Cake Pops

At a garage sale a few weeks ago, Becca found a cake pop maker for a whopping dollar.

They also had a little stand for the cake pops to dry on for another $1, so we splurged and bought both things. Then we took them home and tried them out.

I had never made cake pops before, but they were pretty simple to make. The machine came with a little recipe book, and we picked a chocolate recipe to start. We mixed up the dough, spooned it into the machine and then waited 6 minutes for them to cook. When they were done, we took them out and put the next batch in (that was probably the most tedious part of the process - you can only cook about 10 balls at a time, so you have to do it like 5 times to cook all the batter).

Once they were cool, we dipped them into melted chocolate chips and added sprinkles. We didn't have the special sticks cake pops are normally on, so we just used popsicle sticks from our craft supplies and they worked just fine. The finished cake pops were yummy! Here's Becca eating just as many sprinkles as she is putting on the cake pops:

(At this same garage sale, Samuel bought an adding machine for $1, which he is loving playing with. I will try to get some pictures of him using it and post those next). We love finding garage sales where they sell things for $1!

Concoctions Class

One of the classes we are doing this summer is Concoctions Class (I think the official title might be "Icky, Sticky, Messy Fun" or something like that, but we always call that kind of play at home Concoctions, so we just call the class that too). It is offered through our Parks and Rec Dept, which always has really great programs for kids. So far in the class we have made:

• Moon sand (like Kinetic sand)
• Silly Putty
• Temporary tattoos
• Oobleck
• Slime
• Fake Blood
• Playdough
• Flubber
• Ninja balloons
• Slimy frosting

And we still have one more session of the class to go! This class has been awesome. Both Samuel and Becca love to mix things up, and they have no problem with getting messy, so they are having a blast making all of these things. After the final class, we are supposed to get recipes for all of these fun things, so if anyone is interested in making any of them, let me know.

Here are some pictures from the first few weeks. (And, yes, we almost always have to come home and change clothes after class because they get very messy! Thankful this is held in the Community Center and not my kitchen!)

Lollipop Factory

The Spangler Candy Company is located about an hour from Fort Wayne. One day last week we took a trip there to see how they make their candy (they are best known for making dum-dum lollipops, but they also make candy canes).

We rode in a trolley inside the factory and got to see the different steps in making lollipops. It was neat to see all of the lollipops zooming along the conveyor belts to their different stations in the factory. The kids liked learning that the company makes some unusual lollipops, such as pizza or bacon flavored. They also thought it was really funny to wear hair nets during the tour. At the end of the tour, we got the check out the gift shop where there were tons of free samples of candy canes and lollipops.

Spangler makes regular candy canes and flavored ones. One of the flavors is Smarties candy flavor. The kids thought this joke the tour guide told was really funny: "As you visit the gift shop, buy some of our dum-dum lollipops and some of our Smarties candy canes, and then maybe you will turn out normal." We didn't buy any smarties candy canes, but the kids did talk me into buying a GIANT bag of the lollipops, so if you are our guest anytime soon, be prepared to be offered a lollipop since we now have a million.

The pictures below show them posing with a giant version of the dum-dums mascot, and then with the trolley. We also had some time to kill between when we arrived and when the next tour would leave, so the last picture is from a park we found where we ate lunch.

Passport to Imagination

Each summer the craft store Michael's offers crafting classes for kids in their Passport to Imagination program. This is the first summer we have tried out the classes and I was really impressed. There are certain crafts scheduled over the course of 5 weeks during the summer. We chose to go to one to where they were making a fishing game.

Samuel and Becca got to make the fishing game, and then they were given 4 colors of Model Magic to make whatever they wanted out of, and then they got to make something with perler beads. So they got to do 3 crafts all together, for a total of about an hour and a half. We happened to be the only people on the day we went, so the instructor worked one-on-one with them on everything. The entire morning cost $5 per child, so it was very reasonable. If you have a Michael's near you and are looking for a fun way to spend a morning, I'd highly recommend checking out their Passport to Imagination classes.