Welcome! I am a mom to two wonderful kids, a lovely retired greyhound, and a wife to a great husband. Needless to say, there are a lot of daily messes to clean up around our house. Daily Messes is my blog to share ideas on things to do with your kids, snack and meal ideas, crafts, and holiday fun. I hope you find something to enjoy!
Showing posts with label Cookies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cookies. Show all posts

Saturday, May 2, 2020

At Home Activities: Cookies

We make so many cookies through the year! We make a bunch for us, hubby's work, holidays, and Christmas delivery to the 11 neighbors on our street. I tried to find all the recipes that I have posted, but I might have missed some, but these hopefully will help you to get you started! :)  It's a great activity to do with the kids! My kids love helping make (and well, mostly taste testing) cookies!

And don't forget cookies (aka biscuits) for your dog! Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Biscuits
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Monday, December 16, 2019

Christmas Time Is Coming Soon!

Oh my gosh! Christmas is in a week and a half! It's been a little crazy around here with school and life in general.  Below are my Christmas ideas for food/drinks, crafts/activities, and gifts. The majority of this post will be from previous years, but if I get caught up and have more ideas, I will update the list.

I hope the Holiday season finds you all happy and well!

ACTIVITIES & FUN:


CRAFTS: 

ELF: Here is the link to my elf post. I update it when I get new ideas.

GIFTS:


FOOD:
    DRINKS:

    SNACKS & APPETIZERS:

         MEAL ITEMS:

        BREAKFAST:

    DESSERTS:
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Christmas Time Is Here Again!

Oh my gosh! Christmas is in a week! If you are running a little behind like I am, here is my list of Christmas themed fun, activities & crafts, food, elf, and gift ideas. I hope the Holiday season finds you all happy and well!

ACTIVITIES & FUN:


CRAFTS: 

ELF: Here is the link to my elf post. I update it when I get new ideas.

GIFTS:
  • St. Nick's Day was 12/6, but there are a lot of stocking stuffer ideas that will work great for Christmas!
  • You've Been Elf'd. Spread a little holiday cheer to your friends and neighbors. We also made and delivered cookies to our neighbors a few days before Christmas last year. They seemed to be a big hit! :)


FOOD:
     DRINKS:

     SNACKS & APPETIZERS:

      MEAL ITEMS:

      BREAKFAST:

   DESSERTS:
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Halloween is Coming!

It's getting closer to Halloween! I love this time of year: the leaves are changing and falling, decorations, and fun food. I love everything except horror movies and haunted houses. I know, it's weird to love Halloween and hate those two things.

The boys are once again really excited, although no costume decisions have been made. I also do not have any decorations up. What?! I really need to get on that. We recently adopted a new dog. She is an amazing retired racing greyhound. I'm trying to convince the boys to do themed costumes with her. We'll see if I succeed. 
I have gotten a few things for the Boo bags, but haven't Boo'd anyone yet. We still have to go to the pumpkin patch, get costumes, put up decorations, carve the pumpkins, and roast the seeds. Oh, and buy lots of candy! If you need any Halloween ideas, I have a bunch below!
 
ACTIVITIES:
  • Coloring Page.
  • Pumpkin Soccer or Bowling. Use a small pie pumpkin as the ball. 
    • Soccer: Split into two teams and create goals (small plastic cones work well). Have kids spider walk (aka crab walk) and kick the pumpkin soccer ball with their feet.
    • Bowling: Make pins from rolls of toilet paper.
      • Ghost pins: Decorate rolls with black paper eyes and mouth.
      • Mummy: Wrap a piece of toilet paper around a roll and add eyes.
      • Witch: Wrap in green tissue paper, add construction paper eyes/nose/mouth, and top with paper hat.
      • Vampire: Add fangs/mouth/eyes, and a black paper cape.
      •  Frankenstein: Wrap in green tissue paper, draw with sharpie or add black paper stitch marks/scars. Add eyes/nose/mouth.
FOOD:
    • Dog Treats: Pumpkin Dog Treats (I'm going to make a batch of these for J and use a pumpkin cookie cutter.)

CRAFTS:
TIPS:

Some of my Fall Fun links work great for Halloween too!

 OTHER FUN LINKS: (Links are external links, not to DailyMesses.)
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, August 18, 2017

It's Almost Time for the Eclipse!!

I love eclipses of any kind and meteor showers. I'm the crazy one who stays up late or gets up early to see the event, even if I have to be wrapped up in blankets. I try to capture it on camera, mostly missing the meteors, but I have gotten one or two. The last lunar eclipse I managed to get a few fuzzy pictures, and I dragged the kids up a hill for the last partial solar eclipse. It was really cloudy that day, so we didn't really get to see it very long. So, of course, I am really excited about the eclipse on Monday. We are not in the totality path, only about 92-93% coverage, but I am still really excited.
Ok, not a solar eclipse. But it is the last lunar eclipse where I took a decent enough picture!

One of my favorite memories of grade school is making a solar eclipse viewer. I think it must have been for a partial eclipse. The memories of making the viewer and seeing it, have stuck with me through the years. I wish the boys' school was doing something for the event, but unfortunately only the older grades are allowed to view it. The rest of the school will have indoor recess with blinds drawn, although they can watch it on NASA's live streaming site.

Luckily, I already had my solar eclipse glasses. They are sold out everywhere around here and online prices have skyrocketed. If you still want to experience the eclipse, but can't find any eclipse glasses, you can make your own viewer. There are two different types: the shoebox viewer and the pinhole viewer. Both will work, you just need to have foil and a shoebox for the one, and only white cardboard or thick paper for the other. Here are some sites with great instructions on how to make them: Shoebox viewer instructions, Pin hole viewer.

FUN ECLIPSE SNACKS:
If you are having a viewing party (or like me, just want an excuse to have some extra sweets), here are a few cute snacks ideas:
  • Galaxy Cookies: Similar to my Christmas swirl cookies, but use blue and white dough. You could also lightly brush the outside of the chilled cookie dough with water, roll in purple/blue/white nonpareil sprinkles, slice, and bake, for an extra fun cookie.
  • The sun or moon is pretty easy to add in icing or fondant to a cookie, cupcake, or cake.
  • Cut fruits and veggies into star or moon shapes.
  • The moon is made of cheese, right? Have cheese slices or make a cheese pizza (for your meat lovers, add pepperoni "craters").
  • Make solar themed chocolates (sun, moon, stars, etc.). Amazon has some cute molds (stars/moon, star candies, star lollipops, sun glasses aka eclipse glasses) although local craft stores like Michael's and JoAnn Fabrics usually have star molds.
  • Galaxy/Eclipse Popcorn: Similar to the Valentine's Candied Popcorn, but use a mix of blues, purple, black, and white candy melt/chocolates. Use star, moon, and sun shaped sprinkles, or even just yellow sprinkles for the sun.
  • Chocolate dipped Oreos (regular or mini sized). I'm working on dipping them today. I plan on making a display out of them: full sun (all yellow Oreo), partial eclipse (half yellow, half black Oreo), 90% eclipse (since that's about what we'll see), full eclipse (all black dipped Oreo).
  • Instead of Oreos, you could also do it with round pretzels. Dip pretzel in melted chocolates or Candy Melts, set on wax paper, fill in the hole using a spoon or piping bag.
  • Sugar cookies. It's hard to go wrong with cookies! You could made sun shaped cookies, moon shaped cookies, earth themed cookies, half yellow/half black cookies for the eclipse. There are so many options! And now I want cookies...
  • Pancakes: Pipe pancakes in the shape of a sun (circle with rays).
  • Easy Solar system themed foods (anything with sun, moon, orbit, galaxy, etc. might work):
    • CapriSun
    • SunnyD
    • Sunkist
    • Eclipse Gum
    • Milky Way candy bars
    • Sun Chips
    • Starbursts
    • Moonpies
    • Sunflower seeds
    • Sun-Maid Raisins
    • Skybar candy bar
    • Space Goldfish (They used to have a space themed Goldfish, but I'm not sure if they still make it.)
    • Freeze Dried/Astronaut ice cream (Amazon has on Prime, but can also find in camping section of stores and in some museum gift shops. I've even seen it at Michael's Crafts!)
    • Ice cream: I've heard of Moon ice cream and Blue Moon ice cream.
    • Krispy Kreme's Eclipse Donut, available Monday 8/21.
    • Babybel cheese: peel off part of the wrapper.
    • Mini Chips Ahoy: I think these kind of look like the moon with chocolate chip craters.
    • Stretching it a little here, but Mars candy bars.
  • Adults only: Blue Moon or Corona beer

FUN:
  • ECLIPSE WORD FIND 
  • Higgins was worried about still seeing the sun over the top of his glasses. I made him a face mask for the glasses out of a thick paper plate. I saw the idea on Facebook, and I think it will work out great! (see picture below for instructions)
  • I thought it would be fun (and educational) for the boys to have an observation sheet for the eclipse in case they got to see it. I couldn't find exactly what I wanted online, so I made one this morning!
Some of my favorite sites:
NOTE: If you are lucky enough to be able to watch the eclipse, never look at the sun without the special eclipse glasses or eclipse filters for cameras/telescopes/binoculars.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)