It's Time for Hearts! (Valentine's Day)

It's hard to believe January is just about over and February is almost here. Valentine's Day is coming soon!  

I don't get any requests for homemade Valentines now that the kids are getting older. However, they still enjoy the Valentine's Day treats I make them. Normally, they get a small gift and some candy. I usually make a treat for the holiday as well (themed cookies, candies, pudding...) If you want any ideas, I have a list of Valentines, Food, Crafts, Gift, and Activity ideas below. If I come up with any new ones, I'll update the list!

HOMEMADE VALENTINE'S:

• Minecraft Valentine's Day Boxes 
• Heart Crayon Valentines
• Candied Popcorn Bags, "I'm popping with happiness that you're my Valentine". One year I attached a Valentine themed bag full of candied popcorn to a store bought Valentine.
• Use potato stamps to make a hearts on a homemade card. (Use a small heart cookie cutter to cut out the shape.)
• Play-Doh Heart ornaments/necklaces
• Make Heart Shaped Chalk
• Hot Air Balloon: it could even have a picture of your child in the basket. "Your friendship lifts me up."
• Butterfly Pencil
• Bubbles with a Valentine's Day themed note like "Your friendship makes me bubbly".
• S'more Kit (marshmallow, graham cracker squares, piece of chocolate), "Your friendship makes me feel mushy inside".
• Goldfish or gummy fish in a fishbowl shaped baggie with a "school" type of message. The pre-made bags can be hard to find and making the bags can be a little time consuming (click for directions). If you use a regular bag, you can cut a bowl shape piece of paper, write the message and place behind the fish.
• Other non-candy ideas: clementines, cars, glow sticks/bracelets/necklaces ("Your friendship brightens my day"). The dollar store or dollar bins at Target or Michael's are great to find little treasures in.
• Hanging Stained Glass Card with "stained glass" made from wax paper and crayons.
• Easy Stained Glass Heart with contact paper and tissue paper.
• "I know I'll go far/succeed with you as my friend" type of message with a goodie bag of school gear: pencils, erasers, goldfish bag, ruler, markers, stickers, etc. The dollar store or dollar bins at Target or Michael's are great to find themed pencils and erasers.

CRAFTS:

• Love Monsters and Bugs
• Heart Magnet and Bookmark Crafts
• Footprint Hearts (great for little kids)
• Stained Glass Valentine
• Play-Doh Hearts
• Valentine's Day Coloring Page
• Heart Bird Feeder
• Bouquet of egg carton flowers.  Works as a craft, decorations, and could also be a Valentine (write on the petals or leaves, use single flowers or make a bouquet...).

ACTIVITIES:

• Valentine's Day BINGO
• The Sky Is Falling, using heart shapes.
• Valentine's Day Word Find
• Heart Shaped Valentine's Day Word Find
• Valentine's Day Memory Game

FOOD:

• Hidden Surprise Poundcake. I made this for St. Patrick's Day, but if you substitute a heart for the clover, it would be great for Valentine's Day!
• Valentine's Day Cake Pops
• Valentine's Day Parfaits
• Easy Valentine's Day Lunch
• Candied Popcorn. Place in little Valentine's Day themed bags and they make a great Valentine's Day treat!
• Heart Peanut Butter Cookies
• Pie Jars
• Layered Jello
• Ice Cream Sandwiches, rolled in red/pink/purple, heart sprinkles
• Fondue
• Valentine's Day Candy

GIFTS: *

• Valentine's Day Gifts For Kids
• Unique Valentine's Day Gifts
• Last Minute Valentine's Day Gifts
• I even saw an ad for beef jerky flowers and a 10 day preserves gift box! 

PETS:

• The boys like to help make the Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Biscuits for our greyhound. We use heart, star, and pumpkin cookie cutters to make the shapes. 
• Gift ideas for Pets
• I also saw a Valentine's Day heart shaped box of treats for dogs at Target ($9).  

What are some of your favorite homemade Valentines and treats?

*If you buy an item on Amazon using the links, I may receive a small commission for the referral. It does not affect your cost at all! If you want, you can read my Disclosure page for a little more information.

Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Biscuits

About 7 months ago, we adopted a retired greyhound. She is an amazing dog. She fits in with our family so well. The boys love playing fetch with her and teaching her new tricks. She motivates me to take walks everyday.

I wanted to try my hand at making dog treats because, well...she's a little spoiled. I wanted to try making something fun for her and also so I control the ingredients of her treats. Some of the store bought treats had recalls, some had additives that weren't really good for her, and the grain free treats are more expensive.

Why grain free treats? Before we adopted her, I did some research on what the best diet/food was for a greyhound. While there were a lot of options, wheat/corn free seemed to be the main consensus (other than continue eating raw). Although diet restrictions aren't completely new to us (our bridge girl could only tolerate eating Iams or she had massive stomach issues), raw was not the way for us to go (for a lot of reasons). So, we decided to go with a mostly wheat/corn free diet. Although her food is grain free, she does occasionally gets treats that are made with flour.

After playing around with a few different recipes, I created a peanut butter and pumpkin dog biscuit. It is definitely one of her favorite treats. The recipe is made with brown rice flour, although I have made the recipe with half whole wheat flour and half brown rice flour. I think you could also use all whole wheat flour. They store really well in the freezer (I layer and cover in wax paper in a plastic container). As soon as she hears the freezer open, she now comes running!

Because she loved them so much, we made extra batches at Christmas and gave them out to our friends with dogs!
 

PEANUT BUTTER PUMPKIN DOG BISCUITS

www.DailyMesses.com

You will need:

• 2 1/2 cups brown rice flour
• 1 tablespoon flax seed
• 5 to 6 tablespoons water
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter (NO Xylitol, it's fatal to dogs!)
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree (not sweetened or seasoned). You can add another 1 teaspoon if the dough is too dry.

Directions:

1. Mix ingredients together. Start with 5 tablespoons water. It is a dry dough. However, if you can't get the dough to stick together, add either 1 tablespoon of water or another 1 teaspoon of pumpkin puree. I found the best way to work with the dough was to mix dry ingredients together with a fork, then add in the peanut butter, pumpkin and water. Mix with fork, then switch to mixing and pushing the dough together with your hands. It comes together better using your hands to mix/squish the dough together than just using a fork. (The top of the picture below shows what just mixing the dough with a fork looks like (crumbly), bottom of picture shows when mix/squish together with your hands.)
   
   
2. Roll out. I found it easiest to shape dough into a ball and then roll out on parchment paper.
3. Cut out shapes and place on a cookie sheet. I used all kinds of cookie cutters to make the shapes (rabbit, squirrel, dog bone, heart for Valentine's Day, pumpkin for Halloween/Thanksgiving, star and mini tree for Christmas, oval for Easter eggs, mini flowers for Spring or Easter).
4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. Flip over. Bake another 5-10 minutes or until dry.
5. Cool completely. Store in an airtight container.  I like to keep a few out and then freeze the rest. She likes them frozen as well.

Optional:

• You can decorate these with carob (while it looks like chocolate, it is not toxic like chocolate is) or yogurt chips.
•  These make cute gifts! I stamped names into the treats before they baked. I also decorated a few with carob. I placed in baggies and gave them out at Christmas.

Click here for a PDF printable recipe!
NOTE: I'm trying out adding a link for the PDF to make printing easier. Please let me know if it doesn't work and I can try something else!

*If you buy an item using the links, I may receive a small commission for the referral. It does not affect your cost at all! If you want, you can read my Disclosure page for a little more information.

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:

• It's Time To Boo! (Boo Bags). Also has non-food ideas which are great for The Teal Pumpkin Project!
• Halloween Tic Tac Toe.
• Feed The Monster Game (also a craft).
• Spooky Storytimes. Many local libraries and bookstores have Halloween themed story times! The link has some of my favorite Halloween books so you can make your own story time too!
• Scare Up Some Cookies. We had a friend over to decorate Halloween cookies. It was lots of fun.
• It's A Spooky Glow Party. Halloween cookies that glow in the dark!
• Halloween Bingo. Great for when you are the one stuck at home handing out the candy!
• Pumpkin Patch and Pumpkin Picking. Every year we go with friends to the pumpkin patch and let the kids pick out a pumpkin. We usually end up at the farm's store eating apple fritters or apple cider donuts. It's a great time! (See Food below for my apple cider donuts recipe!) 
• Haunted Gingerbread House. Why should Christmas have all the fun?
• Halloween Scavenger Hunt.
• Halloween Crossword Puzzle. 
• Halloween Word Find.
• Halloween Mazes:
• Candy Time
• Monster Time
• Pumpkin
• Maze

• 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:

• SNACKS & DESSERTS:
• Apple Cider Donuts.
• Witchy Pretzels.
• Pumpkin Oreo Cookies.
• Candy Corn Jello.
• Ghost Brownies.
• Jello Worms.
• Cookies and Monster Donuts. (Frankenstein, Eyes, and Spider cookies)
• Candy Corn Brownies.
• Roasted Pumpkin Seeds. We roast the seeds every year after carving the pumpkins. The kids love eating them!
• Frankenstein Cups. Super cute Frankenstein snack holders made from green ice cream cones, pretzels and candy!
• Rice Cereal Ghosts, Frankensteins, and Mummies! Great if you love Halloween and Rice Cereal Treats!
• Haunted Parfaits.
• Monster Apples. These are a great snack! For an extra sweet tooth, add a fruit roll-up or fruit leather tongue. You could also dip in chocolate and add candy eyes. (TIP: slice apples, soak in lemon water for a few minutes, dry off really well. Dip in chocolate, place on wax paper to let chocolate set. If you are going to store them in the refrigerator, let them set up in the fridge as the chocolate will harden faster.
• Caramel Apples.
• Jack O'Fruit Bowls.
• Pumpkin Dip. Great at Thanksgiving, but works well with pumpkin theme at Halloween too!
• Rainbow Cupcakes. We made these for St. Patrick's Day, but they will work great for a Candy Corn Halloween cupcake too! Use a white cake mix/recipe. Divide batter into 3 bowls. Color 1/3 of batter yellow, 1/3 orange, leave 1/3 white. Layer the different colors in the cupcake pan and bake according to box/recipe directions. (Link to post has more detailed directions.)
• Spider Suckers.
• Monster Eggs.
• Orange and Pepper Pumpkins.
• Candy Corn Spiral Cookies. See my Christmas Swirl Cookies post for directions. Instead of using red coloring or Christmas, use orange or yellow food coloring in half the dough. If you are really ambitious, divide the dough in thirds and color 1/3 yellow, 1/3 orange, and leave 1/3 white. Or use fun colors like purple, lime green, black, and orange and make Tie Dye cookies.

• DRINKS:
• Have your Cider and eat the cup too! Use an apple to create an edible cup!
• Mommy's Little Helper. WARNING: This is an alcoholic drink. BONUS: It looks super spooky with dry ice!
• Witches Potion.
• Eyeball Ice Cubes.
•  MEAL IDEAS:
• Breakfast: 
• Ghostly Toast. Check out my Egg in Toast post, but use egg whites instead of a regular egg. Use a ghost cookie cutter to cut out the shape to make it Halloween themed! If you don't have a ghost cutter, scramble an egg, and use a pumpkin cookie cutter!
• Pumpkin Face Pancakes. Easy Halloween themed breakfast: decorate pancakes with whipped cream, berries, and candy corn.
• Pumpkin Face Oatmeal. Easy Halloween themed breakfast: Add banana slices and blueberries for eyes, candy corn for teeth.
•  If you don't feel like making breakfast, IHOP has their Scary Face pancakes going on right now. Kids get a free pancake 10/31 from 7am to 10 pm! (See link for locations and details.)
• Lunch or Dinner:
• Haunted Shepherd's Pie.
• Ghoul Burgers.
• Mummified Hot Dogs.
• What's For Dinner Mummy? Mummy meatloaf, with recipe.
• Mummy Mini Pizzas. Super easy to make with English Muffins!
• The Not So Spooky Lunch. You can carve a jack o' lantern face into almost anything (apple halves, radishes). If you have a ton of extra time, cut large carrot into round slices. Trim the top to form a pumpkin with a stem.
• Pumpkin Soup.
• Attack of the Monster Veggies.
• Pumpkin Sloppy Joes.

• Dog Treats: Pumpkin Dog Treats (I'm going to make a batch of these for J and use a pumpkin cookie cutter.)

CRAFTS:

• Erasable Pumpkin (Chalkboard Paint).
• Feed The Monster Game.
• Spider Web Placemats.
• Toilet Paper Witches Boot.
• Attack of The Play-Doh Spiders. A little time consuming, but a bit hit. Great for school parties or Halloween goodie bags!
• Ghosts and Spiders using egg cartons.
• Pumpkin Pots. Easy pumpkin decorations using a clay pot and a sharpie. If you have green pipe cleaners, it just adds to the fun!
• Pumpkin Stained Glass. Easy craft with tissue paper and contact paper.
• Ghostly Handprints. Great for a craft or a card to send to family!
• Pumpkin cards.
• Pumpkin Boats. We made these for Talk Like a Pirate Day, but they work for Halloween too!
• Pumpkin Carving Alternatives.
• Sweep Your Way Into A Snack. Broomstick bags: great for decorations or goodie bags!
• Gourd Lighting (a pumpkin candle holder).
• Toilet Paper Roll Monster.
• Pumpkin Toilet Paper Roll.
• Monster Time Craft.
• Homemade Tombstones. I am not good at cutting out shapes from wood, so I used cardboard. These are not waterproof though!
• Spooky Bushes! Cut eye shapes in the side of an empty toilet paper roll. Cover one open end completely with a dark tape to keep the light from escaping out the sides. Duct tape works great. Insert activated glow stick. Tape open end closed. Place in yard for Halloween spooky effects. Last year I placed in the bushes and by the gravestones. TIP: Use the thicker glow sticks to get the most light. I used a few glow bracelets and they did not work as well.
• Easy Halloween Luminaries (stencils included). 

TIPS:

• My list of Best and Worst Halloween Treats.
• Trick or Treat, Halloween Safety.
• For an easy Halloween treat, push suckers into a pumpkin (or drill holes into a craft pumpkin to reuse again). Kids can take the one they want and you simply refill when it gets low.

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

OTHER FUN LINKS: (Links are external links, not to DailyMesses.)

• Directions for a BB8 pumpkin.
• Pumpkin Stencils from PicMonkey. (I love this photo editing site!)
• Leaf Ghosts. 
• Edible Jack O'Lantern Ice Cream Bowls. (I really want to try these!)
• Marble Mini Pumpkins (with nail polish)
• Spider Webs (made from black trash bags!) 
• What are some of your fun ideas/traditions for Halloween? Share in Comments!