunt), and Mardi Gras hot potato (hot potato with a Mardi Gras stuffed animal).  We were able to make everything from items caught at parades threw out the years.  Because it is Sepetember, we couldn't find any Mardi Gras items out for sale so instead we bought plain white t-shirts and "puffy" paint to make the girls Mardi Gras shirts to wear on their special day.  We also had lots of help from the girls grandpa who is a Mardi Gras fanatic and happened to have LOTS of decorations that we could use.

I am so happy that we were able to have a birthday party that everyone was able to interact with and the girls were able to celebrate their own traditions and learn more about them while having fun!

Do you know YOU?

My six year old niece came home from school today asking a LOT of questions about where she is from. I have been trying to explain to her about her back culture; she's Guatemalan. So I've been researching foods, attire, traditions, and other fun facts about her heritage so that we can have a "Guatemalan" day for her to help her learn more about herself and her heritage.

I found information on the history of Guatemala and many of the cultures of the people there. I also found out about lots of different foods. The Guatemalan people are of a Hispanic heritage and love to use fresh exotic fruits such as bananas, papayas, and mango's along with many others. Corn, cocoa, and rice are some of the primary foods used to make many different stews, coffees, and light dishes.

This would be a fun project for any family. Even as Americans, we forget to remember how we got to where we are today and what a better way to remember than to celebrate our past. My family has lots of Italian, German, and French, but your family may have Indian, Mexican, Irish, Swedish, etc. Research and learn how much you really know about yourself. I can't wait to have our Guatemalan day so my wonderful niece can learn more about herself.

Remember, just because you have a past heritage, doesn't mean you aren't American. Americans are made up of all types of people including Guatemalan. I hope that I can help her learn and grow but also make her understand that no matter where she is from that she is where she belongs and that she IS an American.

Crafts for School

School is starting up soon and you or the kids may be in lock down with homework during the week, but that doesn't mean the weekends have to be boring. Find some time between the hectic studying and work to do something fun with your kids. Kids love to do crafts and what a better way to spend the weekends then to help your kids learn how to enjoy school or learning.

I found a few creative ideas for kids to do on Family Fun. Everything from decorating those boring school supplies, staying organized with homemade calendars, and learning with new exciting homemade flash cards.

Magnetic Marker

The Colorful Coverup Notebook

Bookmark This!

Carton Wallet 

 

I hope you all have fun and learn lots throughout the school year. Your never to cool for school. Be safe and have a happy school year.

 

Back to School

Going back to school or sending your kids back to school can be expensive and boring. With all the specific school supplies, shopping for these supplies can look so bland and not personal. Use your skills and spruce up their supplies with little techniques and very inexpensive tools and items.

Also, think about all the paper that children throw away during the school year. The schools are never really "green". Instead of throwing everything away (or keeping everything in lots of boxes), use certain items to decorate with. Make a pretty collage of works for them to keep to look back and see what they have done. Grandparents LOVE to have things that their grandchildren have made. Put together another collage or scrapbook page and put it in a frame for them. Scrapbooking is GREAT for these little projects that your children do in school and bring home. Cropping around the main parts of projects and incorporating pictures and phrases will make beautiful pieces of art to hang around the house (like brag arts).

Stay green and have fun shopping for school. School can be COOL, but sometimes you have to help it along.

Our "Dirt" Cake Experience

The girls and I finished our first "dirt" cake today.  It looks great and tastes awesome!  The girls had lots of fun making it.  They got to add all the ingredients while me or another adult mixed.  This helped to keep the mess to a minimum.  The girls really had fun just putting the ingredients in the bowl and then helping make the layers.  I didn't have a pail or trowel to use so we used a 9 x 13" dish.  In between the layers I let them add gummy worms.  They also got to add a few to the top and of course no one is a chef unless they taste what they make.  :)  They got to lick the bowl with the pudding cream layer in it and eat a few of the gummy worms.

Also, instead of using the rolling pin and a ziploc bag, I used my Ninja cutting machine.  Any blender will do just as good.  I found that the cookies wouldn't stick together as bad if I chopped them.  Rolling the cookies just crushes and compacts them together so they stick together and make them hard to spread over the pudding.
Some recipes for this "dirt" cake suggest using chocolate pudding to add to the "dirt" effect; however I chose to use vanilla pudding to give the cake a little more variety.

I hope you all enjoy making your "dirt" cake as much as we did.  If you have an other suggestions or comments please feel free to leave them or ask.

Fun Foods for Kids Oreo "Dirt Cake"

I've been looking for fun thing for my nieces to do all Summer. We have cooked, done crafts, played new games, and even had a movie day. The next idea I wanted to do was to make a FUN dessert for them after dinner. My sister and I were talking about a neat dessert from our childhood that we remembered, Oreo cookie "dirt cake".

Just to help you understand how well your children will love this creative dessert, I have researched a little of the history and a few statistics about the Oreo cookie sandwich.

According to the Scribd website for Market research on Oreo, "The Oreo chocolate sandwich cookie was first introduced in Hoboken, N.J. in 1911.  Oreos today are far and away the world’s most popular cookie.  The Oreo family accounts for approximately 10 percent of all store cookie sales – a $3 billion market…The current target market for the original vanilla filling Oreo is children."  

Now that you understand the wonder of this cookie and the love your children have for it, lets get on with the recipe.  

Oreo Dirt Cake

Ingredients:

Kid's Sand Pail & Shovel Set OR 1 New 8" Flower Pot
1 1/2-2 lb. Oreo cookies
1 8 oz. tub Cream Cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 Stick Softened Butter
3 1/2 cups milk
2 small pkg. Instant Vanilla Pudding
12 oz. Cool Whip

Method:

Cream together cream cheese, powdered sugar and softened butter.

Mix 3 1/2 cups milk and instant pudding for 2 minutes and add 12 oz. Cool Whip.

Add liquid mixture to creamed mixture.

Place Oreo cookies in large ziploc bag and crush to desired "dirt" texture with a rolling pin.

Put 1 1/2 inches of cookie crumbs on the bottom of the sandpail or flower pot(lined with aluminum foil) and layer the pudding mixture and crumbs. End with pudding mixture.  Refrigerate for 2 hours.

Just before serving, add 1 more inch of cookie crumbs and decorate with gummi worms. 
 

 I found this recipe on the Kids Party Paradise website.  They also have many other creative ideas to add to this recipe or other fun recipes to try.  I hope you all enjoy. 

Recipes for 4th of July

Tomorrow is Independence Day (A.K.A. The 4th of July) and I hope everyone has a fun, safe, and festive day.  Celebrating Independence in this great country, USA.  To help our family celebrate, I have been looking for creative and festive recipes for the girls to make for the 4th of July.  This way the whole family has a part of experiencing the wonders of our RED, WHITE, and BLUE.  I found a few creative recipes that I thought would be nice to share with you.  Now if you live in a home of lots of people (as I do), sometimes money can be an issue with being creative, but I am going to give you the recipes I found and then give you an idea on how to make it not as expensive. 

Frosty Fireworks (Flavored Ice) drink.  The full recipe is found on the Disney Family Fun website. 
This recipe calls for:
a drink that is clear (Sprite, 7up, Water, Clear Kool-aid of some sort),
1 red drink (Fruit punch, strawberry, red Powerade, etc.),
1 blue drink (Once again, some sort of blue kool-aid would be good to use or blue Powerade, etc.). 

The night before your festive event (4th of July in this case) freeze an 1 ice tray of the red drink and 1 ice tray of the blue drink to make the ice cubes. 
On the 4th of July put in a variety of red and blue cubes and pore the clear drink of your choosing to make the drink come out looking red, "white", and blue. 

That is what the website called for; however, if your family is as large as mine and money needs to be stretched, use this concept but with a different twist. 
My family has decided to have a small gathering and one of the cheapest drinks to find for all the kids was Kool-aid.  We have a packet of the "invisible" Kool-aid mix that the kids with drink and the ice cube were made from water (yes, water-the clear liquidy substance that we generally take for granted...lol) and food coloring.  These were ALL items that we already had at the house.  If these are not items you keep around your house these are cheaper than the products that the website suggest.  Water comes FREE out of our fridge door or faucet and the food coloring may be about $3 at Walmart. 
Mix the ingredients to make the Kool-aid according to package directions and put about 3 drops of each color food coloring into separate glasses of water, put in ice trays, and freeze.  For those of you who are more creative you can use different colored kool-aid for the "ice" if you would like or add a festive decoration to your glass to make it the talk of the party. 

Well I hope you all enjoy your Frosty Firework drinks and have a wonderful 4th of July.