I came across this great new (to me) magazine called Yum Food & Fun For Kids and saw one of my favorite recipes, but in a jar! Perfect for gift giving, I thought.

The original recipe is for Tidy Mom’s Pie in a Jar, but I changed it up a little. I made apple crisp and used larger jars because, you know, you can never have too much apple crisp. I also made a few of the jars gluten free!

Apple Crisp In A Jar Recipe (*GF substitutions)

5 cups apples (I used golden delicious)

3 tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup rolled oats (or *gluten free oats)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup flour (or *Pamela’s baking mix)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup softened butter

10 oz. canning jars (makes about 4)

*As a rule, oats are gluten free, but the areas in which they are grown may have been previously occupied by wheat. It’s safest to use gluten free oats if you have a wheat allergy.

And quickly, have I told you about the amazing Pamela’s Baking Mix? Since I stopped eating gluten, Pamela’s makes it possible for me to enjoy baked goods like pancakes, apple crisp, and breads with my family or company when they come. My kids can’t taste the difference when I use Pamela’s in pancakes, and I haven’t had one complaint about my pumpkin bread that I have made with it!

Moving on… :)

Wash the apples (Yes, I wash them even though I am going to peel them. I admit to having quirks.)

Core the apples the best you can – I kept missing the bottom core!

Skin and cut the apples. I don’t worry about getting every piece of skin off – just the majority of it.

Ask your little helper to use small cookie cutters and make at least two different shapes using a thin apple slice – enough for each apple crisp you are making. It’s for health reasons. I’ll explain why later. Soak the shapes in water while you finish the recipe so they don’t brown.

Add the sugar (or have your helper do it) and stir well. Set the apples aside.

Combine oats, baking mix or flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and slowly add in soft butter. Trust me on this one – don’t melt the butter or try to add in cold butter. It just doesn’t work well.

If you are splitting the recipe and making some crisps gluten free and some with flour, make sure to keep them separated!

The end product should look beautiful like this:

Fill each of the jars with apples. Fill half of each jar with apples. If you fill the entire jar (like I first did) you won’t have enough room to put lots of the oats in. So fill halfway.

Layer oats mixture, another layer of apples, and more oats on top. Fill the jar as much as you can because you’ll be surprised at how much it sinks during baking, making you think that the recipients will rename your gift “Half of an Apple Crisp in a Jar.”

Get out those shapes and stick one shape on top of the crisps without gluten, and another on the crisps with regular flour. We used pumpkins for gluten free apple crisps, apples and pumpkins for crisps with flour.

Bake at 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes. I just looked for browning.

And viola! Apple Crisp in a Jar. I refrigerated these for a night, then put them and some mini containers of vanilla ice cream (to fill the other half of the jar that had settled) into a big cooler bag and brought them to the school for the boys’ teachers.

What’s something fun you have made for a teacher? I need more ideas!

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This post is linked with Cindy’s Made By You Mondays, Elaine’s Miss Elaine-ous Monday, and…

Apple Crisp In A Jar {with and without gluten} is property of: Our Crazy Boys

Daddy is reading his card to him on his birthday morning :)

He’s 7.

Which makes no sense to me, because I just had him yesterday.

Or maybe last week.

And my 7 year old? He wanted a Chop Chop Caveman birthday party.

He says that it’s the new Angry Birds. Only cooler.

And I think he’s cuter :)

The problem was that are no Chop Chop Caveman birthday party ideas online.

Anywhere.

Even Ebay and their amazing crafters and party favor makers are behind on this one.

And for someone who doesn’t play Chop Chop Caveman, it was a little hard to think of ideas.

Me: “Jack, what does he do? The caveman?”

Jack: “He eats meat. And he throws watermelon.”

Me: “Oh. Ok. Easy enough.”

Meat and watermelon.

Let the planning commence.

We ended up with a green monster turned ghetto watermelon piñata.  Because someone put an idea in Jack’s head that birthday parties are not complete without piñatas.

And we borrowed some plastic food from the little girls across the street and hid it like Easter eggs for the kids to find. Then they traded the food for Smarties and put them in their party bags.

But the most fun of the day was the watermelon throwing contest. It was so much fun that we stopped keeping score of the distance and the kids each took 3 turns. That’s 30 times a watermelon was thrown into my pool.

It was thrown for height a few times.

By two tweenagers.

And it didn’t even break.

And a cake.

Jack wanted a cake that looked like meat.

I couldn’t do it.

So we did a volcano. In one of those fancy Pampered Chef batter bowls that the girl moms get to make Barbie cakes in.

Ha.

I don’t need a girl to make a cake in my glass bowl.

(Truly, this made me oh-so-happy.)

The downside of the party?

Jack didn’t meet his “more boys than girls” party ratio.

We almost did, but two boys couldn’t make it.

He said that since all of his parties have more girls than boys, his friends will start to tease him soon.

I tried to explain that since all of his friends are girls, it wouldn’t happen.

He got over it.

He has some pretty awesome girlfriends girl friends, though.

Dear Jack, You are a good friend. I never had a friend like you! Your friend, Molly

The second highlight of the party?

You know, after the watermelon throwing.

Billy visited. It was like a petting zoo in my living room.

The kids fed him live worms, and giggled at how he looks up at you when you talk to him.

They didn’t even mind when he pooped in the middle of the party. They’re so forgiving.

—

Have your kids ever wanted a party that was a little harder to plan than most? What was it?

I have a {gulp} 7 year old. is property of: Our Crazy Boys

*Update: Comment #7, Molly, was the winner!! This was fun ;) And make sure to come back tomorrow, because I have a fun giveaway to post!*

As if the Easter Bunny, Santa, and The Tooth Fairy aren’t enough, the Leprechaun comes to visit us on St. Patrick’s Day.

It didn’t start out that way. He just started visiting two years ago.

And then he skipped a year.

I’ll explain :)

My parents were visiting two years ago for St. Patrick’s Day. Mom and I thought it would be fun for the leprechaun to come visit.

And it was fun.

He put the ketchup in the shower, and the shampoo in the fridge. (We knew it was him because he left shamrocks behind)

He turned the milk green,

and closed up all the toilet paper rolls with his shamrock stickers.

But the worst thing that the mischievous leprechaun did?

He put tattoos on the kids when they were sleeping!

And not only did he tattoo the kids, he got Grandma and Grandpa, too!

The leprechaun wasn’t all tricks. He left a small bucket of treats, too :)

I can’t tell you how much fun the kids had. They laughed and giggled and raced around the house to see what else the leprechaun might have done.

Some things they found:

-The bags of Cheerios and Life cereal (the ones we let them eat regularly) were switched with the Lucky Charms and Apple Jacks! We let the boys have cereal and the bag they pulled out of the box was the wrong cereal!

-The boy’s pajamas were in their underwear drawer, and their underwear were in the hiding spot under their beds.

-Their toothbrushes were under the candy in the pantry.

-Their toothpaste was in the fridge.

-Their shoes were lined up nice and neat… except they were mismatched.

For every mischievous act, the leprechaun left a sticker to tell the boys it was his fault.

Last year, we were in Hawaii during St. Patrick’s Day. We had no idea that when we got home, one of the first things the boys would do was look around the house to see if the leprechaun stopped by while we were gone.

And for the last year? The leprechaun has received more mentions than the Easter Bunny and Santa combined. So naturally… I have started to plan early this year.

I wish I had thought to grab some extra tattoos when we started, because those “pinch me” ones were priceless! But look what I found last week:

Body stickers (Michael is getting the “Kiss Me” one).

Body stickers (vs. tattoos) mean that you don’t have to sneak into your kid’s room in the middle of the night, get them wet with a washcloth, and try to apply a temporary tattoo to a sleeping child. Score!

To get you in the spirit of acting like a leprechaun, I bought an extra set of body stickers. Leave me a comment telling me what the leprechaun might do in your house this year, and on Monday I’ll pick a winner and send you my extra set (see Christine, one entry giveaway – just for you!).

In the interest of full disclosure, I was compensated for my time by Larry the Leprechaun.

The winner will be chosen by random.org.

The Leprechaun is property of: Our Crazy Boys

Ok, ok.

I know I posted about the cutest valentines ever.

But, when I started to make them?

An even more adorable  cooler idea popped into my head.

Want to see?

Here’s cute:

And here’s cool:

And here’s cooler:

I used this awesome *free* program called Comic Life. It used to come pre-installed on Macs, but now you can download it yourself!

{Even More} Adorable Homemade Valentines is property of: Our Crazy Boys

When I was growing up, I remember Christmas morning being a little chaotic.

Wrapping paper flying everywhere, gifts all over the living room, excited kids squealing.

The one thing that kept it under control?

Color coding.

Yes, my parents are geniuses.

Every year, I had red paper, my brother had green. There were no excuses for opening his gifts, and he never opened mine. Our paper changed every year, but it was always the same – red for me, green for Marc.

I tried this the first year we had Christmas with both the boys and to make it easier for Michael, I bought some photo pictures from Shutterfly. Michael’s picture was on his gifts (wrapped in blue paper) and Jack’s picture was on gifts wrapped in red paper. Talk about easy.

An added bonus? When I wrap the gifts, I can easily look and make sure that the piles are somewhat even. If we have more red gifts in our super secret hiding place, we know to buy for Michael. If there are more blue gifts, we should go shopping for Jack to even it out.

I can imagine that for families with more than 2 kids, this system could be realllly beneficial.

I went a step further when Jack was born. I went to Costco and bought two of their huge rolls of reversible wrapping paper, with Santa on it. Because in our house, Santa’s gifts come wrapped in Santa paper. So, blue Santa paper is for Michael and red Santa paper is for Jack. And the paper? It’s the same every year.

To see more tips and tricks, go visit Kristin at We Are That Family.

A Color Coded Christmas Morning is property of: Our Crazy Boys

I am so excited about this post! I have a big giveaway to tell you about, and I know that you guys will come through for me with lots of entries, right? Because the entries? They’re FUN!

Before I fill you in on the fine print of the contest, I want to show you what I made.

You see, I’m a speech therapist in a middle school. Recently, I’ve been having trouble keeping my students focused on meeting their goals. My first thought was to take a science fair board (fancy name: tri-fold display board) and write rules on it. I thought it would be big and bright and attention-getting. Then, that turned into making a stop sign to get their attention. Then… well… see for yourself:

I had so many ideas about using the display board in my classroom, and it was hard to choose one project! As a teacher, it was hard for me to cut up the board. I am used to seeing the display boards “as-is,” but in the end I decided to step out of my comfort zone and cut it apart. The things I do for you guys…

So, this weekend I went to Walmart for the display board and some glue. Usually, I wouldn’t need the glue, but Jack lost all of mine recently and all we have left in the house are glue sticks. Anyway…

Here’s my supply list:

Elmer’s Tri-Fold Foam Display Board (Elmer’s makes cardboard and foam boards)

Elmer’s Project Poppers double sided permanent markers (Jack keeps trying to take these)

Black spray paint

One 12×12 piece of particle board

One 5 foot 2×4

Red, White, and Black duct tape

Elmer’s Wood Glue

Elmer’s Rubber Cement

Elmer’s Dual Tip School Glue Pen

Tape measure

Staple gun

Drill and 4 screws

Box cutter

Steve cut the particle board for me. Just one 12×12 square was all we needed. While he did that, I marked one side of the tri-fold board into two 5 inch strips for the crossing sign, and marked the other side into a 4×20 inch strip (for the black strip that sits in the middle of the red lights) and a 6×28 inch strip (for the black and white arm). I used black duct tape to cover the middle strip and for the stripes on the arm. The stripes are 5 inches apart.

At first, I was going to make octagon shapes out of the middle of the board for the red lights at the bottom of the sign. After all that planning, I changed my mind and ended up using a paint can to make circles. I used red duct tape to cover the circles instead of paint, as the foam board is a little slippery and doesn’t paint well.

Use the permanent markers to write key words/phrases onto the red lights.

Steve used wood glue to secure the particle board base onto the 2×4. After he glued it on, we used a drill and 4 screws for added strength.

I used a box cutter to cut through the foam board. The inside of the foam board is a little messy, so I used duct tape to “finish” the pieces that were cut (I cut a piece of tape and applied it about 1 inch away from the top of the board, then folded it over the board so the foam pieces wouldn’t fall out). I thought of a slogan to stick on there, printed it out, and used the Elmer’s school glue to stick it onto the foam board.

So, the list of things to assemble is:

2 red circles

1 black strip

1 black and white arm

2 white strips, used for the crossing sign

2×4 with particle board base

I spray painted the particle board black (using a piece of cardboard to shield the wood post).

Using a good eye (and a little bit of guesswork) I used rubber cement to construct the crossing sign, then I used the staple gun to adhere the sign to the wood post.

Kindly ignore the messy garage…

As Steve used sandpaper to make the wood look a little nicer, I used black duct tape to tape the back of the red circles (lights, if you will) to the black strip, then stapled the black strip to the wood post.

The last thing I did was staple the black and white arm onto the middle of the post. The finishing touch!

Viola! My students noticed it today and it serves as a great way for me to remind them to use those great sounds (by saying “rich” instead of “witch”) and think about the language they’re using (“he saw the car” instead of “he seed the car”).

So… Can You Top This?

I bet you can!

I have three $100 Walmart gift cards to give away to whoever tops my project!!

The requirements?

1. You have to use an Elmer’s tri-fold display board (cardboard or foam). Use it any way you want, be creative!

2. You have to post your project and instructions on either a blog or a public facebook note with the hashtag #canyoutopthis. If you need help creating a public facebook note, please leave me a comment and I’ll be happy to walk you through it!

3. Submit a comment here with a link to your blog post or public facebook note no later than January 5, 2011 (see? you have plenty of time!).  Winners will be announced on January 7, 2011. Projects are judged based on uniqueness :)

4. When you submit your project, don’t forget to visit these blogs to increase your chances of winning:

Mallery’s Deals
Savvy Chic Savings
Scraps of my Geek Life
Mommy 2k

They are hosting #canyoutopthis giveaways, as well! Get crafting!

The fine print: You can enter on all five blogs, though you’ll only be eligible to win one $100 gift card. I was compensated by Collective Bias for my time, but all opinions in this post are mine.

Elmer’s #CanYouTopThis $300 Giveaway is property of: Our Crazy Boys

I’m obviously a little late making my list this year, and thought I would share this post in case you’re just sitting down to make your list, too!

—-

36 sleeps until what?

You don’t know?

Really?

I bet you do…

Is your list made yet?

Mine is.

But I can’t show you this year’s list…

Some of you might be on it.

I am a bit compulsive obsessive organized with my Christmas shopping list.

I want to make sure that I don’t leave anyone out.

And I have been known to buy gifts for people that have already been “taken care of” (in the gift-buying sense, not the Mafia sense).

So, a few years ago, I devised a plan.

Take a peek:

First, I put everyone’s name down that we need to buy for.

I know that we don’t need to buy for anyone, but you know what I mean.

Then, I find the perfect gift. And I type it below their name in green. or red. or whatever color I’m feeling that year.

I take my trusty list out with me wherever I go. When I find the gift, I cross it off.

This is the fun part. For me, anyway. Because I’m a dork.

When I get back to my house, I edit my list (because I like things to be perfect like that) and the purchased gifts are changed to black.

Hopefully, if things go as planned, I will have a black Christmas list by December 20th.

I LOVE black Christmas lists.

36 Sleeps {Originally Posted 11/18/2009} is property of: Our Crazy Boys

Today at the grocery store, Jack asked for brussel sprouts.

Jack: “Mom, can we pleeeeease get these? The little lettuces?”

Me: “The brussel sprouts?”

Jack: “Yes! Brussel sprouts! I loooove them!”

Me: *bowing at the awe-struck produce department patrons* “Of course!”

Wash brussel sprouts, cut them in half.

Lightly coat with olive oil, salt, and pepper (and some lemon juice if you’d like).

Roast at 400 degrees for 20-ish minutes.

I thought that this proud Mom moment was totally worthy of a blog post.

Oh, and Moms? Feed your kids veggies. Early and often.

See it. Believe it. is property of: Our Crazy Boys

Come find me at Aspiring Mama’s place today for Story Time Saturdays (yes, a little bit late…).

Every Saturday, she features a blogger reading to their little one, and Jack and I chose to read Big Sharks.

(Pauline’s always looking for new people to feature… record yourself, upload it to YouTube, and send her the link!)

Michael is currently too cool for the camera, so he played videographer.

At about 3:10 into the video, Jack has an America’s Funniest Home Video moment… Steve thinks I should send it in…

What do you think?

(P.S. I am multi-tasking and counting this as 40 of 52 of Where’s Mom?)

Traveling again… is property of: Our Crazy Boys

Nope. It doesn’t look any cooler when it’s spelled out like that.

106.

That looks even hotter.

One-oh-six.

Nope. Still hot.

Hot, hot, hot.

No matter how you write it.

It was 106 degrees today.

The boys are lying on the couch, the air conditioning is on, and the tv is entertaining us.

We ran our errands this morning, we were productive.

We jumped in the pool after lunch, so they got some energy out.

But now? It’s too hot to do anything.

And we’ve got 5 more weeks of break to go.

I thought I would share a bit of our summer plans with you.

If you’re a local reader, I hope you can take advantage of some of these things.

If you’re not local, I hope that your town has something similar to offer.

1. Grand Cinemas Summer Movie Club Until August 6th, Grand Cinemas is offering free movie showings for kids under the age of 10. Anyone over the age of 10 pays $2 a show. Did you read that again? FREE movies in an air-conditioned theatre. Eligible shows are played Mon-Fri at 10 am, with 2 different movies to choose from every day. The movie selection changes every week. We’re taking advantage of this, and are especially excited about seeing Pete’s Dragon and Little Rascals.

2. The pool. Sadly, many of the city pools are closed for the summer because of the budget. We are fortunate enough to have our own pool. We often invite friends over and the kids never get tired of swimming.

3. Dairy Queen Where else can you still get an ice cream cone for under $2? It’s hot here, so we are pretty generous during the summer with letting the boys have  ice cream and ice pops. When it’s just too hot to go outside and play, a trip to DQ is a great way to pass the time.

4.Chick-Fil-A (Also known as, the cleanest fast food restaurant in Tucson) We love Chick-Fil-A. Throughout the school year my girlfriend Eileen, her sister Lisa, and I would often meet at Chick-Fil-A with our collective 4 kids. Sometimes we would go to the zoo or the Children’s Museum first, but often, we would just meet at Chick-Fil-A for a really long lunch.

The restaurant, the play area, and the bathrooms are clean. The staff is among the friendliest group of people I have met. The food – yummy! And… ready for this? They have balloons. And a nice man named Robert that is eager to blow them up for the kids before they even ask.

Sold.

The kids love to eat lunch and then play together in the play area. And the Moms? We can chat, watch our kids play, and relax for a bit. During the summer, in the 100 degree heat? Chick-Fil-A is an undiscovered treasure for Moms.

5. Pump it Up Three days a week, they open up their gym for kids to jump and get some energy out. It’s air conditioned and fun, and we all leave tired. 2 nights a week, they have a family jump night, and… get this… on the first Tuesday of each month, they have a Sensory Jump Night for children on the Autistic Spectrum. Reservations are required for that night, to keep groups small and less stimulating for the kids.

So tell me, what are you planning to do this summer?

One hundred and six. is property of: Our Crazy Boys