Fun Valentines Day Activities

I love to do holiday themed activities with my kids. It always breaks up the monotony and they always seem to enjoy it. Here are some of the Valentines Day activities I have been doing with them.

*Make your own Valentines Day Playdough- this has provided hours of fun. My kids will sit with playdough and play until I make them put it away. We use heart shapped cookie cutters for our Valentine's Day theme and the playdough is light pink and scented with Pink Lemondae Kool-Aid. Here is the recipe I used for our homemade playdough:
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup salt
2 pkg unsweetened Kool-Aid
1 cup boiling water
1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil

Mix flour, salt and Kool-Aid. Stir in water and oil. Knead with hands about 5 minutes. Store in a Ziploc bag.

*Valentines Day Sensory Box http://tooblessed-tobestressed.blogspot.com/2011/01/february-sensory-box.html

*Conversation Heart Counting Manipulatives- we have been using the valentines conversation hearts to count out the number we roll on the dice and then they count out the number using the heart candies.

*Valentines Day Cards- we of course will be making Valentines Day cards for daddy. I will be letting them use whatever craft supplies they can glue on their cards

Saturday Birthday Party

We hosted our one year olds first birthday party yesterday. All the food was allergy friendly and free of milk, eggs, peanuts, treenuts and soy (with the exception of one cookie, which contained soy). Here is our menu:

Cake (I used Duncan Hines yellow cake mix and used Ener-G egg replacer, the frosting was homemade here is the link to the recipe:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/White-Cake-Frosting-I/Detail.aspx)
Tortilla chips and salsa from Aldi and Tribe GarlicHummus
Blackberry muffins (Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book)
Cinnamon bread (Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book)
Chocolate Sugar Cookies http://www.foodallergymama.com/2011/02/02/dairy-egg-and-nut-free-chocolate-sugar-cookies-and-a-food-allergy-cooking-show-today/
Gingersnaps http://www.foodallergymama.com/2010/11/29/dairy-egg-and-nut-free-gingersnaps/
Soda, water and lemonade

The party was very inexpensive to host (I think I spent less than $30 for an allergy friendly party, including food, invitations, paper products and favors for the kids)

For favors I wanted to do something consumable and I did not want candy. So I decided to do washcloths and soap. I purchased hanmade soaps from Brown Bag Bath Bars on etsy. She made me robot soaps for the boys and castle soaps for the girls. For the washcloths I purchased princess castle washcloths from KBExquisites on etsy. My mom made robot washcloths for the boys.

Overall the food went over great- especially with the kids who loved the cookies (and J who decided that after the party he would eat the icing off the leftover cake.)

Throwing an Allergy-Friendly Birthday Party

I have been throwing allergy-friendly birthday parties for a few years now, and since I cook allergy-friendly every day planning for me is now not such a big deal, but the first allergy-friendly party I threw really stressed me out and took a lot of planning. Here are some tips to throwing an allergy friendly party without all the stress:

* Plan ahead- allergy-friendly parties are much harder to throw without some planning ahead since you can't just pick-up and serve just anything. Obviously with food allergies most bakeries are a big no-no, but there are plenty of cake mixes out there that you can use that cater to food allergies. Betty Crocker now makes a gluten free cake mix and Duncan Hines make some varieties that are milk/egg/peanut/treenut/soy free. Check your labels you may be very plesantly suprised! I also make my cake a few days ahead (unfrosted) and freeze it. I do this for two reasons, first it is easier to frost when frozen and second is is one less thing for me to do the night before the party.

*Make it easy on yourself- I have done parties with big menus and I just end-up stressing out and having tons of leftovers. Pre-prepared foods are great, Whole Foods has a vegan section of prepared foods. You can also find lots of chips (and sometimes pretzels) that are allergy-friendly. We love to serve tortilla chips with salsa.

*Don't forget about fruits and veggies- you can always serve a fruit and veggie tray, which is very allergy friendly and healthy! If you cannot have the dips that are usually served an alternative for veggie dipping is hummus (unless you are allergic to sesame).

My Mr. T will be turning one on Thursday and we will be throwing him an allergy-friendly party on Saturday. I will be posting about the party menu later on.

February Sensory Box

My kids are so excited about our new valentines themed sensory box. I cannot believe that I will have held them off until February 1st! I wanted to stick with a pink/white/red theme (a couple of purple things managed to sneak their way in). I filled the bottom with flat red and white flat stones that I purchased at Hobby Lobby a couple weeks ago when they were half price. Then I went to the Dollar Store and found artifical red rose petals (this was about half a bag) and heart containers. The little heart presents are from IKEA last year, the key chains are from the Christmas Tree Store and the buttons all came from a random bag of buttons I purchased. I decided to put all the spoons and tweezers back in the box this month since they were such a hit last month. You know my kids will be having a ball with this tomorrow!

Kroger Chocolate Chip Recall

I stopped by Kroger yesterday to quickly pick-up a couple of things and on the bottom of my receipt was a message about a recall that affected me. They were recalling the Kroger Value Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips with all best by dates ending in 2012. The product is being recalled because they do not list that they may contain milk. I was actually pretty bummed about this recall. I discovered these chocolate chips early on this summer and bought several packages because the only allergen they listed was soy and they only cost $1.79 instead of the $3.99 I pay for the Enjoy Life chips. I have been feeding these chocolate chips to J, who has a milk allergy since I purcahsed them and I have not noticed any reactions to the chips. If you are interested in the recall here is the link to Kroger's recall information.

Allergy Friendly Deals at Whole Foods

In case you did not know Whole Foods website has coupons that are printable from your computer. These are store coupons which can be stacked with a manufacturers coupon. Right now there are two coupons that really excite me. One is for SoDelicious Coconut milk (which can be stack with the coupon from coupons.com for a total of $2 off a half gallon of coconut milk) and the coupon for $1/2 Dream beverages (they make Soy Dream and Rice Dream milks or frozen products).

Homeschool Prep Progress

I am planning on homeschooling my older son J next year for kindergarden (as well as start 3 year old preschool with my daughter) and the last few weeks I have been doing A LOT of research and finally have made a decision on a few things. First I love sensory boxes and I am planning on doing a new sensory box every month with a new theme for the month. Along with the sensory box I will also focus on books and craft activities to match our theme. Here is my schedule for our sensory boxes for the year (I am starting this early because my kids LOVE sensory boxes)

Jan- Snow/ winter theme

Feb- Valentines Day (I will have a post up about this box in about a week- I am almost done)

March- Spring

April- Garden

May- Space

June- Beach

July- 4th of July- red, white and blue

August- Ice Cream (and maybe ice sensory blocks for use in the bathtub)

September- Construction

October- Fall

November- Dinosaurs

December- Christmas

I have also been researching cirriculum for J. We have decided to do math, Bible and english with him next year and we are going to also focus on additional subjects that he is interested in such as space. We are going to use Hooked on Phonics for reading and the same Bible lessons we do with his sister. As for math I know we are going to use a course with manipulatives, I am just not sure which one.

For Princess R I am using abcjesuslovesme.com cirriculum, except for the alpabet, which I am hoping to find a cirriculum I can purchase so I don't have to print everything out myself.

For both my daughter and the baby (who will be one in a few weeks!) I am going to use a lot of ideas from Carisa's Tot School (1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com) especially tot trays.

I am trying to get eveything planned out prior to the convention at the end of March so that I know which workshops I really want to attended and know what I am looking for when I get to the exhibit hall- which can be totally overwhelming!