Candy Corn Rice Crispy Treats

In the spirit of Halloween I decided that we would make candy corn rice crispy treats:) This was a fairly easy project. I melted half a stick of butter in the microwave. I then had the kids measure out nine cups of mini marshmallows. Which I then microwaved till they were melted. We poured the melted butter into the marshmallows and I stirred them up.I then gave Amira some yellow food dye and Zaid some red. I asked them what color they thought we would get when we mixed the two together. I said let's find out and I told Amira to add one drop of yellow and Zaid to add two to make the mixture orange. Then the kids poured ten cups of rice crispies into a large pot. Then we mixed in 3/4 of a cup of chocolate chips and 3/4 of a cup of candy corn. Before I measured the candy corn I gave a piece to Amira and Zaid since they never had candy corn before. Zaid was willing to lick it and said that he didn't like it. Amira ate it saying and making faces at the same time "oh yuck it is horrible." Zaid look at her and told her "That is why I just lick it" LOL. The kids then took turns stirring the pot, till it was well mixed. Then I poured in the marshmallow mixture. I stirred it up and scooped out the mixture into a well greased cake pan. At this point I told Amira and Zaid to push the rice crispies down into the pan. Amira did so saying "ooooh it is sticky", Zaid just look at it like it was evil. I asked Zaid if he wanted to push down with us and he gave a very strong no as his answer. So then I wrapped up the pan with foil and refrigerated it for an hour and it came out delicious!

Ingredients

10 cups Rice Crispies

9 cups mini marshmallows

3/4 chocolate chips

3/4 candy corn

1/2 of butter

yellow food coloring

red food coloring

Mickey Mouse Shaped Chicken Patties

Zaid ate some Mickey Mouse shaped chicken patties-twice! Zaid saw these in the freezer section of the store and wanted them. When we first brought them home I made them and Zaid said that he didn't want them. Yesterday, he wanted to take a look inside the freezer, so daddy held him up and he pointed out all the food saying this is "mommy's food", etc. When he got to the Mickey Mouse shaped chicken patties, he said "Those our mine, I want them." So daddy heated them up in the microwave. After they were done Sadiq cut them up into small pieces. Zaid would occansionally eat a chicken nugget. And when I say eat I mean like two bites. He has not ate a chicken nugget in a while. We asked him why and he told us that the food stays too long in his mouth. So Sadiq cut the Mickey Shaped Chicken Patty up for him and they sat at his little table and they had a race. Who could eat the fastest, making sure that he was chewing well of course. Zaid always won of course and he loved it. When I came home I did the same thing with him and he ate it no problem:)

Octopus Cupcakes

I discovered this cute idea for octopus cupcakes on FamilyFun.com. So I brought home the book Good Thing Your Not an Octopus by Julie Markes from the library. Zaid just loved the book! So then we proceeded to make our octopus cupcakes. First, we made our cupcakes from a cake mix. I used chocolate cake mix, but you can use any kind you like. Previously in the day Zaid went grocery shopping with me and we got special Cars cupcake liners:) Zaid thought this was neat to be using them and placing them in the cupcake pan. Next Amira and Zaid each got to spoon in the cake mix into the cupcake liners. I had them use an ice cream scoop. I find that it is a lot easier for kids to scoop up the cake mix and plop them in the liners than using a spoon, less spills. Zaid absolutely loved this part. He even got some cake mix on his hand and ignored it and kept on going scooping the cake mix. I was pretty amazed. Next after the cupcakes have baked and cooled we frosted our cupcakes. Zaid did some and then got some frosting on his hand and said that his cupcake was done. So I finished frosting his cupcake. The kids each placed a blow pop in the center of the cupcake for the octopus's head. Note, you will need to cut the blow pop stick in half first in order for it to fit the cupcake. Then we used chocolate chips for the eyes. I had the dip the chocolate chip in the frosting for Zaid and then put it on the plate and had him pick it up and place it on the octopus. Then for the legs, you are suppose to use gummy worms, but I didn't have any so we used fruit roll ups. We was very difficult for mommy to have to peel and roll. I highly recommend using the gummy worms. Zaid and Amira then placed the fruit roll ups on the cupcakes for the octopus's legs. I also asked Amira how many legs o tentacles does an octopus have and had her count her octopus legs till we had the right number. A little math lesson thrown in there:) During this process, one of Zaid's octopus legs fell off. So I told him just place it back. He eyed the frosted cupcake and shook his head no. "You do it." I said but your octopus is missing a leg in a playful manner. I said just pick it up and put it on the cupcake like the other legs. So to my delight he pick it up and put it on the octopus. Then I said we are all done now. Do you want to eat yours? Zaid said no. Amira said yes, but without the candy. So she dissected her octopus till all was left but a plain frosted cupcake LOL. Amira does not like any candy, but now she is eating cake with frosting. There was a time when she like Zaid was extremely limited and would not eat cake, much less cake with frosting! So while Amira was eating her cupake Zaid asked to frost the other cupcakes. Which really surprised me since earlier, when the frosting got on his hands he wanted to stop. So I said sure and he frosted the cupcakes and I mean frosted them. He put so much on I had to tell him really that is enough. So all in all it was a success.

Octopus Cupcake ingredients

One box cake mix

Frosting

Blow pops

Chocolate chips

Gummy worms

Beach Scene

Today, we read a book about going to the beach. So I decided that we could create our own beach scene using food.

ingredients

graham crackers,

white frosting

blue food coloring

gummy fish

rolo candy

round nerd candy

fruit roll up

Umbrellas found in cocktail drinks

I started by placing a graham cracker in a Ziplock bag and having the kids crush the graham cracker using a rolling pin. Zaid loved this part. Next we spread on white frost on one half of a graham cracker. Then I took some white frosting and let the kids add in the blue food coloring and had them stir it up. Zaid also enjoyed adding the frosting. Then we spread the blue frosting on the other half of the graham cracker to create an ocean. Zaid really didn't have a problem with this; if some got on his fingers I let him wipe them off with a paper towel. Next we took our crushed graham crackers and sprinkled them on the graham cracker that had the white frosting to create the beach. Before I gave them the candy to make the scene I had them tell me what they would find on a beach. Next we took the gummy fish and placed them in the blue frosting, it wasn't very proportionate, so we called them whales instead of fish:) Then I had them take some nerd candy and place them in the "sand" for a beach ball. Next I gave them each a fruit roll up and said let's see what color we get. I opened Zaid's fruit roll up and had him smell it. Then I broke off a piece and let them place their "beach towel" on the sand. I also gave them each a rolo to place as a sand castle. We also had little umbrella's that you get in drinks and that really made the beach scene. In the end they came out nice. Zaid didn't want to eat his, but Amira wanted to each the graham cracker without any of the candy lol. She still doesn't like candy, but I am not complaining:)

Zaid held a piece of pizza

We had a mini break through the other day. Usually, when we order pizza, Zaid will always say that he wants a piece of pizza. Most of the times he just looks at it and says that he doesn't want it. But the other day, Zaid picked up his piece of pizza and brought it to his mouth. It never touched his mouth and he didn't bite it. But just the fact that he held it is so amazing. I hope this is the start of something!

Going on a bear hunt

Today we went on a bear hunt! We first read the book Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. Then I had the kids act out like they were going on a bear hunt, something that I would do for a storytime. Then I hid teddy graham bears around the house. Teddy graham bears are something that zaid refuses to eat. I picked out the cinnamon ones, since zaid likes cinnamon buns and cinnamon toast sticks. Earlier, that day I had taken Zaid to storytime at the library and ironically the storytime theme was bears. I told the my friend who was the librarian for the storytime that day what I was planning on doing and she gave me some dye cut bears shapes. So I was able to write #1 bear hunter on the tags and before we went on our hunt, we put on our bear tags and I gave them each a ziplock bag to put the bears that they were going to find in. Amira and Zaid just loved the hunt. After they collected all the bears. We took them back to the table and counted them. I thought that Zaid was going to be apprehensive about the bears, but after we counted them Amira asked "Can we eat them now?". Zaid also responded asking "Can we eat them?" "Go ahead I said amazed and he gobbled up one, then two ,then three. I asked Zaid "do you like them?" and he nodded his head enthusiastically. Then he said "I don't want anymore". "O.k." I said, "now we are going to make ice cream bears". So I let them pick the flavor of ice cream that they wanted. Zaid chose vanilla, I asked him if he was sure that he didn't want strawberry. Since he liked the strawberry ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. He said "no". So I scooped out the ice cream and gave them vanilla wafers for ears and chocolate chips for the eyes and nose. Always telling them what a wafer was and having them smell it beforehand. Zaid put them on his ice cream, but didn't want to eat it. I said "do you want to lick it?" and he said "o.k." and poked at the ice cream on the spoon with the tip of his tongue. He made a face like it tasted awful and said he didn't want anymore and our bear journey ended. Later on in the day when I put together snacks on the divided tray I added a few teddy bear grahams. When Zaid saw them he said "more of them?" I said "yes" from our bear hunt. He said I don't want any, so I said o.k. eat your other snacks and he was fine with that. I was happy because if he doesn't want them he usually asks that they be removed or he picks them up and throws them. But he didn't mind the teddy grahams on the tray, so I will try them again later this week and see how it goes.

Zaid ate part of a cookie today!

I can't believe it, but Zaid asked to eat a sugar cookie with orange frosting. Now, he will eat chocolate cookies sometimes, but not often. But today he asked to have one of the suger cookies that I bought from the store; it had orange frosting and sprinkles. Zaid likes things that are orange so maybe the frosting attracted him. I gave him the cookie and he asked what the sprinkles were He said he didn't like sprinkles, so Iasked him if he wanted me to take the sprinkles off. He said yes and took a bite of the cookie! Then he took another! Then he said that he was done. Then he asked for another one; a new cookie. So I gave it to him and he handed it back to me and said that he was done. The he said on his own. I liked the cookie, but I am done:)