Super Easy Party Favor

I've had a Superman silicone mold for a while and have wanted to use it but never knew what to use it for. When I was planning Kara's party I knew I wanted to make Supergirl candy for favors! I bought some pink candy melts and started searching for a tutorial. I couldn't imagine that melting chocolate could be hard, but I wasn't sure about using the mold and what I had to do. Turns out it's SUPER easy. I never did find a tutorial, but my sister in law, Kelli, gave me some easy instructions.

There are so many awesome silicone molds out there that the possibilities seem endless. And seeing as how easy this was, I think I might have candy melt favors for every party I throw!

Gather your candy melts and silicone mold. 

Microwave the melts according to the package directions and fill the mold. I used about 2/3 of the package for one tray of candies. I think the candies would have been better if they weren't filled to the top. It was a lot even for me! But back to how I did it. I filled each space halfway with candy. Then I tapped the mold on the counter to get the air bubbles out. Then I filled the molds the rest of the way and tapped the tray again.

**There was one place on my mold (bottom curve of the S) where the candy didn't seem to get inside. After I filled the mold halfway, I would squeeze each candy to make that space bigger so that candy would fill it. It seemed to work okay.

If you have left over candy in your bowl and are going to do more candies, you can just let the melted candy harden again. When you go to make your next batch it softens right up and is good as new! Or you could just eat it straight from the bowl. You know...if you're anything like me.

Place the mold in the freezer for an hour or two. Remove the candy from the mold and you're done!

Seriously...that's all there is to it. 

Winter OIympics 2014

We celebrated a LOT during February. We had Chinese New Year, the Superbowl and the Winter Olympics all in the first week or so! The kids were loving all of the fun stuff we did. I was just loving the food. Just keeping it real.

I decided that I wanted to have a little party to celebrate the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. We made a paper chain out of the Olympic ring colors. I still have a bunch of strips leftover from our snake project from last Chinese New Year, so any time we can use our strips, we do. Here's what we did for Thanksgiving with more strips. And the leaves from Clark's family tree used these strips too!

For dinner we had Russian Blini. Oh. My. Goodness. Can I just say that I was instantly back in Russia when I took the first bite. The phrase for "blini with sweetened condensed milk" is one of the key phrases that I remember in Russian. That's how much I used to order them!! 

We used this recipe and they turned out so yummy. We had many different toppings to use: sweetened condensed milk (my favorite), strawberries, bananas, cream cheese fruit dip, chocolate spread, chocolate almond spread, chocolate hazelnut spread, powdered sugar, and maybe a few more things. I can't remember. It was fun to just try different combinations and see what we liked the best. I stand by my favorite of blini with sweetened condensed milk lightly dusted with powdered sugar on top. Oh, who are we kidding, you just load that thing up with powdered sugar! I won't be waiting until the next Russian Olympic games to make them though!

During the opening ceremonies, we played a little bingo game that I found online. It didn't last long. We really just liked talking about the different countries and guessing how many athletes each one would have. We had the globe out so we could find the different countries and we had google out so we could answer any of those tough questions Clark asked!

Clark really enjoyed the Olympics this year. Everyday he would follow the US on the app and see how many medals we won. He loved watching the videos of all of the new (to him) sports. He thought curling was hilarious. It was so fun to see how much he enjoyed the games. Made me love them more too!

Trying to be Thankful

Like so many people, we're trying to show a little more gratitude this season and here was our first project. Turkeys! We each picked a color for our feathers and wrote something we were thankful for about some of our family members that live nearby.

It was fun to hear what the kids had to say about some of their grandparents and aunts and uncles. We also made some banana bread muffins and delivered them for our family home evening. The next morning when Kent woke up he said, "Can we do turkeys and bags again today?" So cute.

I'm so very thankful for my family!

Let's Make Bread

It's such a good thing that I have overcome my fear of making bread. Clark recently read a book called Let's Make Bread and kept asking if we could make bread just like they did in the book. I love creating text-to-self connections, so I readily agreed! We used our favorite french bread recipe found here. 

He had to read the recipe to make sure we had all of the ingredients and to tell me what step we were on.

The boys were amazed at the power of the Kitchen Aid. Ha!

Flour power

Clark's favorite part - punching the dough!

Shaping the loaf

The best smelling loaves of bread

Next we are going to read the book called Let's Make Cookies! Yay!!

Earth Day 2013

I love Earth Day. I have no idea why. It's just such a great day to enjoy our beautiful Earth. I was so glad when the cold weather broke this year long enough to play outside and have a "picmic" as Kent would say. It wasn't much of a picmic either. We had drinks and some string cheese. But he looks happy enough.

Then he got to run around with Cutlass. She might be getting old, but she still loves to run with Kent.

When Clark got home from school we had to choose one of our beautification projects to work on. His choices were... 1 - The Great American Backyard Clean Up or 2 - Operations Put the Rocks in the Box. His response, "I wish Earth Day was in the winter." He was even getting paid to fill the boxes with rocks which is what we decided to work on.

He spent most of his time picking up roly polies.

We did a little Earth Day dinner. I figured they should try to eat something grown from the earth. So we had strawberries and pineapple with an Orange Creamsicle Fruit Dip which Kent preferred to eat without the fruit. We also had a Chinese Chicken Salad with Sesame Dressing. It was SOOO good. I added some mandarin oranges which made it even better. We ate this salad for two nights...that is unheard of in the Wilde household. We don't do leftovers.

Kent enjoying his toothpicks, or "pickles" as he calls them sometimes.

Clark taking a mean bite out of that yummy strawberry.

We finished the night up with some dirt and worms and Wings of Life, the new Disneynature documentary.

LOVE Earth Day.

Christmas Day

'Twas the Night Before Christmas and everything looked so lovely and neat...

Then all of a sudden there arose such a clatter (named Clark and Kent)...

But oh did they have fun!! Clark was trying out a new method of present opening...in the bag. It was fine until he really couldn't see what the gift was.

Kent was so funny. On Christmas Eve he got the Bears shirt he is wearing. The second he opened it up, he had to put it on. Then on Christmas Day when he got the Angry Birds shirt he did the exact same thing. This was his Angry Birds year.

Jason was very happy about the Wonder Woman vs. Superman statue that the boys and I picked out.

Ahhhh...the aftermath.

After we open gifts at our own houses, we go to Jason's parents to have breakfast and exchange gifts. There is only one word to describe what we feel over there...CHAOS! You don't even get the full effect with this picture. Just a glimpse. 

And there on the outskirts is trusty dad w. with the trash bag. He's reliving those glory days of high school basketball whenever we pass him our trash!

After this gift giving extravaganza, we head home and start putting together our Sweet Potato Casserole for the Christmas dinner. Christmas dinner is over at Jason's Grandma's house. We call her Gram. We all eat and then roll into the front room for more gifts. It's a good thing the kids have a few months before wrapped gifts are marked with their names again.

Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!

Pinned It and Did It

I was going through my Pinterest boards the other day and realized that I've actually done a few things on the boards. So...I thought I'd share!

Magnet Nativity - I found this one on Pinterest, but I decided to create one of my own instead. I used Chelle's Creations Oh Come Let Us Adore Him kit. It was fun and easy to make. I still need put a coat of poly on it, but the majority of work is done. Bring on Christmas!

I made this toothbrush holder from the inspiration here. I made it for our trip to Canada and I think it is one of the most useful things I've made in a long time. LOVE it!

Remember those passport pics? They also turned into dry erase fun for church! Inspiration here (note: the pin only goes to the blog homepage...not the particular post). We had a blast turning the kids into Batman, Wolverine, and funny old guys with moustaches.

Other fun stuff for the road trip...laminated everything. Thanks momsminivan.com and others...I just searched Pinterest for road trip games and found all of these. I didn't actually pin them.

Last night I made Taco Pie (we changed the name since I made it in a pie plate). Clark's verdict, "I love this stuff. Can we have it every night?" Absolutely!

I also made the Brown Sugar Chicken found on Pinterest. It didn't turn out. I am going to try again now that I've learned a few things about chicken in the Crock Pot. Brown Sugar can't be bad.

1 Night Camp

We took the boys camping last weekend - just Friday night. Now if there is anything I hate, it is one night camping. There is so much work and preparation for one silly night. I like to set up camp and use it for a few days. My mom and dad came with us which was a huge surprise for my dad. I guess my mom hasn't slept in a tent since 1982. We didn't go far just over to Blackwell. After a rough start and some poor planning, things finally settled down and we were able to enjoy ourselves.

Clark - always the ham.

Boompa splits wood while Gigi tends to the fire with her battery powered fan. It worked pretty well in the wet morning fire pit.

We had our signature camping breakfast. We have yet to come up with a good name for it. We just call it our Breakfast Skillet. It's a package of hashbrowns, a package of sausage, some eggs and some cheese. Cook it all up and serve. It's pretty good. My dad made his with a southwest flair by adding some salsa.

Kent was so excited that he got to drink soda for breakfast.

Peter Pan Returned

I'm not sure if you've been counting down at your house, but everyday Clark asks me how many days until Monday, February 13th. He's been so excited to see Jake and the Neverland Pirates: Peter Pan Returns. We sat down to watch it and I said, "Wow, Clark are you excited to see this? We've waited such a long time." Clark's reply (with much emotion...almost reverence), "And now it's finally here."

I decided to make a special Family Home Evening for it. Dinner and a movie sort of night. And I had to stretch on the dinner menu since we don't eat seafood. Or at least I don't cook seafood. Blech. What else would a pirate eat?

Dinner: Neverland Haystacks (aka Hawaiian Haystacks)
I'm not sure if you've ever had Neverland Haystacks before (I hadn't before BYU) but they are so good. Start with a bed of rice, add some cooked chicken to some cream of chicken soup on top, then just keep adding the toppings of your choice. We like pineapple, mandarin oranges, corn, cheese, and those crunchy rice noodles on top. Yum! Some people like to add some other colors...we like beige...but you could add peas or celery or broccoli or whatever. Jason used to put sunflower seeds on his, but I always forget to buy those.

Movie time with my favorite boys

Just like their dad...doesn't work well with a flash.

Dessert: None other than a chocolate Tic Toc Croc
My parents brought back this yummy chocolate alligator from the Keys last week and I thought it would be perfect for our Peter Pan night.

The verdict: Clark wants to watch it again tomorrow.