Easter Chicks!

 

Last year I decided that I wanted to start making a fun breakfast for holidays. Ron actually does most of the cooking for our holiday dinners. He really enjoys that and is really good at it. I usually end up putting together the side dishes and desserts. Which I don't mind. I love to bake! It makes me happy! We love banana bread for breakfast and since it's rather easy to make I thought it would be the perfect addition to our holiday traditions.  Being me, however, I couldn't just make it plain bread. The artist in me wanted to have some fun. I also wanted to surprise the kids. I waited until they had all gone to bed and then I started baking. I had seen a picture of the chicks before and wanted to make my own version of them. I thought it would be fun to place the chicks in a nest instead of just on a plate or stand. So I baked the banana bread in a round cake pan instead of a loaf pan. I doubled the recipe so I would have enough batter left over to make the chicks. The nest is made from a no bake cookie recipe that I formed over a bowl and then I weaved pretzel sticks into it to make it look more like a nest. I made a cream cheese topping and then colored coconut to give the chicks their fluffy look. I actually found the little eyes at a craft store in their cake decorating section. But you could easily make your own eyes using white chocolate chips or gum paste and dabbing some black food coloring with a tooth pick in the center. To make the beaks I used some orange jelly beans and cut one end off so it looked more like a pointy beak. I have to say I think they turned out so cute!!! It was so much fun to see this all come together. And it was so easy to do! Honestly the hardest part was waiting for the bread to bake and cool down. That was also the longest part. Once the bread was done it didn't take long at all to put everything together. You can color the coconut and cream cheese and cut the beaks all while the bread is baking. You can also make the nest then too. That will give it time to cool and set before you place it on top of the bread. Once the bread is ready all you have to do is spread your topping, place your nest, sprinkle the coconut, set the eyes and beaks and Wallah! You are finished with a cute and adorable Easter morning breakfast. The kids absolutely loved it! It made for a fun and festive morning. After we finished up with all our morning egg hunts(the kids like to make their own hunts around the house) we all sat around the table and enjoyed the morning together. I think I'm going to keep up with this new banana bread tradition. It may not look the same each year, but it sure will be tasty! 

Here are the recipes I used. The banana bread is a recipe I got from a friend as a gift. I'm not sure where they got it from but it sure is yummy! 

• 1/2 cup shortening. I rarely have shortening in my house. I don't use it very often and so I just use butter. It works just as well. I'm sure other substitutes will also work I just haven't tried them.
• 1 cup sugar
• 3-4 very ripe bananas(I always try to go for 4. You can't go wrong!)
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. Baking Powder
• 1 tsp. Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 1 tsp. Cinnamon( I always add in some cloves and nutmeg as well)
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
• 1/2 cup cold water

Cream shortening(or softened butter) and sugar together. Add beaten eggs, mashed bananas and vanilla. Mix dry ingredients together separately and add alternately with water to banana mixture, mixing thoroughly after each addition. You can always add in some chopped nuts or chocolate chips if you want. Another good addition I've added before were some diced strawberries. Mmmmmm.......yummy!

Pour into greased and floured loaf pans(or what ever pan you choose) and bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until it's done. It is so so good! It's totally worth it to let bananas get extra ripe for this one!

I don't really have a recipe for the cream cheese topping. I just kind of throw things together. I usually whip some softened cream cheese and add a little bit of softened butter and some milk to make it more like a glaze than frosting. I also add some powdered sugar to sweeten it a bit. I don't really measure it. I just sort of eyeball it and add it all together little bits at a time till I like the taste.

The no bake cookie recipe I use is also simple and fun to make. My kids love it. You will need:

• 1/4 cup Unsweetened Cocoa
• 2 cups Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 Butter
• 1/2 cup Milk
• 1/2 cup Peanut Butter
• 3 cups Quick Oats

I melt the butter in a large sauce pan and add the sugar and cocoa and mix them together. Then I add everything else one at a time making sure to add the oats last. Once they are all mixed together you can drop them by the spoonful onto wax paper to cool and set. Once you can pick them up without them falling a part they are ready to eat! They make a yummy and tasty treat!

Enjoy and have fun!

Car Table!

I've made one for each of the boys and it was Jaden's turn. My original thought was to go to the thrift store and find maybe an old coffee table and paint over that. I was lucky enough to find an actual child's table still in great condition! I was so excited! It was perfect! One thing I forgot to do though was take pictures of each step. Hahaha! Oh well, at least I got the final product.

The first thing I did was sand the top of the table down a little bit. This way it would make it easier to repaint the surface. When I was done sanding I took a damp cloth to wipe the table down and rid it of the extra dust. I didn't have one of those tacky cloths that you can use so I had to use a damp cloth. Which meant I needed to let it sit a while to let it completely dry. Once that was done I started to think about and plan how I was going to paint the table. I remembered when I painted Jaxen's table that I taped off the road ways and painted the green blocks first and then taped off the green blocks and painted the roads. It was such a pain to have to go back and cover the green blocks and make sure I got the corners just right. It took way too much time! It did work out in the end. Jaxen's table turned out really cute and he loved it. At least I thought it did!

It was my first time doing this as well and so I didn't really stop to plan it out much. I had an idea in my head and I just did it without thinking it through. Like I do with a lot of things. Haha! So when it came time to paint Jaden's table I took what I learned and told myself I should do differently the first time and planned it out for this one.

I did not want to spend so much time fixing the tape to the corners of the green blocks. I decided that this time around I was going to work in layers. First layer was the black for the roads. I got my acrylic paints and I painted the entire top surface of the table with black. I made sure to do at least 3-4 layers of the black paint so that there would be a nice even color all around. When the black paint was thoroughly dry I taped the roads off and began my next layers using green. I remember laughing a little and thinking "why didn't I think about this the first time?! It's so much easier!" Well, now I know for future reference what works better. I mainly sponged the green paint on. I used about 3 different shades of green and would apply each to different spots on the sponge. Then I would dab the sponge all over the area's I wanted to paint. I like using the different shades of color. It adds a bit of variety and texture. I think it brightens things up and makes it feel more artistic. After I was done with the green I went to work on the brown square. Jaden's table is a little bit bigger and so I was able to add a little more to it. I did the same with the brown as I did with the green using 3 different shades but I added some medium gel to the paint to give it more muddy texture. Then I took one of the boy's monster trucks and painted the wheels and ran the truck up and down through the brown paint. That also added to the muddy texture. Next I took the brown to make the shoreline of the pond and then added the blue for the water. I added some of the medium gel to the blue paint to make some waves. The last thing I did was to re-tape the roads using two strips of tape along each roadway leaving a small space between them. This is how I did the yellow road lines. It made it so much easier to do it this way instead of trying to do it freehand. But I learned I needed to pay attention to the intersections. I did have to go back a couple times and paint over a couple yellow lines to create the intersections. It looked better that way. And then after a coat of varnish it was done! It was so fun to put together. Most importantly Jaden loved it! I'm sure we will see lots of hours of play time here. Whether it's with cars or not it will be his special place to play.