Pumpkin Mush – A Simple How To

My house smells like pumpkin. Why? You ask. Well, I’m roasting some pumpkins to make pumpkin mush for pumpkin bread.

A lot of you probably know how to do it already, but for those of you who don’t, here are my basic steps. First I wash and cut open the pumpkin.

Then scoop out all the goop and seeds (keeping the seeds to roast later).

Next, I put the pumpkins in a pan (cut side down) with some water and roast them in the oven on 350 for a couple hours until soft. I usually check for softness by poking them with a fork.

After Roasting

When cooled, peel off the skin to discard, cut pumpkin chunks to put in a bowl, mush it up, and then measure out enough mush for your recipe. If there is extra mush you can freeze it to make something later. Here is a tip: I always pre-measure the mush before I freeze it and write the amount on the bag. Then I can freeze it in the amounts I need for my recipes so when I thaw a bag I wont have too much or too little.

It is so easy to do, and a great way to show kids an example of where food comes from. Plus if you grow your own pumpkins, it is WAY less expensive then the canned pumpkin at the stores.

Preschool Phonics Learning Game

This is Hopkins. I made him for a preschool group to help them learn letter sounds. If you can’t tell, he is supposed to look like a frog. I made him out of a shoebox, some paper, and some green paint. I spend a out half an hour making him from supplies I had on hand so Hopkins was basically free. I’m kicking myself now that I didn’t take pictures while making him to share with all of you….sorry.

Here is a short recap of how I made him. I took the papers from inside the shoe box, balled them up and masking taped them on top to form the bumps up for the eyes. Next I covered him all over with brown packing paper. Then painted him bright green. While it dried, I used construction paper to cut out legs, spots, and a tongue. Regular white paper and a Sharpie formed the eyes. A little glue, and Hopkins was complete.

Next I printed off some bug clip art (I only had a free bee picture, a fly would probably have been better). Our printer is black and white so that gave me the opportunity to add some fun colors by hand. I laminated the sheets and then cut them out. This allows me to write letters on the back of the bugs with a dry erase marker.

 So, how do you play? Well, Hopkins, of course, eats bugs but he is a bit picky and will only eat bugs that make a certain sound that day. So the kids pull bugs out of a bag, figure out what letter they have and what sound it makes. Then they either feed Hopkins or discard the bug in another box.

So far the preschoolers have seemed to really enjoy it, and the learning possibilities are endless with this. I can even see using it with kindergarteners or first graders. It could be used for learning numbers, sight words, even basic addition problems or having Hopkins eat words that are the specific part of sentence like verbs.

This is a ToDoLady original pattern. Please feel free to copy this idea, however, I am not liable for any accidents or issues you may encounter while engaging in this activity. 

To Do Tuesday – Ice Cream Cake

Welcome to To Do Tuesday where I tell you about something I have recently crossed off my “To Do” List.

To Do: Ice Cream Cake

For a couple of years now I have been saving various Ice Cream Cake recipes with the hopes of making one. It always seemed like they couldn’t be too hard to make and they seem pricey to buy. So, for a recent get together I finally got to cross “try making an ice cream cake” off of my To Do List!

I thought about the type with the ice cream sandwich base, but somehow that didn’t quite appeal to my traditionalist tendencies. Although, I have tasted those before and found them to be quite yummy. So I based my creation off of one from Brown Eyed Baker. By the way, if you havent been on her blog, check it out. I’ve gotten several yummy recipes from it!

I wanted to do chocolate and peanut butter cake and I needed a big one so I started out with a 9×13 pan. I lightly oiled the pan, put in store-bought chocolate ice cream, and stuck it in the freezer to firm up for about half an hour. While waiting I warmed up some hot fudge so it would be spreadable, unwrapped peanut butter cups and had one of my kids cut them up into chunks. When I put on the hot fudge, it melted down into the chocolate ice cream a bit, but that was fine with me.

Base chocolate layer with hot fudge and chopped pb cups

Back into the freezer it went. It stayed in longer this time. I was busy and I wanted that hot fudge to cool off. Later I put on the next layer. It was homemade peanut butter ice cream. It was SO yummy! Have you ever noticed in the store that plain pb ice cream is close to impossible to find? It has all sorts of nuts, fudge, or candy added….all great but not what I was looking for. I’ve made my own ice cream before so it wasn’t that big a deal to make up a batch. After that layer was on, once again back into the freezer! While it was in there I whipped a little heavy cream (about a cup) with a bit of vanilla and sugar. With that and the peanuts a kiddo crushed up for me I was all ready to decorate the top.

Starting to decorate

I put the whipped cream into a piping bag and started. I wanted to do a fairly simple design. I’m not a super talented decorator, but if I stick to a super simpler design, I’m usually happy with the outcome. I did two rows of whipped cream peaks around the outside and then put it back in the freezer so those peeks would firm up. I was nervous I would accidentally smash one of them. The next step was to sprinkle the crushed peanuts around in a ring just inside of the whipped cream peaks. I left the center empty of nuts on purpose…just in case there was a person who didn’t want nuts. To finish it off, I had been thinking about doing a chocolate syrup drizzle on top, but I was running low on time so I opted to dust a little chocolate cookie crumb over the whipped cream peaks instead. It wasn’t the cheapest cake to make, but it was definitely less expensive than buying one and the custom flavor was amazing. Everyone really seemed to enjoy it.

The finished cake

Budget Friendly Felt Stick Horses

Ok guys, I just made 3 stick horses and spent $1 per horse!!! I did use supplies I already had on hand at home, but most of you probably already have the same things laying around. The bonus was, the kids I gave them to loved them just as much as if I had purchased a store brand horse!

List of Supplies/Tools

Purchased:

• Felt -2 sheets of the same color for each horse (I paid $ .22 a sheet)
• White felt -1 sheet to make diamonds/blazes/markings
• Wiggle eyes (around $3 for enough to make 6 horses)

On Hand at Home:

• Needle and thread
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun
• Dremel
• Scrap paper to draw pattern
• Stick from our yard
• Rubberband
• Ribbon
• Yarn
• Old twin sized sheet

What I did

First I took a piece of scrap printer paper and drew my pattern. I basically made it as big as the paper would allow. If I were to do it over again, I would probably make the horse’s neck a little bit longer and thinner.

This is the pattern laid out on a sheet of red felt so you can see how it looks.

I cut out two of each piece (head, middle strip, and ears. Then I started to sew. I sewed it by hand but I’m guessing it would be quicker and easy to do up if you have a sewing machine. I sewed the two middle  pieces together on the short end to create one long strip, and then sewed it along the edge of one head piece. Next I sewed it to the edge of the other head piece. I did have a small bit extra on the middle strip when I was done so I just trimmed that off.

Sewn head inside out.

Next I turned them right side out and sewed on the ears.

After that, I used my hot glue gun to put on the wiggle eyes and  diamonds/markings/spots. To make it even less expensive you could use black and white felt to make your own eyes or even sew on some big buttons you have on hand.

Next I worked on their mains. I used some yarn that I’ve had so long that I can’t even remember where it came from! I loosely wrapped it around my hand, tied one side with a piece of the same yarn, and then cut the loops opposite where I tied. This created a kind of mop effect that I sewed on the horse head.

I cut an old clean twin sized sheet into fourths and used one fourth to stuff each of the 3 horse heads. It wasn’t quite enough so I divided up the last fourth into 3 small pieces, stuffed  that in, and it was just the right amount for what I wanted. It felt good to repurpose an old worn out sheet and not have to pay for stuffing! You could probably substitute an old t-shirt or something else soft like that for stuffing as well.

Then came the part I was most nervous about….attaching them to the stick! I had my kids sand down the sticks from our yard nice and smooth. They had fun working on that part. Then I took our Dremel and used it to make a grove all around the head end of each stick.  I opted to use a rubber band, to secure the heads, but a string would probably work too. Since I was using the rubber band, I put that on the stick (doubled over already) before slipping the head on. Then I slipped on the head and slid the rubber band over the neck. The point is for the rubber band  and some of the felt to go down into the grove so it is held in place and doesn’t just slide up and down the stick.

That seemed to work well for holding the heads in place. To make it look a little prettier, I tied a ribbon on over top of the rubber band. Then I stepped back to look at the finished job. It may not be perfect, but I thought they turned out awesome for the price!

So, if you have a some time but not a lot of money, this might be a good project for you to do with your kids or even to make as Christmas gifts for the young kids on your shopping list.

This is a ToDoLady original pattern. Please feel free to copy this idea, however, I am not liable for any accidents or issues you may encounter while engaging in this activity. 

To Do Tuesday: I have an AWESOME Husband!!!

Welcome to To Do Tuesday where I tell you about something I have recently crossed off my “To Do” List.

Husband’s To Do: Bike Rack

How AWESOME is my husband? VERY AWESOME! That kids bike rack I posted about a while back; he made it for me!!!!! We didn’t bother painting it because we figure the kids will just chip the paint and we weren’t putting it in a prime location anyway. I’m completely thrilled with the bike rack, and it is SO much easier to walk through the garage. So, today I want to dedicate this post to my wonderful husband who took a couple hours out of his super busy schedule to make my bike rack dream come true.

I wonder what else I can sneak onto his To Do list 😉

Dreaming of a Bike Rack

The other day, I stumbled across plans for a DIY Bike Rack. It looks awesome to me, so I thought I would share it. I love that it includes places to hang up the helmets! I enjoy order and organization so I would really like to change our current method of having bikes all over the garage floor. Do you think my husband would notice if I snuck it on his To Do List? 🙂

Feel free to comment on how you store bikes. Do you hang them up in a garage, have a bike rack, or have them all over the garage floor like we do? Do you have another DIY organizational project you just completed that you would like to share?