Cookie Bars. I think that I may stop making regular cookies all together. These cookie bars were so easy to make, I don’t know why it has taken me this long to get on the train!

I found this recipe for Frosted Confetti Cookie Bars on Instagram from Emily of My Messy Kitchen, and I love it! Easy to follow, easy to make, and a crowd pleaser dessert to boot. I added Valentine m&m’s, colored sprinkles, and chocolate chips.

The frosting was easy to make as well, and I tinted it pink (one drop of gel food coloring to keep it pale), to keep with the Valentine theme. Perfect cookie to frosting ratio.

Try the cookie bar recipe out and let me know what you added in!

The post Simple Cookie Bars Are My New Favorite Desserts appeared first on A Little Bit About a Lot of Things.

I saw people making the viral keychains all over Instagram and decided that I had to make some for my friends. I bought the decals for the keychain pre-made, and just added them to the clear, sparkle tags. It took no time at all. I then added some conversation heart gift cards to Starbucks – these ones were a minimum of $10 to load on the card. I found cute e.l.f. lip balms to add to the keychains as well. In order to punch a hole in the top, I used the back of an enamel pin and then looped in a jump ring. I found some star hinges to add too, just to mix things up a little bit.

All the supplies for the keychains can be found at Hobby Lobby, the e.l.f. lip balm can be found at Target, and the gift cards can be to the place of your choice.

Let me know if you’ve tried making these viral keychains below in the comments.

Cold Transfer Stickers (similar) can be found here, keychains can be found here, star hinge clasps can be found here, e.l.f lip balm can be found here.

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So it is getting to be that point in the year when I have hit that recipe rut. Well I mean, I hit it in like week two of January, but I want to pretend like I am winning this year. So I was searching the internet and I came across this recipe for spicy alla vodka pizza pasta and made it. THE KIDS LOVED IT! I made it like once a week for three weeks now. Still going strong. It couldn’t be easier to make, and it is by one of my favorite creators, Half Baked Harvest. So check out the recipe here.

Mine doesn’t look nearly as photogenic, but my kids thought I was the dinnertime hero, so that it good enough for me Try it out and let me know what you think.

Drop me some of your other favorite recipes in the comments to try out.

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My big thing with making traditional pancakes for my family is that I would make them in batches, put them in the oven to keep them warm, but really no one would get hot pancakes. With sheet pan pancakes, everyone gets to eat them at the same time, and everyone gets to eat them while they are hot. They are light and fluffy, easy to make, and everyone can get exactly the kind that they want.

If you are feeling especially fancy, you can use a cookie cutter after you have made them and cut them out into cute shapes like the ones above we did for Valentine’s Day.

Here’s an example of a weeknight choice at our house. One kid likes chocolate chip, one likes sprinkles, one likes m&m and one likes plain. But on a sheet pan, everyone can have the kind that they like.

How do you make them? Just use your favorite pancake recipe and then pour onto a sheet pan (cookie sheet) (that has been coated with PAM) and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Brush on some melted butter when you pull the pan out of the oven and you are done!

Another way we like to make pancakes is in a muffin tin. Cooking time will depend on how deep your tins are and how much you fill them.

Here’s my go to recipe for pancakes:

2C all purpose flour

2tsp baking powder

1tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2tbsp granulated sugar

2C buttermilk

2 large eggs, beaten

1tsp vanilla

Directions:

Whisk together dry ingredients. Add in buttermilk, eggs and vanilla.

Let batter rest for 10 minutes.

The post Everyone Gets Them While They’re Hot: Sheet Pan Pancakes appeared first on A Little Bit About a Lot of Things.

Valentine’s Day was my favorite holiday growing up. Making home made Valentines for my friends, glue sticks and heart doilies. With my kids it was decorating bags and fun toys to give to friends. Recently though, our school district decided to do away with Valentine’s Day, or Friendship Day, as it was most recently changed to. It made me a little sad. The kids did a little something with their class, but it wasn’t the same. I understand about things not being equitable, but it feels sad none the less.

Meanwhile, we decided to keep doing fun things at the house. We made our own mailboxes and put them up on our doors. We left notes and Valentines for each other in the week leading up to the actual holiday. Here is mine. I attached them to the doors with 3M Velcro, easy to put up, and even easier to take down.

This was the pre-teen inspired Valentine I gave to my daughter, who isn’t even a pre-teen yet, but has all the makings of one

All things Taylor Swift in our house, so sticker mosaic art book, sparkle freckle temporary tattoos, and a Taylor Swift claw clip, all from The Paper Store. The conversation heart NeeDoh was too cute to pass up, although we did manage to make it explode by squeezing it too hard And we loved the smell of the Touchland velvet peach scent.

On Valentine’s Day, I added these cute frosted sugar cookies to the kid’s lunches for an extra sweet treat.

Does your school still celebrate Valentine’s Day?

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We thought it would be fun to do a taco truck birthday theme this year so we called on our friend Sarah to do this really fun cake topper for the “mom made cake”. I basically just said, let’s do something fun and Sarah took off with the idea. I mean, how cute did it come out? We added some other fun pinwheels to the cake (to hide my not smooth icing) but the truck did all the heavy lifting!

We had a make your own taco bar for guests which was a big hit – and a big hit with me because there was so little clean up!

Three is still a little too little to have a friend birthday party in our house (we just aren’t ready yet), so instead, we put together these fun packs for friends at school. We are in a dog phase right now, so we picked up a Scooby coloring book (I think they were $1), some Crayola crayons, and some graham cracker Scooby Snacks. Each friend had their name on the coloring book on a dog bone

What fun birthday themes have you loved lately?

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Looking for other things to do with your friends than just dinner and drinks? I always am. While dinner and drinks or coffee are always welcome, I like to look for fun experiences. I have known about Weesh Bake Shop for a long time. Elyse’s dad used to be our vet when I was a kid. At my most recent job, before having kids, a lot of friends had her make some amazing cakes! When I saw that she was offering cake decorating classes, I grabbed my best baking friend, and we met in the Seaport for a fun night out.

The event was held at Travelmug Cafe in the Seaport. The cakes are already crumb coated when we arrive and we practiced icing techniques before decorating the actual cake. So fun to see that we all started with the same blank canvas, and everyone’s cake turned out so unique! I kept mine pretty simple. It was a small group of lovely ladies, and we decorated and chatted while sipping some complimentary wine.

We even got to bring home a complimentary signature Weesh tart! Elyse offers private classes at the Roslindale location of her bakery. Check out all of her offerings here.

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We were headed to our first sleep under, and decided to bring some fun party favors to keep the night exciting! We had these cute clear pencil cases that I used my Cricut to personalize with the girl’s names. They were having dinner and then watching a movie, so we decided to put in some fun movie candy to go with the microwave popcorn inside. Every girl got something different so that they could share. They each got two packets of mix ins for their water in fun Starburst and Skittles flavors, along with an Essie nail polis and and Burt’s Bees chapstick. A fun night was had by all, a total success!

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As I was just talking about my sprinkle collection, I thought I would post a few pictures of cupcakes that I have done lately. I made these cute Pokemon cupcakes for a birthday party. Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream, topped with pokeballs from Amazon.

Here is what they look like without the Pokeballs.

These are some of my favorite sprinkles, the blue sanding sugar with the gold stars!

So this was technically not a cupcake, it was a cake, but I loved the contrast of the chocolate cake with the vanilla frosting swirls and the bright colored sprinkles.

Here are the cupcakes to go with the cake. I don’t usually do chocolate cupcakes, you have to be one of a select few to get me to make them!

Lastly, these are pretty simple and fun, but love the color combination of these.

What is your favorite sprinkle color combination?

The post Cupcakes: What I’ve Been Working On Lately… appeared first on A Little Bit About a Lot of Things.

We decided to pack up the car and spend February vacation with a few friends in Vermont, skiing at Okemo. I went to Stowe, Vermont as a kid during February break, so I was excited to try somewhere new. The car ride was uneventful, a little over 2.5 hours from where we live. We were tightly packed in the car, which meant not much room for anything besides people and skis. We stopped in town on the way to our condo to grab some pizza. We picked up the last two pies before they closed for the night, at 7pm. Then, headed out to the local grocery store to buy food for 3 days that cost us the same amount as sopping at home for a week. Slim pickings, so if your kids are picky eaters, make sure to bring food with you in a cooler.

We booked our condo at Winter Place through Vacasa, and literally paid an arm and a leg for a place that was at its prime back in the 90’s. We were on the top floor of a three story building, which was a plus. The unit had a washer and dryer in the unit and a ski locker outside so you didn’t have to haul your stuff up and down the stairs. The location was good, ski on ski off, and close to the pool. *Note that if you are going to go to the pool, puddle jumpers (bubbles, floaties, whatever you might call them) are not allowed in the pool. You also need to bring your own towels. Our bath towels from the condo for showers were thin, and about the size of a wash cloth, so they were not ideal for the pool.

Day 1 of vacation started at ski school. Very well organized drop off and the program itself was good for my kids. They had a smaller area for little ones, with their own small magic carpet, which was also close to a bunny slope. Bigger kids meet up at the chair lift and ski on the mountain. Groups were small and they gave you a report at the end of the day, noting what to work on and what skills were accomplished. Lunch is provided and there were plenty of breaks to play and warm up. Outside conditions for the older kids skiing were super cold and windy, so we called it an early day.

The second day we had a snow storm and the kids had different levels of tolerance for the cold. We went for a swim, went sledding, and did a little shopping in town. There are plenty of things to keep you busy here. If we had more time, we would have loved to have tested out the mountain coaster, gone snow tubing, or taken a sleigh ride.

Does your family like to go skiing? Where is your favorite place to go?

Lift Tickets: https://www.okemo.com/plan-your-trip/lift-access/tickets.aspx

Lessons: https://www.okemo.com/plan-your-trip/ski-and-ride-lessons/category/child.aspx

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