Kindergarten Valentine Party Crafts

These will be posted over on my stamping blog tomorrow, because these are craft-related.  However, they use food, so I decided to share them here on the cooking blog too, even though they're not cooked or baked.  Enjoy!

I planned the crafts for last week's kindergarten Valentine's Day party, and I wanted to share them with you.  It makes me happy.

 

The first project was a Jolly Lolly from the Family Fun website.  I made lots of mustaches and kissing lips out of craft foam for the kiddos to choose from.  Of course, there were black, brown and blonde mustaches along with bright red, pink and fuschia lips for all tastes.  I had them all cut out with the holes punched so the kids just chose the "mask" and slid it onto a lollipop stick.  Then, I printed mailing labels, one for each child, that said, "Happy Valentine's Day! Love, (insert name here)"  That also made it easy to tell who had made the craft and who hadn't based on whose names were still left on the sheet of labels.

Next, the kids made these little Candy Airplanes, also from Family Fun. I bought cheap valentines stickers for the kids to use to decorate the stick of gum. Then, they assembled the biplane with help from the parents and aides at the party. I had the candy and rubberband in individual baggies for each child. Once they built the plane, they put it back in the baggie and affixed another mailing label that I printed to say, "Valentine, you make my heart soar!" with little biplane cliparts on each side.

The kids all seemed like they had lots of fun making these cute valentines to take home and give to parents, siblings, grandparents, whoever. Thanks for stopping by!

Tuna Ball

This is one of my favorite holiday snacks. I don't know why, but we only ever make this at Christmas. This recipe was originally my aunt, Karen's, recipe. My mom and I make it at Christmas every year now too. It goes great with Wheat Thins!

Tuna Ball

2 small cans tuna in spring water, drained well
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 T. dried parsley
2 T. chili sauce
1/4 tsp. hot pepper sauce (or more if you like)
1 tsp. minced, dried onions

Mix together all ingredients and chill until ready to serve. I never form this into a ball, but usually put it in a pretty dish to be served with a spreader. Also, I make this with the low-fat cream cheese, and I think it's just as good. Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Baked Pineapple

Last month our church had it's annual holiday meal to celebrate the holidays. Someone brought a baked pineapple dish. I didn't have any of it, but my friend, Sally, did. She commented how good it was, especially with ham. It wasn't at the dessert table, but in with the side dishes. That made me curious, so I went about looking for a recipe to try.

While visiting family in PA between Christmas and New Year's, I made this Baked Pineapple recipe I found online. It was good, but I don't think it was like what was at the church dinner. I'm going to have to find out who brought it and get their recipe! Thanks for stopping by!

Fall Fling Food

Happy Halloween!

Every year on Halloween night, our church, Wilkinson Church of Christ, hosts a huge community party called Fall Fling. We fill the church with carnival games for kids of all ages, inflatables, face painting, etc. We serve a small dinner for the kids coming through too.

I've never been a part of planning the food before, but our children's pastor asked me if I would be willing to co-chair it this year with another lady who has planned it before. I thought it sounded like a challenge, so I accepted. My job, thus far, has been to plan the groceries and gather the donations needed to make food for the 400 people we have planned for.

We started the planning a few weeks ago. I started searching for festive food to serve on the Family Fun website, keeping in mind that whatever we chose would have to be made in massive quantities. We ended up choosing the following two main dishes:

Pizza Mummies

Worms on a Bun
(I just finished cutting 25 lbs.,
200 hot dogs, into 9 worms each!)

Along with those two main dishes, we will be serving orange and black nacho chips with cheese and the following festive cookies for dessert:

Fudge Stripe Witch's Hats
(See yesterday's post for a picture of mine.
I made 311 of these!)

Nutter Butter Ghosts
(See yesterday's post for a picture of mine.
I made 318 of these.)

We always hand out Popcorn Witch's Hands to the kids too.

I've seen the cookie and popcorn hands all over the web, so I have no idea who to attribute the original ideas to.

I made the cookies yesterday, and cut the hot dogs this morning to prepare them for the Worms on a Bun. I hope this all comes together well tonight! Thanks for stopping by!

Taste of Home Magazine

Here's an offer for Taste of Home magazine. Tanga offers a Taste Of Home Magazine one-year subscription (six issues) for $4 when you enter code ccdf at checkout. I'm not sure how long this offer will last, but I wanted to pass it on to you. You may purchase up to four years for this price per year. Thanks for stopping by!

Tzatziki

The recipe I shared with you on Monday for Greek Steak Pitas was great, but I added a sauce that wasn't called for which made them even better. The August issue of Cooking Light has a recipe for Tzatziki, which is a Greek condiment. I made a batch of this for us to have with our pitas. Then, we used it again on some Feta-Stuffed Turkey Burgers that I'll tell you about tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by!

Greek Seasoning

Yesterday I told you about a recipe I tried over the weekend for Greek Steak Pitas. One of the ingredients in the steak marinade was Greek seasoning. I didn't have that on hand, but I found a recipe to make your own online. Fortunately, I had everything on hand to make up my own batch. I even got to use some of my fresh spearmint growing out back! I dried it in my microwave before adding it to the mix. Thanks for stopping by!