Going out for dinner on Valentine’s Day isn’t always possible, especially when kids are in the picture.  This year host a family movie night, complete with the perfect holiday movie night treat.   This yummy, and simple to make Valentine’s Day Popcorn Ball will have everyone smiling!

(Check out my Valentine’s Day Crafts & Activities page for more fun ideas.)

Homemade Popcorn Ball

Ingredients Needed:

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• one 10 oz. bag of mini marshmallows
• four oz. of white chocolate
• 3-5 drops of red food coloring
• 4 quarts of popped popcorn (about 1/2 cup kernels)
• Valentine’s M & M’s
• red decorating sugar (optional)
• non-stick cooking spray

How to Make Holiday Popcorn Ball:

• In a large pot, melt butter and salt over low heat.
• Add marshmallows, white chocolate and food coloring and stir until melted.
• Turn off heat.
• Slowly add in popcorn.  For best results add in a couple handfuls at a time, stirring until popcorn is evenly coated.
• Toss in Valentine’s M & M’s.  We used a cup, but you can add more or less to your liking.
• Spray 13×9 baking pan with non-stick cooking spray and dump popcorn into the pan.
• To form bars, spray the back of a spatula and use it to press the popcorn down.  We chose to skip this step and left it crumbly so we could put it all in a large bowl for sharing.
• If you want a bit of extra sparkle, sprinkle the top with red decorating sugar.
• Now for the hard part!  Leave the popcorn ball for one hour to give it time to set up.

Once your popcorn treat is set, find a great movie to share with the family and get ready to make some wonderful Valentine’s Day memories!

This holiday popcorn ball would also be fun for Easter!  Just use pastel M & M’s in place of the Valentine’s Day ones.

You may also like:

• DIY Candied Pretzels
• 40+ DIY Heart Gifts, Cards, & Treats
• Cherry Explosion — Valentine’s Day Fizzy Science 

The post Holiday Popcorn Ball first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

(Or maybe you’re looking for the perfect late-night snack.)

You’re in luck!  I’ve got just the treat:  DIY candied pretzels!  They’re a sweet and salty treat that’s perfect for any occasion.

Looking for a fun activity to do with the kids one weekend?

Make these yummy pretzels and enjoy them while snuggling for a movie or doing a few kids Valentine’s activities.

Affiliate links have been used below.  See my full disclosure for more details. 

DIY Candied Pretzels

To create your own candied pretzels you will need:

•  pretzels
• chocolate candy melts
• assorted sprinkles or small candies (Pastel colors are perfect this time of year!)

I used half of the 12 oz. bag of (affiliate link) Wilton Dark Candy Cocoa Melts, which made 30 pretzel twists.

I chose to use pretzel twists to dip, but you could also use pretzel rods, which would look pretty boxed up as a gift!

Before melting the chocolate, line a cookie sheet with a sheet of waxed paper.  This will keep pretzels from sticking to the surface as they cool.

I melted my chocolate pieces in the microwave, checking and stirring them every 20 seconds until they were almost all melted.  Once most of them are melted, remove the dish from the microwave and continue stirring until all the chocolate is melted.  (Be careful to not overheat the chocolate or it will get thick and unusable!)

I tried dipping the pretzels in the bowl of chocolate, but discovered that they looked better if I used a butter knife to “paint” the chocolate onto the pretzel twists.

Once the pretzel is coated in chocolate, immediately press it into your colored sprinkles or candy pieces.

The chocolate will cool and set within 10 minutes or so on the prepared cookie sheet.

Our pretzels were covered in red sugar sprinkles and small pink candies.  

The sugar sprinkles didn’t stand out as well on dark chocolate (I’m a dark chocolate kind of girl!), but they would look lovely on white chocolate.

The small pink candies also look pretty tasty on white chocolate!

Stick some DIY chocolate pretzels in a basket with some shredded paper “grass” and you have a cute DIY gift!

Or, stick a few in DIY candied pretzels in a small bowl and surprise your sweetheart when he gets home from work.  (That is, IF the kids don’t eat them all first!)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make up a batch while the kids are asleep so I can get a few to myself!

You may also like these posts:

• DIY Holiday Popcorn Ball  — Perfect for Valentine’s Day, Easter, or anytime. 
• DIY Heart Gifts, Cards, & Treats — With over 40 ideas, there’s something for everyone.
• 20 Delicious Meals in Under 30 Minutes — Because life gets busy!

The post DIY Candied Pretzels first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Do you like sweet snacks or salty?

Me, I like a little of both.  And since we had some jellybeans left from Easter, I decided we’d try another edible craft today and make chocolate bird nests with them!

To make your own little bird nests all you need are pretzel sticks, chocolate chips, and, of course, jelly beans for eggs.

• I had the kids break the pretzel sticks into 2-3 pieces each while I melted the handful of chocolate chips in the microwave.  Be careful you don’t burn the chips!  (Heat them for 10-15 seconds at a time, stirring between until smooth.)
• Next you toss the pretzel pieces into the gooey chocolate and coated them.
• Drop them by rounded tablespoons onto a clean dish. (Wax paper would be even better!)
• Then add 2-3 “eggs” to each nest.
• Pop them in the refrigerator briefly so they won’t be a gooey mess and enjoy!  (You can also put them in the freezer, but you’ll want to let them come to room temp. afterwards so the jellybeans won’t be too hard to eat!)

Great and easy kid snack for this spring – have fun crafting!

Shared on some of these great link up parties!

The post Chocolate-Covered Pretzel Bird Nests first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Looking for some bunny fun for your little one?

How about making some cute little bunny puppets?

I have the library to thank for this one!  They printed bunnies off the computer and cut them out ahead of time.  After story time the kids colored bunnies and used double-sided tape to stick them on craft sticks.

Plastic Egg Bunny Craft:

These bunnies were simple to make.  You just need plastic eggs, craft foam, and a bit of glue!

I cut out heart shapes to use as feet – make them large enough to help hold up your wobbly egg!  I also cut out ears from the craft foam.  Then I put a little hot glue on the heart feet and had each child sit there egg on the glue.  (I don’t trust them with the hot glue on their own!)  Then I dabbed a little hot glue on each side of the top of the egg for them to stick ears to.  And you can’t forget a fluffy tail!  We hot glued a small bit of cotton ball to the back.

Afterwards they used a permanent marker (I covered my table with newspaper first) to draw on faces and make toes.  The eggs still open, so they can be used to hide treats, or they may just hop around the house this weekend!

Don’t forget a healthy bunny snack!

I cut the end of a banana and split it in half to make bunny ears.  The face and body are thin slices of apple.  Raisins made little bunny eyes and the tip of a strawberry became the nose.  (I added more strawberries for the bunny to munch b/c my kids love strawberries!)  Pretzel sticks became whiskers, and since the bunny needed a tail, I ripped a marshmallow in half for a tail.  Yum!

Now I have to hop – my little bunnies are waiting for our next activity (bunny hopping races).

(Be sure to check out our hand print sheep and cotton ball chicks for more Easter craft ideas!)

Linked up with The Kid’s Co-op and Sharing Saturday

The post Getting Ready for Bunny Day! first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Looking for a new and fun snack for your little ones?  (Or maybe you need a pick-me-up yourself?)  How about some sushi?

No, not the seaweed wrapped kind.  I’m talking fruit sushi.

Not only is it colorful and fun to eat, but it’s healthier than those crunchy cracker snacks most kids love to munch.

It’s also easy to wrap up, a definite mom plus.

What do you need?  Bananas, fruit leather (think Fruit Roll-Ups) and optional raisins, dried coconut, or dried cranberries.

1. First slice the bananas up in approximately 1 inch slices.  (the thickness of your fruit leather)
2. Then wrap each banana slice with the fruit leather. (I used one made of real strawberries.)
3. Want a little more pizzaz?  Top each piece of sushi with a raisin, dried cranberry, or some dried coconut flakes.

Announce to the kids that the sushi is ready and serve with chopsticks.Or take the platter, hide in the laundry room, and indulge all on your own.  Just be sure to hide the evidence.

The post Fruit Sushi #Snack first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Snowmen crafts are always popular with kids.  We’ve had fun crafting snowmen with Cotton Balls, using Shaving Cream Paint, and even Artificial Snow.   But if you’re looking for the snowman craft they’ll ask for again and again, nothing beats this sweet Marshmallow Snowman.

This simple marshmallow snowman treat has become a favorite winter tradition at our house.  

Make Your Own Marshmallow Snowmen:

• Marshmallows (3 for each snowman)
• Pretzel sticks  (Love these Gluten Free ones.)
• Candy sprinkles
• Decorating icing
• Bell-shaped chocolate candy (Mini Reese’s work!)

Give each child 3 marshmallows to build their snowman’s body with.  Older kids may want to build their snowman upwards, using a bit of icing to hold the marshmallows together.  For younger children I suggest having them lay the marshmallows flat, like my daughter did in the picture below.

Apply a bit of decorating icing to the marshmallows in spots you want to add eyes, nose, mouth, or buttons.  Different colored sprinkles are great for these details.  Or, you could just leave it as icing.

Stick pretzels into the middle marshmallow to be your snowman’s arms.

A small piece of chocolate makes a fun hat for the marshmallow snowman craft.

This simple marshmallow snowman is a fun snowman craft that doubles as a sweet treat.  

You may also like:

• Melting Snowman STEM Activity
• Shaving Cream Paint Snowman 
• Craft Stick Snowman Ornament from Happy Hooligans

The post A Yummy Marshmallow Snowman Craft and Treat first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.