kids

This post is sponsored by Lunchbox but all opinions are my own.

I can still remember – vividly – the day I first learned to ride my bike without training wheels. I must have ridden up and down our driveway 20 times! And two years ago I got to encounter that magical moment in our oldest son’s life. It took some time, but once he’d figured it out he was so proud.

Now our middle son, C, is 7, and he has been wanting to learn to ride his bike without training wheels for months. He’s nervous, though, and has been putting it off. We’ve been trying to think of everything we can do to make learning to ride a bike as easy of a process as possible – and that’s where the Schwinn SmartStart bikes come in. Here’s why I love SmartStart bikes for new riders:

• 16” wheel size – classic learn to ride size.
• Easier to learn to ride-better balance
• Safer because less wobble
• Light-weight for stability
• The seat is shaped and sized to fit a child
• When a SmartStart seat is raised to fit a growing child, the distance from the seat to the handle bars increases. This increases the reach distance and will allow the bike to grow with them
• The grips are smaller for smaller hands
• The geometry matches the pedal width to a child’s hip width
• Like all Schwinn bikes, SmartStart bikes have a limited lifetime warranty for as long as you own the bike

We went to Toys R Us to pick up the bike:

C was super excited to try out his new bike. We got the Schwinn Burnout 16 Inch bike and he thought the colors were, and I quote, “awesome!”

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Our kids love lemon, so it’s a go-to flavor profile whenever I’m considering what dessert I should make. You might remember us making lemonade cake a while back! Well, this time we decided to make lemon bars with an added treat – blackberry drizzle.

These lemon bars are perfect for spring & summer – they’re light, bright, and cold. They’re easy to whip up, too!

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We love pizza in our house – it’s one of the foods that all three kids will actually eat and enjoy, and it’s easy (which means a lot on a weeknight, amIright?)

Sometimes, though, it’s nice to have an alternative to an old standby, so we like to make what we call mini pizza pot pies as a fun twist on our typical fave.

I’ve shared this recipe several years ago, but thought it deserved to be resurfaced for Mini Chef Monday because it’s a perfect mini-sized meal for your mini chef to eat and to help make with you!

We made these when we had friends over for dinner one night – they have two kids, too, so it was the perfect dinner choice. My friend Kristi used two sizes of plastic cups to cut out rounds of pizza dough – a larger round went into the bottom of the muffin tin, and we used the smaller one to top it off. This is a great and easy way for you to let your kids help prep – you can cut the dough without any sharp knives needed!

Another thing that’s great about this recipe is that you can use a variety of combinations to fill the pizzas. You could do ground beef mixed with pasta sauce, spinach, pepperoni, or a mixture of the three, along with shredded mozzarella to add that cheesy goodness.

Once all the pizzas are filled, top off the dough and fold the tops and bottom together to get a nice seal. Use kitchen shears to snip a small slit in the top and allow steam to escape while baking.

Bake at 350 degrees until the dough on top is golden brown, let cool for a bit, and they should pop right out of your muffin tin. Don’t they look delicious?

And each one is filled with all sorts of flavor:

Perfect for adults & kiddos alike!

These would be great for grab & go dinners, because it would be incredibly easy to eat these while you’re out and about. They make nice leftovers, too – just pop a couple in your lunch bag and you’re all set at work the next day!

Is your mouth watering yet? Here’s the recipe so you can go home and make these tonight:

Ingredients:

• Pasta sauce
• 1 lb. lean ground beef
• 1 box frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• Mozzarella cheese
• Pizza dough, either store-bought or homemade
• Pepperoni
• Any other ingredients you’d like to add! Red peppers, onions, olives, and mushrooms could all be great additions.

Directions: 

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. Using a plastic cup, cut out a round of pizza dough to press into the bottom of a well in your muffin tin – there should be a little dough overhanging the edges so you can crimp it with the top layer of dough to seal! Put dough out for as many of the pizzas as you’d like to make.
3. Fill your pizzas with whatever combinations of ingredients sound best, making sure to include sauce and cheese either in between layers or on the top so you have flavor and so your pizza isn’t dry. Don’t pile your ingredients any higher than the top of the muffin tin.
4. Use a smaller plastic cup to cut out a smaller round of pizza dough, and place this on top of your creation, and fold the edges from the bottom layer over, pressing to seal the two rounds of dough. Using kitchen shears, snip a small slit in the top of each one to allow steam to escape.
5. Bake your pizzas about 15 minutes, or until the dough is golden brown. Enjoy!

As always, I am hosting Mini Chef Mondays along with 11 fabulous bloggers! Read how Mini Chef Mondays started and how to link up!

Be sure to check out each of their Mini Chef posts – and we would love it if you would share your Mini Chef posts ( this can be a kid-friendly recipe, or a recipe you made with your kiddo) with us each week, too!

Follow along socially and join in on the fun by using our hashtag #MiniChefMondays to share creations your mini chef created in the kitchen.

1. Healthy Mac and Cheese Recipe // Courtney’s Sweets
2. Original Rice Krispies Treats // Momma Lew
3. Chocolate Dipped Sundae Marshmallows // Baby Loving Mama
4. Homemade Chicken Meatballs // We’re Parents
5. Alphabet Snack H is for Hippo // Eating Richly Even When You’re Broke
6. Peep S’Mores Bites // Giggles, Gobbles and Gulps
7. Teach Your Kids to Cook THIS Spring Break // Step Stool Chef
8. Easy to Make Hamantaschen // Vegging at the Shore
9. Turn Recipes into Memories with a Keepsake Cookbook // Mom’s Messy Miracles
10. Whole Wheat Pretzel Bites // O’Boy! Organic
11. Carrot Cake Dip with Easter Bunny Chips // Can’t Google Everything

I’m sure you won’t be shocked to learn that my three year old daughter, E, loves pink and purple. Purple is her very favorite right now, because Sofia the First wears a purple dress, and E thinks Sofia hung the moon.

We incorporate pink & purple into her clothing, her accessories, her bedding, and even her food. Ice cream and suckers are chosen for what color they are, with no thought whatsoever given to flavor. We’ve even made purple waffles for breakfast before, and that gave me the idea to give another food the “princess” treatment – bread!

I call this Princess Bread because it incorporates pink & purple, and because my daughter will instantly love bread that sounds like it’s something Sofia would eat! This is a typical sandwich bread recipe, but you could put strawberry or grape preserves on it for added princess flair. And imagine how fun it’d be to surprise your child with this bread on her sandwich at lunch!

Here’s how to make Princess Bread with step-by-step pics – and the recipe itself will be shared below!

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Hi everyone! It’s the first weekend in February, which seems unreal to me – 2016 is already off to a fast start! If you’re still looking for a fun Valentine’s cookie recipe, don’t miss my chocolate & sprinkle coated shortbread cookies I shared a couple of weeks ago. They’re perfect for kids’ parties!

Of course, with it being February I’m also thinking a lot about spring, and so this week for Mini Chef Monday I’m re-sharing a recipe that’s perfect for this time of year – plus it lets you sneak veggies in for your kiddos (my carrot-hating son even ate these cookies) – just don’t tell them what they’re called!

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I mentioned earlier this month that we’ve started something new in our house – we’re scheduling dates with each of our kids using this chart. We rotate months so that Brian and I each get one-on-one time with the kids, and we also get time together as a family doing a specific activity.

For January I had a date with J, Brian had a date with C, and E got to pick a family activity for us to all do together. She chose – very specifically, I might add – that we would all make Sofia the First cookies. We don’t own Sofia the First cookie cutters, so we had to get creative. I also wanted to keep things simple, because this has been a busy month for us and I just didn’t have the energy to do anything too time-intensive.

Right off the bat I knew we’d need to make these cookies purple. Sofia’s dress is purple, and E is all about purple right now. We found a great sugar cookie recipe on allrecipes.com and followed it pretty directly, only modifying it to add a bit of purple food coloring.

Next, we had to figure out how to make these cookies look Sofia the First-ish. We don’t own princess-themed cookie cutters, but guess what kind of cookie cutters work perfectly for a Sofia theme? Easter cookie cutters! Our set included a rabbit face and profile (who doesn’t love Clover the rabbit on Sofia, right? You’ve got to include him! Blue Ribbon Bunny was a favorite episode of E’s for several weeks), a butterfly (these have been present in many Sofia episodes, specifically Princess Butterfly) and two different flowers (Sofia and friends spend lots of time in the garden – we mentioned Vivian’s enchanted garden at her new castle, seen in All the Sprite Moves and E agreed flowers were perfect to include.

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If you’ve walked in Target lately you’ve probably noticed the overabundance of pink in the store right now (which my daughter thinks is perfection, by the way. You can never have too much pink!), and although Valentine’s Day is still over a month away it’s definitely been on my mind. We don’t do a lot for the holiday, but we’ll plan valentines for classmates, something little to do for each of the kids, and Brian and I usually do something small for each other, too.

In thinking about Valentine’s Day, I was brainstorming some fun dessert ideas for the inevitable class parties and thought these chocolate & sprinkle coated shortbread cookies would be really perfect. They’re pretty adorable, they’re delicious, and they’re not messy to eat like cupcakes. They’re also really easy – and fairly quick – to make, which earns HUGE points in my book!

I typically have one of the kiddos help me with my Mini Chef Mondays posts, but this was a very busy weekend and I’ll admit that I made these cookies at about 12:15 this morning. SO, I’ve included a collage of my kiddos with the cookies, because they’ll end up being the primary consumers!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/3 cup milk chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla together.
2. Add in the salt and mix well.
3. Mix in the flour until everything is well-combined.
4. Add water sparingly until your dough starts to come together.
5. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
6. Roll your dough out to about 1/2″ thick, and use cookie cutters to achieve your desired shape – hearts are perfect for Valentine’s Day!
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees until your cookies are golden.
8. Once the cookies have cooled, dip them in chocolate, adding sprinkles if you’d like!

As always, I am hosting Mini Chef Mondays along with 11 fabulous bloggers!

Be sure to check out each of their Mini Chef posts as well. We would love it if you would share your Mini Chef posts with us each week, too! Follow along socially and join in on the fun by using our hashtag #MiniChefMondays to share creations your mini chef created in the kitchen. Additionally, if you have a kid-friendly recipe that kids can easily recreate link up! Don’t have a blog? Share the URL of your instagram photo in our linky below.

1. Easy Fruit Salad Recipe for Valentine’s Day // Courtney’s Sweets
2. Red Velvet Waffles // Momma Lew
3. Homemade Cherry Banana Ice Cream // Baby Loving Mama
4. Peanut Butter Cheesecake Overnight Oats // We’re Parents
5. Chocolate & Sprinkle Coated Shortbread Cookies // Frugal Novice
6. Best Lactation Cookies Recipe // Eating Richly
7. Brown Bag Microwave Popcorn // Giggles, Gobbles and Gulps
8. Chicken & Broccoli Quesadilla // Step Stool Chef
9. Farro with Roasted Vegetables // Vegging at the Shore
10. Chocolate Strawberry Puppy Chow // Mom’s Messy Miracles
11. Healthy Ambrosia Salad // O’Boy! Organic
12. Cinnamon Sugar Dessert Preussens // Can’t Google Everything

Hi all! Christmas will be here in just four days and I’ve got a fun and easy food project you can do with your little one for the holidays.

Make Rice Krispie Treats, following the recipe on the cereal box. Instead of pouring the treats into a 9×13 pan, pour them into a sheet pan.

Cut six squares of the treats all the same size and form them into a box, pressing the corners to adhere them together.

Fill the box with your recipients’ favorite treat – we went with red & green M&M’s.

The best part of this is letting kids have fun with it. Mine loved tearing it apart and eating pieces with M&M’s!

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If you’re like millions of other people in the United States, you’re probably gearing up for a road trip in the coming weeks. Although we’ll celebrate Christmas at home, we traveled for Thanksgiving with our three kids. Our trip was relatively short – about three hours – but still, we went into it with a game plan. We’ve learned from experience (a very long trip from Texas to Florida to Georgia and back) that it’s crucial to be prepared in order to make your time in the car as pleasant as possible.

Everyone has a different approach as to what’s important to bring – some people want to be minimalists, and some people pack so much that the car is practically stuffed! I like to think we fall somewhere in between, and we’ve figured out what works well for us to bring. I’ll share one of my must-haves below, and then I hope you’ll go check out my guest post over on the Ames Ford Lincoln blog to see the rest of my tips for road trip survival.

Have plenty of supplies. Snacks and drinks are key. I can’t even begin to tell you the power of a snack to calm a whiny child! We bring practical things like pretzels and applesauce pouches, but also have some heavy hitters like fruit snacks and candy as a special treat. Also be sure and have a stockpile of inexpensive, wrapped toys that kids can pick from at random points along the trip (if they have good behavior – it’s a great motivator to have a good attitude!). Be sure and bring plenty of blankets and pillows so the kids can get comfy (and hopefully take a nap or two as you travel down the road). See more here.

Oh my word, guys – it’s December. We’re even getting a few cold days here in Texas, and there’s nothing better on a cold day than a nice, warm, comfort food meal – and these creamy & crunchy chicken crescents are just that. We’ve made these for years, but this was the first time E helped me make them – and she loved it! There are lots of opportunities for getting your hands dirty, which kids love.

Here’s the recipe – and don’t forget, as always I’m sharing step-by-step photo instructions so you can make this with your mini chef!

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We have three kids – two boys, and then our youngest is a girl. It’s a night and day difference between clothes shopping for our sons and for our daughter. The boys couldn’t care less, but our daughter loves to pick out what she is wearing and has quite an opinion about it all!

It can be hard to find great clothing that isn’t too cutesy; but there are places out there, like Biscotti & Mack, that have really great clothes for little girls. You know, clothes you kind of wish were made in your size too! I love their style, and I’ve got a great deal for you – right now if you sign up for their email list you get 10% off! Just click here to sign up!

Happy shopping!

Hi, y’all! First off, can you believe Thanksgiving is basically here? Texas even got temps in the 40’s so we can finally feel like it’s fall, and here in my house we are all very ready for Thursday to arrive.

Around this time of year, there are certain ingredients that really come to mind, and the cranberry is one of those. It’s something that’s important to Thanksgiving, but it’s also a flavor that’s prevalent in all sorts of Christmas desserts, too. So this week, to celebrate Thanksgiving and welcome the start of the Christmas season, E and I made cranberry white chocolate cobbler bars. I’ve gotta give credit to my mother-in-law; a conversation with her a few weeks ago about cranberry desserts is what got my mind headed down this path to begin with. Oh – I was going to just call these cranberry white chocolate bars, but Brian said they reminded him of cobbler, so he helped inspire the name.

Y’all, I’m not lying when I say this dish is one of my very favorites ever. It’s a perfect blend of sweet and tart, chewy and crunchy. It is amazing and I hope you get lots of opportunities to take it to parties over the next few months, because I promise everyone will love you for it.

As always with Mini Chef Mondays, I’ll share the basic recipe, and then below that you’ll get step-by-step photos if you’d like to make this with your kid chef!

I don’t want to forget to mention this, also: be sure and check back tomorrow for another recipe post AND a really fun giveaway. Now, let’s get on to the food!

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