Calling all creative kid chef’s! 

The maker of Jif brand peanut butter, J.M. Smucker Company, is calling for all entries in its sixth annual Jif Most Creative Peanut Butter Sandwich Contest.

The grand prize is a $25,000 scholarship fund, with each of the four runner-ups receiving a $2,500 scholarship fund!  Parents help your kid (ages 6 - 12) enter the nationwide contest.  Entries will be accepted through November 15th.

Last year’s winner?  Alexandra Yoder, 12 years old, of Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Her recipe - “Peanut Butter Rolls - Sushi Style”  The sushi consisted of creamy peanut butter, strawberry cream cheese and fruit rolled in a crepe, cut and served like sushi.  She used pretzel rods for chopsticks and chocolate yogurt for soy sauce.  Sounds yummy and how creative is that!!

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Here are a few pictures of 19 month old Maddox from North Little Rock, AR.  Maddox is enjoying a day at the lake, nothing like a Capri Sun to cool you off on a hot summer day!  Maddox shows us that you can be safe on the lake by wearing your life jacket and still have a blast!  What a cool guy!

Do you have any adorable, silly or funny pictures of your child?  Send them to us at mommyzing@gmail.com and check back to see if your child is the Zingy kid of the week!

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To make bedtime more fun and to help introduce healthy rituals, Colgate-Palmolive and Reading Is Fundamental, have joined to bring back the “Healthy Bedtime Habits for a Lifetime” campaign.

Families can create personalized Bedtime Ritual Logs to track bedtime behaviors, make their child the star of their own customized story book adventure, and learn goodnight tips and tricks!

Check out the link above for these great activities!

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This past weekend out little nephew Jackson had his first birthday!  My sister in law (Jackson’s mom) had Jackson’s first birthday party and decided to do a baseball theme for the party.  I thought this was a great theme which was not an overwhelming amount of work.  It was simple yet very nice!  The party was an afternoon party so lunch wasn’t served, but snacks were!  We did soft pretzels with mustard, popcorn, peanuts, cracker jacks, fruit salad, baseball guacamole dip, cherrios and goldfish.  Oh, and of course a baseball themed cake! 

The party turned out great and the refreshments were the perfect fit for the theme.  I thought I would share this with all of our readers because it turned out so cute and really was easy to put together.  I have included some pics of the table layout and of course an adorable picture of my beautiful nephew Jackson.

Have you ever done a particular theme for a child’s birthday party?  If so, share all your ideas, tips and recipes with us!

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I made this recipe this weekend for a birthday party and thought it was a great idea and quite yummy!

For the Baseball:

* 8 oz softened cream cheese
* 2 tsp of powdered Ranch dressing mix
* 4 tbsp of Sour Cream
* Red Food coloring

1. Mix together the cream cheese and ranch dressing mix and place onto a sheet of plastic wrap and wrap up in the shape of a ball.  Refrigerate overnight.  On the day of the party, remove cream cheese ball from the refrigerator and roll to make a round baseball shape.  Remove the plastic wrap and place the ball on a small dish.

2. Mix the sour cream and red food coloring in a bowl until the sour cream looks more red than pink. Spoon red sour cream mixture into a pastry bag with a round tip or use a ziploc bag with the corner cut off. Pipe the red sour cream on the baseball into a stitch pattern.

3. Place decorated ball in the refrigerator until close to serving time.

For the Baseball Field:

* Store bought Guacamole or your favorite homemade recipe
* 4 Tbsp of Sour Cream
* Wheat Thins

1. Place guacamole in a square dish and spread evenly, making a small mound in the middle of the dish for a pitchers mound (this is where the baseball will be)

2. Spoon sour cream into a pastry bag with a round tip or use a ziploc bag with the corner cut off. Pipe the sour cream on the guacamole as the baselines of the field.

3. Place wheat thin crackers on the dip to look like bases.

4. Place baseball on the mound and serve

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Need help getting organized for back to school?  Check out a wonderful give away contest on Life from my laptop blog.  The contest is sponsored by Momagenda and the prize includes a Kitchen Folio and a Momagenda Daily Planner!  Each of these look wonderful and would be great help to get you and your family organized.

To enter the contest simply go to the Life from my laptop blog and enter to win!

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