Goldfish Marshmallow Pops: Photo Tutorial

A few weeks ago I spotted this fun idea to make a goldfish marshmallow pop on Pinterest from a super cute goldfish themed birthday party. I saved the idea to make for my bug's preschool class for an end of the summer treat. **Please forgive the non-uniform nature of these photos, I tried using my i-phone and will stick with my actual camera from now on.**

Here are the step-by-step photos:

Everything you need: blue candy melts, goldfish crackers, large marshmallows, graham crackers, white pearl sprinkles, and lollipop sticks

Get your candy melts ready to go! I prefer to melt them in a glass bowl. I like to start the melting process in the microwave for 30 seconds and then switch to a slower melt in a simmering water bath

This is how they look after they start to melt in the microwave. Stir well and add to your water bath - this can be an electric frying pan or regular pan on the stove over low heat with about an inch of water in it

After the candy is melted, it will likely still be a bit thick (when you stir, you can see the peaks/swirls stay in the chocolate as above). You don't want to try dipping your marshmallows when it's still this thick as it will clump and be really heavy on your pop. You can thin the chocolate by adding a drizzle of vegetable or canola oil. This will not alter the flavor and will thin it out perfectly. Just add a tiny bit, stir thoroughly, then add more if needed

This is how you want your chocolate to look when you are ready to dip...thin and smooth

I used the bite sized graham crackers - about 1 cup - and finely ground them in my mini processor

You want it to be nice and "sandy" in consistency

Set up all your decorations - goldfish, pearls, and graham cracker crumbs

Dip the end of the lollipop sticks into the melted chocolate and then stick into the marshmallows. Let the chocolate harden to help stabilize the pops

Dip your pop into the melted chocolate and shake off all the excess so you have a thin, even coating

Coat the bottom of the pop with the graham cracker crumbs by gently tapping the bottom into the bowl and rolling the sides in the crumbs to coat the bottom third of the pop

Press a goldfish cracker into the melted chocolate - it should stick without difficulty

Add two pearl sprinkles to look like bubbles coming from the goldfish's mouth

Place the pops on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. You can place them in the fridge for 5-10 minutes to harden the chocolate faster if you want

Final product!

Party Inspiration: Red Sox Bridal Shower

As I was on a blogging hiatus, I never posted about the planning and execution of my little sister's bridal shower. For years (long before she ever got engaged!), I knew I wanted to honor her love of the Red Sox and throw her a baseball themed shower. Once the question was popped and she started planning the wedding, she decided on hot pink and yellow as the color scheme. Taking my idea and her colors, I worked tirelessly to create a shower with ideas and decorations essentially coming from scratch as nothing was readily available pre-made and I didn't want to spend a fortune hiring someone from Etsy to do the dirty work for me. I am putting these photos out there because I hope my ideas will help inspire someone else someday...

Details

My cricut machine and "Sure-Cuts-A-Lot" programs were working overtime creating these custom Boston Red Sox "B"s in various sizes to decorate the gift table and outdoor seating area. Tiny "B"s adorned photos of the happy couple (and family!) at Fenway - these were coupled with fresh flowers in inexpensive bowl vases as table centerpieces.

Cricut Boston Red Sox "B"s

Party set-up in the backyard. Paper lanterns from Hobby Lobby.

Simple Centerpieces.
Glass vases for less than $1 at AC Moore. Flowers from Sam's Club. Hot Pink pearls from Michael's. 

Menu

I created a baseball/Boston themed menu featuring snacks/appetizers you'd find in a ballpark and a dinner menu straight from the North End. I added a flare to the menu by stamping it with a baseball stamp (the same I used to seal the invites) and embossing it for extra sparkle.

Snacks: "Fenway Franks" (pigs in a blanket), jumbo soft pretzels, buttered popcorn (in handmade paper treat cones), peanuts, and Cracker Jacks

Dinner: Tossed Salad with Olive Garden style dressing, caprese salad, bread and butter, baked ziti, and eggplant parm

Handmade Menu

Paper treat cones

Dessert

For dessert, I ordered a custom cake from a local baker. Unfortunately, this did not turn out as I had hoped. The baker did not take the appropriate notes during our meeting and had to change the entire cake last minute which resulted in (almost) the right design, but with shoddy decorations that were airbrushed instead of actual frosting mixed to the right color. I have liked this bakery in the past, but will not be using them again as I was very particular in my requests, brought a photo of the cake I wanted, and pointed out other cakes in the store that were done in the colors I wanted for the cake. 

My mom made chocolate dipped marshmallow pops and I made baseball cake pops to fit the theme as well. I also made a beautiful fresh fruit salad served in a trifle dish (not pictured). 

Baseball Cake

Dipped marshmallow pops

Baseball cake pops

Living Decorations

As an added touch to carry through the baseball theme, I made custom "team" shirts for all the bridal party members. All t-shirts and iron-on decorations were from Hobby Lobby. 

I'm going to ignore how unflattering this photo is of me to show the shirts...front of the t-shirts featured our names and a rhinestone number.

The back of the shirts featured the "Team Bride" logo and the "title" of the bridal party member - my bug's had a rhinestone iron-on for "flowergirl".

So that's it! I hope my work and ideas help someone planning a girly baseball themed party out:-)

My Pinterest Love Affair

I admit it, I'm in love with Pinterest. I adore having a more organized way to save crafts and party inspirations - it is SO much easier to follow a link represented by a photo to retrieve an idea than looking through a list of obscure text links. Most of all, the OCD organization freak in me (she has REALLY surfaced since I finished residency and have more time to breathe) has been making the most of Pinterest to help with my recipe filing and weekly meal planning. I shuffle recipes between boards titled "Recipes to Try", "Favorite Recipes", and "This Week" to make the most of my tech savvy recipe box.

Any recipe I come across and want to try out gets dumped onto the "try it" board. After I've made the dish once I decide if it's a keeper (or not!) and either shuffle it to the favorites board or delete the pin (so I'm not tricked into making it again if it was a dud!). My favorite organizational use for Pinterest is my "This Week" board where I plan meals, snacks, lunches, breakfasts, etc that I plan to make the following week. It takes some time to put it together, but it gives me easy access to all the recipes for grocery lists and they are easy to find when I'm in the kitchen cooking.

Tonight I made this delicious salad I pinned from Iowa Girl Eats. This will be make it's way onto my favorites board:

Summer Fruit and Grain Salad 

with local fresh grown blueberries, tomatoes, basil, mint, and green leaf lettuce.

Catch-up

In the past 7 months my posting has been sporadic at best, so I'm going to try to very briefly turn personal for a few minutes and explain what's been going on. Oddly enough, just when I finished residency and thought I'd have more time to blog (something I really enjoy) things got messy. I couldn't put words to what I was going through and couldn't ignore it, so I just didn't say anything at all. Now, with some perspective I'm ready to let it all out. To force myself to keep the shortest format possible, here's my recap of the past 9 months:

November - First full month home as a "stay at home mom" between residency and my new job. The good was that I found out I was pregnant (very carefully planned and intended, right on schedule). The bad was that I was struggling with being home full time and found bug and I didn't know what to do with so much time together (she was becoming spoiled and bratty and I was becoming restless).

December - First month at my new job and bug's return to daycare. The good was that I LOVED going back to work and bug and I were much more appreciative of each other (plus the holidays and all those other fun December things). The bad was that I ended up in the ER (first time as a patient, not a doctor) and found out I was having a miscarriage. I handled it well at the time, but slowly decompensated over the following months.

January - The good was that I continued to be happy at my job, bug readjusted to daycare and things with my body were slowly returning to normal. The bad was that I became obsessed with trying to predict periods, ovulation, etc and started to put pressure on myself to get pregnant again.

February - The bad was the first half of the month when I took multiple pregnancy tests that came out negative and became irrationally MORE frustrated as I felt out of control of my body. Outside my little bubble, my mother-in-law was having health concerns as well which made me feel even worse that I was upset about something minor and "normal" with myself when she was going through a much scarier time. The good was that we took our first "just us" vacation to the Great Escape Lodge indoor waterpark and the end of the month I found out I was pregnant again! 

March - The bad was that I started having similar symptoms to the last time I miscarried and ended up as an emergency fit in at the OB office. On ultrasound they couldn't see the baby and presumed I had another miscarriage. For a week I was absolutely miserable, convinced we would never have another child and worried that something was wrong with me. The good was that when I went back for one week follow-up they DID see the heartbeat and things leveled out and normalized (no idea why I bled or why they didn't see the baby the first time). Other good things included my mother-in-law having a successful surgery with a good outcome, my wonderful husband turning 30, fun celebrations related to that, and a new baby being born in the family-)

April - The bad was that I was still a nervous wreck and worried that the pregnancy was going to "disappear" again. Unlike my first pregnancy when we talked about it all the time and started making baby name lists, we barely mentioned it as if our silence would somehow protect the little embryo as it grew. The good was that our big bug turned 3! and as I neared the end of the first trimester we finally became more confident that things were OK and told our family the news.

May and June - No big "bad" events for us (a close relative had a repeat of my December though which stunk). My practice was growing and growing, bug was happy and healthy, and bunny bunny (nickname given to the baby by our bug) has continued to grow. We finally started to feel confident that the baby is well after a handful of ultrasounds and lots of activity that I started being able to feel at 17 weeks.

July - A really great and busy month for us - family vacations and picnics and parties, taking bug to her first Phish show, I turned 30 (yikes!), and pregnancy is still treating me well as I near the third trimester.

So that's it! In retrospect it sounds a bit less dramatic than going through it was (which is good!). Now I can file all the "bad" away as life experience and am ready to go forward as a happier and stronger person... 

Recipe: Dessert Pizza

I haven't been on my blog in awhile (I'll talk about what's been up in a later post), but as there was interest in this recipe when I posted a picture on facebook I figured I'd throw up the details for anyone who wants to try it out.

The crust can be any of the following baked as a circle on a pizza pan or as a rectangle on a cookie sheet: brownie mix, crescent rolls, or sugar cookie.

Bake and cool the crust of your choice. While it's cooling, mix together 8oz light cream cheese at room temperature, 1tsp vanilla extract, and 1/4-1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar (add more or less depending on how sweet you want the spread to be).

Top with any sliced fruits of your choice. Some suggestions are:

1. "Crowd pleaser" as above - strawberries, bananas, kiwis, raspberries

2. "Ice cream sundae" - Strawberries, bananas, crushed pineapple, walnuts, and melted chocolate swirl

3. "Celebrate the 4th" - bake as a rectangle and use blueberries, bananas, and strawberries to replicate the stripes and stars of the American flag

Also try blackberries, mandarin oranges, peach slices, and/or halved grapes for a different twist!

Ugly cookies

I found this recipe on pinterest a few weeks ago and have tried everything to make them "look right", but nothing has worked. They are hideous, but delicious.

Comfort in a dish

This is my mother-in-law's ham and scalloped potatoes. Quite possibly one of the most comforting, rich, creamy meals to eat when it's cold outside or you need some cheering from the inside out. If I could eat this and my mom's chicken Kiev with mushroom sauce every night without gaining 100lbs I would...

Party Hat Cat

This is a rough prototype for my fabric party hats for bug's birthday party modeled by the lovely moe. the cat.

So far this is a cheap dollar store party hat wrapped in fabric (secured with hot glue) with ribbon ties. The Mickey head was cut with my Cricut machine. These will also have tulle pom poms when complete.

Snuggle time

Ignore the poor quality of the photo due to low lighting. What this photo shows is a moment that is becoming more and more rare as the days go by - a peaceful toddler and a mommy taking the time to enjoy it.

Ribbon topiary

These are still a work in progress as I haven't finished the bases they will be "planted" in yet, but they are fun enough to share.

These were a very cheap, but time consuming project:

2 styrofoam cones - $2.00 (dollar tree)
Assorted ribbon - $8.00 (various craft stores)
Pins - $1.00 (dollar tree)

Each took about 5 hours total to make, but it wasn't tedious as I worked about 1-2 hours at a time while watching tv or movies after the bug went to bed.

Snaaaaake!

From the Kid's Expo at the Empire State Plaza...

We've got ears....

...say cheers!

Handmade Mickey and Minnie ears for the bug's THIRD birthday party coming up in just over a month based on the tutorial found here

One a Day for March

I tried the blogger "one a day" post project last year and was (kinda) close to successful. As I have about a million projects I am working on right now (and finally have an i-phone which makes picture taking and uploading so much easier) I've decided to do one photo a day for March. Some photos will come with recipes or tutorials and others might just be for fun.

Enjoy!

Elmo cupcakes

Monster Mix

In my 33 month post I mentioned that bug's tantrums recently have centered around our denial of junk food. I found myself in one of these situations yesterday morning when I was attempting to get us out of the house. Bug spotted the jar of M&Ms and immediately asked for some. As I prepared to weather the storm that was sure to hit, an inspiration struck me. What if I could weave the perfect web of distraction, substitution, and entertainment that would get her to eat a healthier snack and avoid the tantrum that would delay our departure? From thus was born...Monster Mix!

Not taking the time to deny bug's candy request I eagerly asked her if she'd like a totally awesome, fun, cool snack that she had never had before?! But wait! It's so cool that it's a surprise! and she has to leave the kitchen because she can't see it! Wide eyed and beside herself with excitement she stood in the doorway asking, "Can I see it yet? Is it ready??" Quickly I filled a ziplock bag with a haphard assortment of pantry staples, gave the bag a shake, and presented her with her first ever bag of monster mix.

Want to make your very own monster mix? Just toss together 1/4 - 1/2 cup (or a small handful) of at least 4 different snacks and toss with a few "treat items". Ours included: pretzel sticks, mini wheat thins, whole grain goldfish, Cheerios, raisins, and a tablespoon of M&Ms. She was so excited about the assortment that she ate everything else and left more than half the M&Ms in the bag.

Mission accomplished!

33 months

It is so hard to believe that my little bug is already almost THREE years old. The past few months have been an adjustment for all of us as I've gone from working too many hours, not working enough hours, to finding a fit that's juuuuust right. If you were a fly on the wall at our house these days, this is what you might see:

• Bug went from resisting potty training full force to completely potty trained day and night in a matter of days. It was like a flip switched and she was done with diapers.


• Tantrums are back with a vengence, but with the added twist of insanity. Bug can be the sweetest, most adorable little angel one second and a raging lunatic screaming, scratching, and drooling on everything the next. The tantrums can come out of nowhere and last from seconds to minutes with absolutely no way of predicting the outcome ahead of time. They are crazier than ever before because of the fury with which she carries them out.


• Bug is obsessed with the "If you give a mouse/pig/moose/dog/ect" books and we read at least two of them every day.


• We all got extrememly spoiled over the holidays with free access to sweets, but bug is having a hard time getting back to healthy snacks and most of the tantrums (see above) start out with a request for chocolate/candy/cookies that is denied.


• Bug likes for us to tell her real stories (her favorites are "when bug was born" and "disney worlds"), but they have to be the same every single time. I realized this is because she memorizes them and then tells them back to us or to her dolls when she is putting them to bed.


• Everything happened "yesterday" when she tells a story. Whether it was three hours ago or three months ago, it happened yesterday.


• Bug has her Daddy's memory for song lyrics and knows nearly all the words to Phish's Joy and My Sweet One, moe.'s She Sends Me, and Life's a Happy Song from the new Muppet movie (in addition to countless Christmas and kid songs).


• Bedtime is generally not good these days. We have moved bug out of the toddler bed and into a twin bed because she wants Daddy or I to lay in bed with her reading and telling stories for 30-90 minutes every night. We've tried "letting her cry it out", thus far all that has resulted in is a very angry kid and all toys/clothes that she can reach being piled in the center of her floor. It's a work in progress...

I could probably add about a dozen more bullet points, but I think I've hit the high (and low) points of 33 months. I think her Daddy and I will remember this time of her life as being extremely fun, but also as one which tries our patience on a daily basis as her desires so often clash with our own.

Happy New Year!

Once again I've been neglectful of my blog. One of my new year's resolutions is to not feel guilty about it. I like this blog and sharing ideas and stories, but not at the expensive of time with my little bug or my husband. So I will be continuing my blog, but only when I can, no promises I can't keep.

That said, the new year is treating us well. My new job is wonderful and I love it. All of the staff in my office is nice, helpful, and very personable. Working part-time is a dream. I have more time with the bug and even a morning completely to myself to cook, clean, shop, and craft!

Speaking of the bug, living with a 2 1/2 year old is INTENSE. She can be the sweetest little princess in the world one second and then transform into a raging monster the next - this transformation is usually precipitated by asking for candy 5 minutes before dinner and receiving a negative response from mom and dad. I've got plenty of stories that fellow parents will appreciate, but I'll save them for a 33 month post in a few days (if I get to it...).

Anyway, I hope anyone else who is still reading out there is having a great new year and finding success with their resolutions.

Potty Wars

It might be hard to believe, but the princess pictured here marked not one, but two stores in a single day with golden puddles during the long, hard process of potty training.

That's right. I've reached one of the monumental times in parenting - potty training. I followed all the (questionably helpful) advice I've learned from residency. Such gems such as "Try a sticker chart, it works like a charm," "Let her run around without a diaper on so she can use the potty when the urge comes, " and "You'll know when she's ready,"come to mind. I really hope these things helped someone, but for me they resulted in: flat out disinterest in stickers, urine on my floor, couch, and coffee table in rapid succession, and continued assertions of, "I want my diaper back!"

I really don't know how I expected all of these gimmicky things to work after every other moment of parenting has taught me that nothing is that easy. There was almost zero chance that I could say, "Hey, you get one whole sticker if you go from being totally happy in a soggy diaper for three hours to having to stop doing fun stuff every hour or so to sit on a cold toilet seat," to my stubborn little bug and expect it to happen.

So here's the real truth: potty training is a huge inconvenience and a lot of work. Bug was dry all day for the first time today because I (not her) was finally willing to pay the price for that accomplishment. I carried her potty chair up and down the stairs to keep it at hand while we were in the playroom. I allowed errands to take twice as long so we could take potty breaks the minute we walked into each store, before we left the store, and sometimes during the shopping if the urge struck her. I turned off the stove in the middle of preparing dinner to help her onto the big potty.

These might not sound like huge inconveniences, but the time burden is heavy when you commit to it. It makes me realize how much easier it would be to just let her keep peeing in a diaper. Thinking of it that way, I realize why she was never going to be the one to take the initiative and it had to be me.

Anyone else about to take this journey, best of luck...

Letters - the rest

Bug at the museum on "M" day

I wish I could say that my ABC plan worked wonderfully and my super savvy 31 month old now knows every letter from A-Z. But I'll be honest - it was too much information, we were going too fast, and she got sick of it. It went great at first, but she slowly became less and less interested in my overenthusiastic declarations about how great such and such letter was and how many super, amazing, awesome things we were gonna do to celebrate that letter!! We made it to "M" doing the full out plan. She still likes making the picture collages, but I'm pretty sure she likes it because it's one-on-one interactive time we spend together (or because she gets to play with stickers...) not because she cares about what the letter is. I hope that the collages will at least help her to learn the ABCs in the future.

Here are some things I think I could have done or changed to make this work better:

1. More time! I think this would have worked much better as "Letter of the Week." She would have had more time to process each letter and really commit it to memory before we moved on.

2. I think I could have kept her attention more if I planned ahead better. We would sit with a huge box of craft supplies each day and see what we might happen to have that started with that letter that we could go with. I could have pre-sorted and put aside everything we were going to use the night before.

3. It would have been more fun if we were all involved (Daddy too!). He would always ask about the letter of the day, but otherwise it was just bug and I plodding through the alphabet.

I and J

Sorry for the delay in continuing this feature. Bug and I took this week off from letters to review and we'll resume with "N" on Monday.

We learned about the letter I by playing with ice in the sink and making ice cream.

We filled the sink with ice cubes and bins of colored water. Bug practiced catching the ice cubes with a big spoon and moving them to the other containers.

Bug watching our pumpkin ice cream churn.

For J day we spent some time outside jumping on the trampoline and then made our own fresh apple juice!

Jumping on a nice fall day.

Using our leftover apples from the orchard to make some delicious homemade juice.

Pumpkin Faves

I know I've posted about it before, but I love everything fall and everything pumpkin. Halloween may be over, but I consider it pumpkin season through Thanksgiving so I thought I'd share a few of my new pumpkin favorite foods and drinks.

1. Pumpkin spice coffee. No, not one of the dozen varieties available at markets and coffee shops (although Fresh Market's is quite nice). We make our own by filling the coffee filter with regular fair trade coffee and then adding about a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice. Stir the spices in and brew as usual. Delicious!

2. Pumpkin Cannoli. I discovered these about a month ago at Roma's in Latham. They are of the chocolate shell variety with a delicious pumpkin flavored filling. Yum!

3. Pumpkin pie yogurt. Wonderful treat from Target for only 80 calories and zero fat.

4. Pumpkin cookies. These are more like mini cakes. The recipe I used is here, but I added a cinnamon cream cheese frosting instead of glaze.

5. Pumpkin Shrimp Curry. OK so I am cheating by listing this as a favorite because I haven't actually made it yet (dinner tonight!). The recipe is this month's issue of Bon Appetit and looks incredible similar to the usual shrimp curry I make except the can of tomatoes is replaced with a can of pumpkin so I am projecting that I will love it.