Easy Valentines Day Treats

Happy Valentines Day!

Here are some quick and easy ideas that you still have time to do today!

My kids woke up to these treat bags this morning.  I was not very excited about the gifts they had at the stores, and for the price I decided to make my own.  I bought the little cans of soda, the cute bags, and a bag of Valentines Hershey Kisses.  I grabbed a few extra items out of my pantry and some secret stash (M & M cookies they hadn't found yet).  

One of our almost traditions is that I try to make pink pancakes for Valentines Day.

Last year I bought some metal heart cookie cutters on clearance, after the Valentines Day, and I used those on my griddle to make my heart shaped pancakes.  Spray come cooking spray inside the cookie cutter and be prepared that the cookie cutter will get hot.  I used some little tongs and a spatula.  

I found that just flipping the pancake and cutter over together worked best.  Then I gently pushed the pancake down to touch the griddle.

 Since I think I get to go on a date, I wanted to do a special treat for the kids for after supper so I whipped up these cupcakes quick.

This time I totally cheated and used a box mix for the cupcakes.

I then made some cream cheese frosting and grabbed my sprinkles.

I put some sprinkles in the glass bowl and turned my cupcake upside down and dipped it into the sprinkles to decorate the frosting.

The great thing about cupcakes is that usually there is some extra frosting.  This is why I absolutely love to make cream cheese frosting for cupcakes.  My kids will then use up the extra frosting as fruit dip.  I have to admit, it is pretty good that way.  

I love these new papers that don't fade!  Three Cheers, I will definitely be looking for these on clearance.  They are the Reynolds Stay Brite Baking cups, 36 count.

This worked awesome!  No huge sprinkle mess to clean up afterwards.  

Ok, so your thinking to yourself that you really don't have time to do this today.  So keep it in mind for next year.  The great thing is that kids love having pancakes for supper as well as breakfast.
Make sure you do hit the stores though to pick up sprinkles, cupcake papers, treat bags, etc.  I even buy the kids' Valentines for the next school year and save them.  Put it in a Rubbermaid and label it Valentines and then, if you really think you'll forget, set a reminder on your phone for next February 1st to go and open your Valentine bucket and scope out your loot, enjoy how much money you saved since you bought it on clearance and enjoy less stress since it's already in front of you and you don't have to schedule that trip to the store.
Happy Day!

Cute Pants

"Mom- I need new church pants." my son tells me yesterday.

WHAT?! I honestly just bought those pants, most likely in October but dang it, they should last longer than a couple months!  I saw the other day that my youngest daughters pants look like high waters now.

Who says my kids can grow up?!

On top of that, I don't ever remember having to buy my kids new pants in the middle of the winter.  They usually make it right to the end of the school year.

Having bigger sized kids in the house makes clothes shopping a challenge.  For my son, I have to buy husky with the adjustable waist and cinch those babies up, since the regular are a hair too tight around the waist.

My son out grew his 12 H jeans that I know I just bought for school this year in August so I thought to myself, this is easy, I just need to get 14 H in the same style and brand and we'll be good to go.

He puts them on and comes out of the bathroom.  Short of the pants falling off of him while he's walking he's telling me they are way too big.

I ask him, did you tighten them?  Yep so much that the grouping up of the fabric would hurt your skin.

So frustrating!  

Anyway, I can still find pants for my son, but for my almost 6 year old daughter it is a whole different ball game.

The most creative pants solution for her is what my post is about today.

If I'm lucky I can find cute girly capri pants in her larger size and they end up being cute jeans. 

 Otherwise

I buy my baby girls pants at goodwill, or other used clothing stores, garages sales, etc.  They have Gap, Childrens Place, Old Navy and other brand names that look awesome and have held up well, and look like they have lots more miles left in them, and I can be as picky as I want.  Ultimately I'm just going to take the scissors to them, so if the hem is rough from dragging on the ground, don't worry about it.  The pants I have on here are 12's for the 5 year old.

I take them home and cut off the extra 8 inches or so of pant legs and re-hem them.

Re-hemmed pants (sorry, she's a little dirty-it's kinda hard to get her to stop for a minute for a picture)

These brown sweat pants are my favorite.  I love the hot pink seams on 

the brown so I stuck with that and hemmed with a zigzag stitch.

 The shirt my little sweetie has on in these pictures is also a 12.  Shirts are another whole issue.  Lets just say 3/4" sleeves are wonderful!

Happy sewing!