Sweet Tooth Tuesday: No Bake Cookie Bars

No Bake Cookie Bars

My husband absolutely loves No Bake Cookies.

But lets face it, I'm lazy and I hate dropping them by the spoonful onto waxed paper.

Here's what I do:

Pour them onto a greased pan and cut them into cookie bars!!!

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Here is my recipe:

No Bake Cookies

1/2 cup butter (or margarine)

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup milk

4 Tablespoons cocoa powder

*Mix these together in a saucepan.  Bring to a rolling boil.  Boil for 1 minute.

Stir in:

1/2 cup peanut butter

3 1/2 cups Quick Cooking oats

2 teaspoons vanilla

Pour into a greased pan, let cool & then cut into bars.

P.S. If you happen to run out of white sugar, & you are lazy, just use brown sugar.  It is still delicious & a little molassesy. (So not a word, but I don't care cause ya know what I mean)

You can find this awesome post linked up to the following Fantastic Parties:

Munchkin Monday: Glow in the Dark Bone Recognition Game

My little family and I spent an evening at the dollar store (fun times- those dollar stores!) I bought a glow in the dark skeleton thinking it would be so cool to hang in my daughter's room- like a Halloween night light!
Well, you get what you pay for. The dollar store skeleton didn't GLOW very well. But that's OK. Because we were able to come up with this fun and very educational activity!

Glow in the Dark Bone Recognition Game

Boo highlighting the femur during our Bone Recognition Game

Supplies:
dollar store glow in the dark skeleton
flashlight
knowledge of bone names

Pregame stuff:
Hang up the skeleton (so your kids can reach the skull- for a non-example look at the pic above!) Tell your kiddo that you are going to play a glow in the dark game with the skeleton! How fun, right! Show 'em how you highlight an area of the skeleton by shining the flashlight directly on top it.  It's like you are painting the bones with light.

If your skeleton is a cheap one like mine, only the bone that was highlighted with direct light will glow... and not for a very long time, either.

Game:
Have one child step out of the room. Give another child a flashlight, and tell her to highlight the femur (or any other bone) on the skeleton with the flashlight (remember direct light for a few minutes). Bring the first child back into the room and tell her to quickly point to the femur (She shouldn't be able to tell which one was highlighted). After she guesses, turn the lights out to see if she guessed correctly! Remember to play fast!

There are also game adaptions- 

• For those just learning the bone names, you can have them highlight a bone and then talk about it. 
• You can use the everyday names (shoulder, foot, backbone) instead of the scientific names for those young learners.
• YOU can highlight a bone, turn the lights off, and have a young child state the everyday name(shoulder, foot, backbone) and an older child state the scientific name.

Happy Teaching!

You can find this awesome post linked up to the following Fantastic Parties:

Foodie Friday: Crockpot Lil' Smokies Appetizer

Crockpot Lil' Smokies Appetizer

Years ago, my friend's Mom made these for a party & I seriously have been dreaming of them since.  It's been like 12 years....yikes!

So I randomly came across the recipe on Pinterest and was so excited!!!!!!

Here is the link to crockpot365.blogspot.com's recipe!

So, this is how easy it is:

Put your Lil' Smokies in a crockpot (you can also do this with meatballs!!!).  Mix together 8 oz. of chili sauce (found by the ketchup...thanks crockpot365 for the heads up!) and 8 oz. grape jelly.  Pour on top and cook on low for 4 hours.  That's it.  And they are SUPER delish!!!!!!  

Would be great to bring for one of your holiday parties coming up!

You can find this awesome post linked up to the following Fantastic Parties:

DIY Thursday: Fablifyit: Trick or Treat

I got to do another fun post for Fabdecor!!!! These are some of the cutest and simplest projects i have gotten to do in a long time. I have used all the paper products i have been hoarding and waiting to use. My husband will be happy the paper supply is depleting and not increasing like normal. :)
Can I just say Melissa is super cute! She will be selling some of her completed projects at a boutique this weekend go meet her and check out her fun things. She also has some fun soap dispensers and faces on a really good sale too!
For this project i was ....a little tiny bit stressed, lazy, assuming, or maybe just being well...Me! So I didn't take the before or during pictures cause, well I think you guys have seen naked wood before and I didn't want to post "those" kinds of pictures on this post. :)
(can you tell I am tired while posting again?)
I love working with the Wood from Melissa. Why you ask? Well can you say soft and sanded wood! I can say it and I can work with it, but when i try to do something on my own or make my husband cut some wood for me ours is so not soft and sanded. I think I will need to order my wood from her just so I can never have a sliver AGAIN! Thanks Melissa for making your wood such a pleasure to work with!

I painted my naked wood with some bright purple to match the or and the bats. Then I mixed the 2 colors of vinyl I had and keeping my Trick, Treat green and leaving my or and bats purple.
Then i picked some crazy paper from my old stash of Stampin Up and measured and cut to size.
What kind of glue do you guys use to glue the paper on???? I have always used Mod Podge until a friend of mine asked why don't you just use elmers??? well....... I dont know so I totally used Elmers and I will let you know if I have problems. :)
Do you want your own set for free??? Go to Fablifyit and enter to win some FAB things!!

 I also had some fun halloween ribbons in a cute pack and thought the orange balls matched this great so i hot glued the ribbon on and TADA totally done.

 Dont forget to enter the GIVEAWAY we need one of our readers to WIN!!!!

Good Night or Good Morning depending on your reading time :)

You can find this awesome post linked up to the following Fantastic Parties:

     

Wild Card Wednesday: Halloween Apothecary Jars

Hey all! This is a repost from my other blog- I am seriously in LOVE with these apothecary jars and wanted to share them with you!

Decorating for the holidays is quickly becoming one of my favorite things to do. I saw THIS idea from Uncommon on Pinterest (I seriously am obsessed with this site). Once I saw this project, I fell in love!! I made a quick run to Hobby Lobby to get the materials. I grabbed some jars and letters... but needed the candlestick bases and finials. My father in law was SO kind to make some for me. The initial plan was to paint all the wood black... but after seeing the beauty of the natural wood, I changed my mind. Aren't they BEAUTIFUL!!! He did such an incredible job and I am so thankful for his help. I just love the way they look!  I painted the letters, filled the jars with candy corn, added the ribbon, and they were done! I found the cool orange glitter ribbon to hang the letters at Michaels... so sparkly!

Although you might have seen these jars around the web, here are some additional creative tips for this project (thanks again to my father in law and his wife!!).

~In order to use less candy corn, I put cans of tomato paste in the center of each jar. It's our hidden stash of food storage :).

~I didn't want the jar to break and then have to somehow remove broken pieces of glass glued to the candlestick base. To solve this problem, the base has grooves designed specifically to keep the jar in place without the glue. So cool!

~My husband wanted the ability to remove the finial- in case we wanted to use the jars for another project. The finials have magnet inserts so it easily will stick to the magnetic top of the hobby lobby jar. These magnetic finials have already come in handy when I attached the ribbon... I was able to place it right under the magnet! Love it!

There are two things that I love the most, however- first is the incredible service provided by my father in law, and second is that I can use these jars for every season! Pinecones or nuts in the fall, ornaments in December, red heart candy in February, plastic easter eggs in the spring...the list goes on!

I know this is completely unrelated to teaching- but I just had to share! We have had a little lesson on cavities after nibbling away at the candy corn....

Happy Teaching!

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