Preschool Snack - Part 2

After pretzels and apples on Monday, and S'mores Trail Mix on Wednesday, we decided to make dirt dessert pudding cups for preschool snack on Friday. This was another easy one to make and Linds and Luke helped throughout the entire process. The end result was delicious and after we set aside enough for her class, there were three left. I thought this was perfect since the boy doesn't really do desserts (especially one this juvenile!)...but lo and behold, when I pulled them out last night for dessert, his eyes lit up and he exclaimed, "oh, YES, I love dirt dessert!" Needless to say, I shared half of my pudding cup with my grateful husband :) Lucky for us, too, there were four sent home from school today - so we each got our own tonight.

We garnished ours with a single gummy worm on top (mostly because I managed to eat the rest of the gummy worms over the course of the week we had them in the house and didn't have any extras to mix in with the batter - totally the baby's fault?!). The pudding cups taste much better after sitting overnight in the fridge, but can always be eaten pretty much immediately after making, too.

Dirt Dessert
Ingredients
1 (3.9 oz) package instant chocolate pudding
2 cups cold milk
1 (8 oz) tub whipped topping
15 Oreo cookies finely crushed
Gummy worms

Directions

1. Beat pudding mix and milk in a large bowl with wire whisk for 2 minutes.
2. Let stand 5 minutes.
3. Mix in whipped topping and 1/2 cup of cookie crumbs.
4. Spoon into ten 6 or 7 oz cups and top with remaining crumbs.
5. Refrigerate for an hour and top with gummy worms before serving.

Our doubled batch for her class:

Preschool Snack - Part 1

Lindsay was in charge of snacks for her preschool class this week and we decided to go a little creative with them. I always feel bad - since her birthday is right at Christmas, she usually gets to bring her birthday treat on the same day of the holiday party. Everyone's already filling up on cookies and fudge and all that other holiday goodness, that cake and cupcakes are an afterthought. The fact that "mom guilt" over the pending arrival of our third is settling in doesn't help either. I know when this little guy is born that dividing my attention three ways is going to be tough, so I'm trying to do extra special things with Linds and Luke now just to leave them with happy thoughts before my mind (and time) goes.

So, anyways, we decided to do some theme snacks and the letter they were learning this week was "P." On Monday we brought in individual bags of pretzels and apple slices - big hits with 5 year olds! And on Wednesday, we decided to make a trail mix snack that we've been excited to try - s'mores trail mix. Didn't quite fit in with the theme, but it was probably one of the tastiest treats I've snacked on that a 5 year old would enjoy, too. It was super easy to make - in fact, both of the kids made it for the most part. All they had to do was dump the bags/boxes of stuff into a big bowl and mix it up.

S'Mores Trail Mix
Ingredients
1 box of Golden Grahams
1 bag of miniature marshmallows
1 bag of chocolate chips (I used the Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips - better than Hershey's and I'm a Hershey native!)
1 cup of peanuts (optional - we couldn't add them because of school rules)

Directions

1. Combine ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Try not to eat the entire thing yourself before serving ;-)