Barrel of Monkeys Cake

So, the actual concept here (and above photo) is my own, for my son's 1st birthday, but it was inspired by the following pin:

http://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/247868093/kit-kat-cake/










I made a layered banana cake from this recipe, and used this chocolate cream cheese frosting recipe, and simply stuck the kit kat bars to the sides, and decorated the top with the monkeys and candle. So tasty and so cute!

Candy Corn Math

I have been "homeschooling" Spiderman with another kiddo his age this Fall...  I am always looking for new ideas, especially ones that cost VERY LITTLE.  Repetition is key, right?  So, I stumbled upon this idea, and I love it!!  It was very simple.  Took only a couple minutes.  The kids loved it.  We are working on "4."  So, I made 4 of them with 1, 2, 3, and 4 on them.  We practised some subtraction by having them count how many were left when they ate a candy corn.  The blog has a ton of great ideas.  Find it at notimeforflashcards.com.  PINTASTIC!!

North Pole Breakfast

Last year I was looking for a way to introduce the Elf on the Shelf tradition in our house. So, of course I turned to Pinterest and found the idea for the North Pole Breakfast. This blogger did an amazing job and I just tried to do the best I could.

I did the breakfast the weekend after Thanksgiving. We usually decorate the house Thanksgiving weekend so I knew we would have everything up. I started purchasing all the knick knacks in November. We talked it up so Henry knew that the Elf was coming at the breakfast.

It was like Christmas morning when he came down the steps.

We read the book about Elf on the Shelf and he named him Donald. After the breakfast we decorated our tree.

It was a fantastic morning and I highly suggest making this a tradition in your house.

Sensory Bags for Babies

So, I have lots of ideas for my own versions of these to make, but I started with a basic ocean squish bag. 

Here is the one I made:

I bought the plastic sea creatures from a dollar store, and used food coloring to dye some clear hair gel blue. Then I used blue duct tape around the edges (to seal the top and frame it) and put duct tape across the back to make it a bit less flexible, so it can be squished from the front still but not balled up. I like how it turned out for the most part; I just wish I had used a bit less food coloring, as it is darker than it looks in this picture, and dyed the sea creatures blue as well. Right now my son is more interested in gumming it than anything else, so we may need to wait until his bout of teething ends to get his verdict, but overall I'd say this idea is pintastic! Here is a link to the original pinned website: http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2012/07/fun-with-sensory-bags.html