How to make Egg Cups

I make these for Easter each year and thought it would be fun to share. The Egg Cups are easy to make and are so cute!

Here is what you need:
Bread- any kind you want
Something to cut it with (I used a julienne cutter)
Eggs (one for each cup you make)
Rolling pin
Muffin tin

First your going to want to flatten your slice of bread

Once your bread is flattened you want to cut all of the crust off.

Gently fold your bread slices into your muffin tin

You can either cook your eggs in your muffin cups or you can scramble them stovetop and add the eggs to the cups afterwards (whichever you prefer) our kids prefer scrambled.

Cook at 350 for 10-15 mins (longer if you are cooking your eggs in the cups)

Take out and let cool, enjoy!

Jen

How to start meal prepping

A few years ago I started meal prepping and it changed our family for the better. Meal prepping is a fantastic way to save time, money,, and eat healthy throughout the week. I didn't realize how much it helped our family until I stopped meal prepping a few months ago. Afte everything sort of broke down and I realized how much time meal prepping was giving back to my life so I thought I would share some of the things our family does.   Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to get started with meal prepping:

Plan your meals: Decide on the meals you want to make for the week, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You can include a variety of foods Make to keep your meals interesting or you can be a little crazy like or family and have themed weeks. Yes, we had a "asian week" and a "Mexican food week". My kids really get into it. 

Make a grocery list: Write down all the ingredients you need for your meals, including any snacks you want to have on hand.

Go grocery shopping: I find when I make the list above it helps me avoid impulse buys.

Prepare your ingredients: Wash and chop your fruits and vegetables, cook your proteins, and get everything ready to be portioned out into containers.

Portion out your meals: Use airtight containers to portion out your meals into individual portions. Label each container with the date and type of meal.

Store your meals: Store your meals in the refrigerator or freezer, depending on when you plan to eat them.

Enjoy your meals: When it’s time to eat, simply take your meal out of the refrigerator or microwave from the freezer, and enjoy!

Meal prepping is a great way to ensure you have healthy, home-cooked meals at your fingertips. With a little bit of planning and preparation, you can save time and money while maintaining a healthy diet.

X-mans 9th Birthday Harry Potter Party

Five weeks ago X-man gave me a big surprise and told me (while driving home from a friends birthday) that he no longer wanted to go to Universal Studios for his birthday! He instead wanted a birthday 'like the ones mommy does'. I asked him what type of party he thought I could throw him in 5 weeks and he said. "I really want a Harry Potter party". So the last 5 weeks has been filled with work, scouts, and Harry Potter.

The Invitation:
 I looked around the web and after talking to X was informed he wanted the invite to be an acceptance letter like Harry receives in the book. So with some help with my very talented husband we came up with some really cute letters along with a 'Ticket'. I was even able to get ahold of a wax stamp kit with the Hogwarts crest from Amazon.com. 

 

The Decor: I'm not a huge balloons and steamers sort of person. I wanted to incorporate a couple of our favorite things from the movies and books along with a few funny items. I found inspiration from the web. I wish I could give credit but I honestly can't remember where I found everything.

No HP party is complete with out Platform 9 3/4.  I'm in love with our sign. I still haven't taken it down.

Our living room was set up with portraits of famous wizards, a potions cabinet with a pensive and some other items you may find in the wizarding world. We used battery powered faux candles everywhere since we had 23 nine year old boys. 

The kitchen was decorated with Devils Snare (made from crinkled up craft paper) and winged keys that hung from the ceiling. I found the keys on Amazon and the wings here.

I didn't get a good picture of it but our den, which has a fireplace, had letters coming from the fire place and owls attempting to deliver letters to Harry like in the first movie.

  

Even our bathroom 'The room of requirement' was dressed for the occasion. 

 The kids went thru a sorting hat ceremony in the living room. I was lucky enough to score a hat that actually talked and had a moving mouth from a friend that had a HP party years ago. 

The boys were sorted and then they received their robe, wand, broom, and a shirt that had a tie ironed on. We also had HP glasses and scars in case someone really wanted to dress the part. I used my grandmothers old camel-back trunk to put the loot in.

The robes were made from 5xl Hanes t-shirts that I found on sale. I modified them using a tutorial from this blog.  We found house crests and used Avery black iron-on transfers to apply them.  

Then after everyone was settled in the kids had a big surprise. Harry and Hermione showed up! They went thru a sword fight some spell making with the boys then played Quittage with the boys for a couple of hours. I found them thru Action Events and they were truly amazing. The kids and adults loved them and they were absolutely fantastic.

 

We then had dinner in the great hall! We decked out our ceilings with some starry night room roll that I found on Amazon.com. This was a bit tricky for us since the center of our dining room has an absolutely huge skylight and is 12 feet high at the top beam! 

The candles were created out of paper towel rolls, hot glue, paint and remote controlled tea lights. We hung them from fishing line which you can see in the second photo. I also made the banners from felt. I found crests of each house (on the web) and printed them on black Avery iron-on paper. 

 

Of course the great hall wouldn't be complete without gobbets and silver plates. The snacks consisted of : Hufflepuffs (cheese puffs), Troll Bogies (pirates booty) and other assorted finger foods.

Dinner as close to the great hall start of term feast as we could get: Chicken Legs, Corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and rolls.  

The Drinks: We had Butterbeer (recipe from Pinterest), Pumpkin Juice (apple cider with bit of pumpkin for color), and Poly-juice potion (Lemon-aid colored green) to drink. The Poly-juice potion was a big hit.  

The cake:  X-man saw something similar on the web and begged me to reproduce it. I did the best I could. The secret is this really awesome marshmallow fondant recipe I found here on Pinterest.

 

We also had a candy buffet complete with chocolate frogs, Bertie Botts Every flavored beans, candy wands, jelly slugs, fizzing wizzabies and cockroach clusters.

 Harry and Hermione stayed and sang Happy Birthday and presented X-man with a gold Gallon. 

We also had our home made photo booth up as a Azcaban 'prisoner processing' booth. The kids and adults had loads of fun in there too.

 

               

X-man really enjoyed his 9th birthday. It was a lot of fun to create!

Till next time,
Jen

L's 5th Birthday Back to the Future

My son has been obsessed with Back to the Future ever since his father let him watch it a year ago. Right after his brother's birthday he came up to me and said "Mama can I have a Back to the Future Birthday?". The rest is history.

The Decorations:

I had a really hard time coming up with a general 'theme' for the party because the characters in the movie go to so many different time periods. When I asked my son which movie was his favorite or which time he liked the most he said "all of them"! Since we had the party at our house I decided to do one time period per room. So our living room was 1959 "Enchantment under the Sea Dance" the Kitchen and Den was the 2015 "Café 80's" and outside we had The old West.

I'm not big on balloons but I always like to set the stage when guests enter. This year we art inspired by the movies and hung the posters on one wall where in the breezeway and the ground had a road 'runway' and radioactive stickers on the doors. We also had the main title Back to the future playing with a smoke machine going for ambiance.

In the living room I hung a blue and silver foil curtain and recreated the 'Enchantment Under the Sea Dance' Banner that they hung on stage at the High School Prom. We also had hanging fish and used small clear balloons that hung from the ceiling to create the feel of bubbles. We also had Enchantment under the sea posters hanging around the area.  We served snacks in this area and they were all sea themed.

I had the hardest time decorating in the kitchen and Den. We made a Café 80's sign and we created the Hover Board which hung from the chandelier in the kitchen. Creating the Hover Board took many nights but the end result was pretty cool. Since Lunch was served in the Kitchen the plates and cups were labeled with the Café 80's logo. We used waterproof labels on a laser printer to create the effect. We also had futuristic glasses for our guests to get their 2015 on.

Outside we decorated everything in a western theme and had 'wanted' signs of Biff Tannen hanging from various places. The bounce house was the main source of entertainment. For the centerpieces we had lanterns sitting on a small stack of hay. We also had a refreshment station outside and I had enough hay to use at the 'watering hole'.

The Cake:

My son had requested a clock tower cake but there was no way I was going to be able to replicate that. So he had to settle for this DeLorean cake instead. I used marshmallow fondant to cover it and make all of the decorations.

The Entertainment:

Along with the bounce house I also made a DeLorean Piñata. It was the one thing my son was very adamant about wanting (besides the bouncer) so I scoured the internet to figure out how to make my own piñata. I filled it with a bunch of toys and candy from the 80's (jelly bracelets, mini Rubik's cubes, Pop rocks, etc.).

We also had our photo booth set up outside. Every time we use it we get a ton of complements. We purchased the software that we run on our laptop here.

The Favors:

I came across old 90's Back to the Future McDonald's Happy Meal toys on E-Bay and it was the perfect favor. I used simple yellow paper bags and cut the top down and then stapled the "The End" card over it. The other side said "Thanks for coming to my Birthday".

Till next time,

Jen