Have you ever wondered what happens when you mix sprinklers, sidewalk chalk and my Little Chefs?……… Hours of Fun with Sidewalk Chalk and colorful creations that don’t just end up on the sidewalk – it ends up everywhere!

On one hot afternoon, Chef Dad was outside working in the yard and fixing sprinkler problems that caused a flood in our basement last winter (and that story would be an entire blog post on its own!!!) The Little Chefs decided they wanted to run through the sprinklers –  so on went their swimsuits. And now looking back, I am so glad they changed their clothes – most of the time they start running through the sprinklers in whatever they have on!

As the sprinkler fun started to wear off – Little Chef K brought out our big tub of Sidewalk Chalk. The Little Chefs started drawing fun pictures on the driveway and sidewalks, when all of a sudden they were sprayed with the sprinklers! At first they were upset that their pictures were being ruined by the water…….but then, realized what was just created!!! Sidewalk Chalk PAINT!!!!

This Sidewalk Chalk paint kept them busy for quite a while!! The had discovered not only could they make the sidewalk and driveways bright and colorful – they could also make themselves BRIGHT and colorful!! This is now one of our favorite summertime  activities!!

What other fun activities do you like to do with sidewalk chalk? For more fun ideas for summer check out our Summer Calendar and our Summer Fun Sailboats.

Our Favorites from last week’s party  is the DIY Breakfast in Bed Idea from Lemon Tree Dwelling, and the Hard-To-Resist Vegetable Dip from Enjoy The View!! I think this might be just what I need, breakfast in bed – What a cute idea!! And I can not wait to try this vegetable dip at my next picnic with some fresh garden vegetables!!

Congrats and be sure to grab a Featured button!

Remember our Fantastic Thursday party is now more inclusive, not just recipes! Summer is right around the corner – So, Let’s also see those fun craft and DIY projects!  I can’t wait to see what you all have been up to lately!

Come back next week to see who will be featured.
We will post our favorites to our Featured and Favorites Pinterest board.

Let’s get this party started……….Link up and have fun!!!

There is something about Butterscotch in an Oatmeal Cookie that is just delicious! The other night we needed to make a quick treat to take over to a neighbor’s home. The Little Chefs were looking through all our recipes to try to find something new or something they had not made for a while. They came across this Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies recipe, and they all insisted that just had to make this recipe, even though we had just made a batch of them last week!! And yes, the entire batch was already gone.  These cookies are so delicious – don’t be surprised if your cookies disappear as quickly as ours did!!

This recipes has been filled in our favorites for some time. You would think that combining a basic oatmeal cookie with butterscotch chips would be a simple turn-out-super-yummy-every-time cookie. As it turns out, that is not always the case, and it is not that simple! We tried multiple recipes before we found the one……this one!!

The Little Chefs first mixed the butter and the sugar. Then Little Chef B added in the eggs and vanilla. I need to remind him to use a separate bowl to crack the egg first, then add it to the cookie mixture. This time we were safe – No egg shells!!

Then Little Chef K made sure all the ingredients were mixed up! Then she added the flour and dry ingredients. She likes to use the pouring shield – she learned from experience that the flour can sometimes make a mess!!

Little Chef E did the scraping and Little Chef B did more of the mixing! Such great team work!!

 We then added the oatmeal (now that makes them healthy……right?!!) and the butterscotch chips. And for some reason, I thought we had a full bag of butterscotch chips…….lets just say the Little Chefs keep a great tab on quality control while making these cookies.  A quick tip – every time I have greased the cookie sheet – they don’t turn out as well, just use the parchment paper!! You will thank us when you taste the deliciousness of these perfect little (we should add very addicting!!) cookie. Then into the oven to bake!!

Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies are one of our favorite cookies! The Little Chefs are still trying to convince me that because they have oatmeal in them, they are okay to eat for breakfast…..hummmm…I am not sold on that one yet, but good try – way to think outside the breakfast box!!

Some other yummy cookies to try – our Oreo White Chocolate Cookie!! And if traveling is in your future, try this handy little trick to make these awesome Travel Snack Bags!

I love to keep things organized and contained in the car well…to start out with at least. It seems like a few hours in and I’m telling them to clean up just like at home. We have gotten in the habit of pulling out all the garbage and putting things away at each gas station or stop we make. That seems to really help a lot!

I had to search for a while, because all boxes are different sizes and shapes, before I found these blue boxes for my van. They fit perfectly under the last row. I can get 3 under the bench. One is usually filled with snacks while the other two are filled with car travel games and activities. We have found these boxes helpful not just for road trips but also for day trips or errands. We have these in our car all the time! When we are waiting for soccer practice to end there is always something to do or snack on which keeps everyone else stuck in the car happy.

In the first box we have travel games; Battleship, Connect 4, Hangman, Bingo, Wikki Stix, Magna Doodle, Story Cubes and a deck or two of Playing Cards. If you have not seen the Story Cubes you are missing out. They have different pictures on each side. You roll them (or shake them in the bag while in the car) then make up your own story. We have split the dice between two bags because we have two rows of seats in our van so each row gets one bag. Look out because imaginations run wild with these fun dice!

In the second box we have dry erase boards of different varieties, some large some small. AquaDoodle -or something equivalent the ones where you have some sort of a brush or writing tool that you fill with water and then “paint” the picture and the design magically appears in different colors. I have found these at the dollar store. Dover Little Activity Books. Small coloring pages all contained in one zip top bag. Colored pencils in a zip bag as well with a pencil sharpener. Small puzzles with magnets on the back. We bring a cookie sheet (not pictured, slid in a tight spot while not in use) to do the puzzle on so the pieces are not flying all over. We cut the magnets that come in the mail or on phone books and hot glued them to the backs of puzzles. Make sure you look at the finished puzzle size on the box to see if it will fit on your cookie sheet. Maybe I know just a little about that from experience!

Other ideas not pictured that we may have in our boxes are books (though these usually are by the seat of each child, age appropriate), stickers (great to put on clothing/bodies/paper), stringing beads…the possibilities are many!

What activities do you keep in your car? Need food ideas? Check out our Triple Travel Snack Bag and food ideas.

Do you have Little Chefs like me who love a variety of snacks, but who do not like them to mix? My Little Chefs have a hard time choosing just one snack. When we are traveling my goal is to keep them happy. Whatever it takes seems to be our motto on a long road trip.

Today we are sharing our Triple Travel Snack Bag that Little Chef H could not put down. This is very simple to construct yet it yields great results.

Ingredients

• 1 locking quart bag
• 3 locking sandwich bags
• duct tape – your choice of color
• scissors

Directions

1. Cut two pieces of duct tape just short of the width of the sandwich size bag. The duct tape is about 1″ wide. Cut both in half so that it is about 1/2″ wide.
2. Attach one piece of duct tape inside one side of the sandwich size bag just above the locking channel. 
3. Attach the other half of the duct tape to another bag on the inside above the locking channel. Repeat so all 3 bags are connected.
4. Cut one more piece of duct tape the width of the quart size bag. Cut in half as before so both pieces are 1/2″ wide.
5. Place the tape on each outside bag just above the locking channel. Tape the three bags inside the quart bag just BELOW the locking channel. That’s it! You should be able to open the quart bag and find three sandwich bags inside ready to be filled.

What do you put in the snack bags? I would suggest you have one Triple Snack Bag for refrigerated items and another Triple Snack Bag for non refrigerated items. Some of our favorite things to have in the car are:

• Bag of grapes
• Cheese sticks
• Peeled orange wedges
• Sliced apples
• Pretzels
• Dried Banana Chips/Dried Fruit
• Nuts
• Raisins
• Veggie Sticks
• Animal crackers
• Nilla Wafers

How about a fun food activity? Make a bracelet or necklace with the items in the bag.

• Cheerios in one bag, fruit loops in another licorice string in another bag.

Additional items that are great in the car:

• Applesauce pouches
• Water Bottles with Pop-up Tops
• Individual boxes of cereal for snacking

One more tip: we LOVE bringing one frisbee per person in the car. They can stack on top of each other for storage, but more importantly when they eat lunch or a snack that is not contained in a bag or cup turn the frisbee upside down to revel edges and will keep the food in the frisbee instead of falling off the sides!

Enjoy your travel trips this summer but make sure to avoid chocolate because it will become very messy in the car. What additional food snacks do you like to have in your car?

Memorial Day is all about grilling! To our family usually it is the beginning of a warm summer and school coming to an end. This year it still means the beginning of summer and grilling season, school however is another matter.

This is a great hands on recipe for Little Chefs. Little Chef A was able to prepare the patties ALL by herself! Combine all the ingredients; ground chuck, kosher salt, pepper, onion powder, grated smoked gouda and worchestershire sauce.

Form the patties using your bread as a guide to the size.  Little Chef A had a GREAT time with this task! She was very careful and made sure each patty had an indentation in the middle so it didn’t puff up as much when Little Chef Dad grilled them. She also loved teaching Little Chef D how to form the patties, who also enjoyed creating them. This surprised me because they usually don’t like getting their hands dirty.

Didn’t she do a great job forming all these patties!

Grill your patties. Warning!!! Because of the smoked gouda you might have flare ups so be careful to keep a close eye. The first time we cooked these we didn’t have flareups. The second time we… I mean I worried with the amount of flames surrounding the patties! Remember sliders are small so they only need about 4 minutes on each side. They are done very quickly!

We served them on Hawaiian Sweet Rolls with ketchup, mustard and lettuce. Choose your toppings, we like to try different breads and condiments like Spicy Fry Sauce.  Serve with fun BBQ sides like Grandma’s Potato Salad and Creamy Cucumbers.

Tip: You may form the patties earlier in the day. Make sure you put plastic wrap between each layer.

We are excited to have a couple awesome co-hosts this week!!! It is just one big PARTY this week!

First up is – Jen at Bakerette!! Head on over to her website  - She has lots of delicious recipes and great ideas for your home and garden!! You can find Jen on the Web at Bakerette - Pinterest - Facebook - Twitter - Google+ -  Stumbled Upon

Next up – Kara over at Simplistically Sassy! Kara is very busy with her 6 kids! We love that she is always keeping things real on her blog! She loves crafting and crocheting. On her blog you will be able to find tutorials, crafts, and everyday great ideas!! Keep up with Kara at Simplistically Sassy – Pinterest – Facebook

Our Favorites from last week’s party  is the Mexican Bruschetta from Couponing & Cooking, and the Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies from Butter, With A Side of Bread!! We will for sure be making this Bruschetta this summer, especially with our garden tomatoes.  And my Little Chefs (and myself!) LOVE cherries, so these cookies are a must try!!

Congrats and be sure to grab a Featured button!

Be sure to follow Five Little Chefs,  Bakerette and Simplistically Sassy to be picked as a Favorite for next week!

Remember our Fantastic Thursday party is now more inclusive, not just recipes! Summer is right around the corner – So, Let’s also see those fun craft and DIY projects!  I can’t wait to see what you all have been up to lately!

Come back next week to see who will be featured.
We will post our favorites to our Featured and Favorites Pinterest board.

Let’s get this party started……….Link up and have fun!!!

Happy National Chocolate Chip Day!! To celebrate the awesomeness of the Chocolate Chip……we of course wanted to make some Chocolate Chip cookies. But, instead of actually cooking them, we wanted to try something even better!!!

Are you like us and eat and eat most of the Cookie Dough batter before the cookies hit the oven? If so, then you gotta try this Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Milkshake!! What a better combo – our favorite chocolate chip cookie dough & our homemade vanilla ice cream!

During the hot summer one of our favorite treats to make is ice cream!! For that reason, we bought – which is now one of our favorite small kitchen appliances – an Ice Cream Maker! We’ve tried vanilla & chocolate ice cream, fresh fruit ice cream – strawberries and peaches (fresh peach ice cream – our FAVORITE – I will post that recipe when fresh peaches are in season!). We have added cookies and candies, and we have on our list to try some yummy fresh sorbet!!

We have found a few tricks with making homemade ice cream – you need to chill or freeze everything before making your ice cream. So the Little Chefs made the Vanilla ice cream base, then put it in the fridge for at least  3 hours before adding to the Ice Cream Maker. We also keep the bowl of the Ice Cream Maker in the freezer at all times. The bowl needs to be frozen before you make your ice cream.

Same rule for the Cookie Dough. We made the cookie dough and placed small bite-size pieces in the freezer. We first put them on a flat sheet and flash froze them for a few minutes – then transfered them to a bowl, covered and froze. We altered our favorite cookie recipe to taste better with the vanilla ice cream, and made a 1/2 batch.

Once everything was nice and cold, or frozen…..the Little Chefs poured the Vanilla ice cream base into the Ice Cream Maker. We let that go for a while, once the ice cream had thickened, we added the frozen pieces of cookie dough. If you let it get too thick, you will need to use a spoon rather than a straw to eat it!

This is now one of my Little Chefs favorite shakes! The cookie dough pieces did get stuck in the straw a couple times, but that did not stop them, or me!! I was hoping they would not finish their shakes, I would have helped them!!

Summertime and warm weather is a perfect time to indulge yourself in some delicious milkshakes. So bust out the ice cream makers and blenders and make up some yummy Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Milkshakes!! Also – check out our Summer Calendar – it is filled with pages of fun ideas and activities for your kids to do this summer!! If you are not a fan of cookie dough, try out our Vanilla Milkshake!

Do you have a leather or pleather coat or purse that you do not want anymore? If the answer is yes then you have the main material for our Embellished Cuff. This is the perfect idea for my Little Chefs because they absolutely LOVE reusing items instead of throwing them away. They are constantly trying to come up with something they can make with items that are not being used anymore. The Embellished Cuff is so fun to make because the possibilities are endless. You can use anything that strikes your fancy.

Ingredients

• leather or pleather coat/purse/belt
• embellishment items such as yarn, DMC thread, rivets, snaps, buttons, brads…
• embellishment tools as needed
• scissors

Directions

1. Cut leather/pleather to desired length and width. If your closure is a snap make sure you add enough overlap when measuring.
   
2. Embellish cuff as you wish.  Little Chef D had fun making a flower pattern as she called it. She first laid out her materials onto of the cuff to get an idea what it would look like. She pushed down on the rivets/scrapbooking snaps to create an impression. Now she knew where to make the holes. She used a Crop-A-Dile to cut out the holes and then to adhere the rivets. I was amazed that she was able to use this tool. She had more success with making the holes then she did with adhering the rivets. I ended up helping her quite a bit with that step. I would suggest using brads instead. We used those for Little Chef H’s cuff and it was SO much easier.
     
3. Create your closure. Snaps are a great option. We had more success with sewing a button on each end and then tied a piece of Elastic Sewing Thread
   to one button and then closed it on the wrist with a back and forth weave. This method was also easier for Little Chef D to remove by herself. She is not very good at snaps on anything.
4. 
5. My Little Chefs do not like anything scratchy so we hot glued a piece of soft fabric to the backside of the cuff to cover the scratchy edges.
   
6. Put on the cuff and enjoy your creation!
   

Tips: The best embellishments we found were the brads and sewing with DMC thread. The purse material for us was thin which made it easy for the Little Chefs to push a needle through it. Belts are a lot thicker and which gives a different appearance but the material is too difficult for Little Chefs as young as mine to work with. We still have more raw materials. My Little Chefs are not done with creating. They really enjoyed this craft!

Summer picnic season is just around the corner. Outdoor BBQ’s, hamburgers and hot dogs, kids playing in the sprinklers, and plenty of Potato Salad. We made this Potato Salad from our Grandma’s recipe. She pretty much makes the perfect Potato Salad (Wow, that was a lot of “P” words!).

Grandma uses good old russet potatoes in her Potato Salad. We however, had red potatoes on hand, so that is what we used in our recipe this time – and we liked it just as much!! Little Chef K rinsed all the potatoes and put them in the pot to start cooking. It took a while, because these were smaller potatoes and she was cleaning each one very well and placing them ever so careful. She is such a good Little Chef!!!

While the potatoes were going, the Little Chefs got the eggs cooking. This was the first time Little Chef E cooked and pealed a hard-boiled egg. He loved cracking and pealing the eggs. But, was then bummed when he could not eat it – So, we made more so he could then eat them!! I love to see my Little Chefs get so excited to eat what they have cooked – we have learned that they are willing to eat and try a lot more things (and like it) when they have cooked it themselves!

So Grandma’s recipe….there really is no recipe. Finally, at one family gathering, my sister and I watched while she made the Potato Salad and wrote down everything as she went. The sauce was a little of this and a little of that, so after a few attempts of measuring out and getting the taste right, we think we figured it out. Little Chef B was in charge of the sauce for the Potato Salad this time around, and did a great job – but did require a shirt change after the pickle juice spilled all over him!

One of the secrets our Grandma told us with Potato Salad, is to make sure you pour the sauce over the cooked and diced potatoes, and coat them well while they are still warm. That way the potatoes soak up the sauce as they cool down. For this reason I do not add all the sauce. I reserve a little bit for after all the other ingredients are added just in case it needs a little more. Then, in go the sweet pickles – which give it a nice, sweet crunch! And the cheese, hard-boiled eggs, and red onions.

After it is all nice and coated with the sauce – stick it in the fridge until ready to serve. This is a yummy Potato Salad that will be a big hit at your next family BBQ or picnic!!  For a nice BBQ recipe that would go great with this salad – try our Tangy BBQ Chicken Marinade, or the Beef Skewers with Cherry Tomatoes and Parsley Sauce.