cooking with kids

Fridays + Donuts

Since I've sat down to write this, I've seriously been up and down the stairs eleven times. And yes, I counted. Reese is having some sort of nap regression with me staying home; some say she's super excited about being with Mommy more, I think she just hates me. This last time I went up, it's because I heard a super loud THUD; don't worry, it wasn't her falling from the bed, it was her putting her new Bitty Baby cradle IN to her bed, so that it can take up half the room lying next to her. [I've told her since Santa brought it, she cannot sleep with the cradle IN the bed, it can lie on the floor NEXT to her bed.] Well, by opening our monitor on my phone, I see that she's finally ASLEEP with said cradle next to her head, and I am NOT opening that door to move it. 

Lord help me. 

Okay, so shew! It's FRIDAY! And I've had a whopping three days at home alone with the kids. Yesterday we got two inches of snow so that meant the schools were closed (laughing so hard), but I suppose it's for the best; there were 120 accidents in the morning during regular commute! This city and snow just don't mix. But that also meant a day off with my husband and we thoroughly enjoyed the day: sledding, hot chocolate, a trip to Target, watching the snow fall outside; I'll do a whole blog post soon but not now. I'd like to hurry up and finish this so that I can go shower and MAYBE lie down for a few minutes before the children are awake again! 

Browsing Instagram this week I quickly stopped scrolling when I came to a picture posted by Kristen (@oldjoy). She had a gorgeous photo of donuts and a link to her blog post. I had to check it out because 1. I love to bake and 2. donuts are my jam. 

Because today is Friday, and I wanted to celebrate surviving my first (half) week (more laughing) doing this whole stay at home mom thing; the kids and I made donuts. I asked their previous sitter [a dear friend of mine] and her 1-year old to join us, and that was really fun to spend some adult time while the kids semi-played together. 

I made the frosting for these first, and I literally just replicated Kristen's recipe: 

1. melt 2 TBS butter
2. mix 1.5c of powdered sugar and the melted butter
3. add milk slowly, 1TBS at at time (she used 4, I ended up using 5)

 
And for the donuts, I used a simple Pilsbury cake mix (strawberry) that literally just needs to be poured into a bowl and beat on medium speed with 3 eggs and 1/2 cup of vegetable oil. 

The kids helped (oh yes, helped is such a kind word here) and were very anxious for the donuts to be done cooking and cooling so we could cover them with icing. (Once they're completely cooled, just flip the donut upside down and dip in the icing mixture.) We added sprinkles to ours and they turned out super cute. 

Next time I think I'll add vanilla or something to the icing mixture? It was good, but for my personal preference tasted a little too much like plain sugar. OH, and I should mention that I used a simple donut maker pan (purchased from Amazon) to make these cuties. Anyway, time to run! I'm super excited for this time I have with these rugrats (my friend's 1-year old Jadon is pictured above, he is the sweetest human ever); and I also so glad that it's FRIDAY and we all get a weekend with Daddy. Cheers, friends! Happy donut making and TGIF!

A Christmas Themed Breakfast

I was browsing Pinterest back in November finding cute holiday crafts and recipes for the upcoming Christmas season. You know though how you always Pin stuff and then completely forget about it though?! That's what I did. But luckily I was scanning through my food board this week for new things to try with the kids and there it was, these holiday themed pancakes. We even had ALL the ingredients [because they're super simple + honestly you could use whatever you wanted I think!] The kids *loved* watching their daddy cook these and they even more so loved designing the faces of the snowman, reindeer and none other but Santa himself!

I've seen things like raspberries used in place of the strawberries for Santa's hat, blueberries for the eyes, a round chunk of cheese for the reindeer's eye, and much more! This took my husband maybe ten minutes top to cook the pancakes and just a few extra for the bacon. I *highly* recommend trying this with your little ones, regardless of their ages! Or heck, do it just for you because what's better than Cool Whip spread all over a yummy pancake?!

Enjoy, Y'all! I would LOVE to see your photos if you try this at home. Tag @ashley_glass on Instagram and use the hashtag #ashleyglassblog so that I can see it! And comment below with which one was YOUR holiday favorite. Merry Christmas, friends!