Creative DIY Healthy & Fun Thanksgiving Appetizer & Dessert Recipe Food Crafts to Make With Kids

Good Food

Appetizers and desserts are synonymous with Thanksgiving. So to help you do something really creative with your holiday menu and presentation this year, here are a few really easy and wonderful healthy appetizer and dessert recipes for Turkey Day for family and children to craft together from Disney Family Fun.

Image from Family Fun

This Colorful Fruit Turkey can also double as either a table centerpiece for the main meal or you can use it as an accent on your dessert buffet. Alternately, you could do this concept with an array of bright raw vegetables such as carrots, various lettuces, celery, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, parsley and the like.   Directions

Can't get your kids to eat their vegetables? Try making this festive and creative appetizer with your children and maybe this edible crafty idea will change all that this Thanksgiving. This is a super nutritious recipe, too, since it's made not only with fresh vegetables but cholesterol free water crackers with low fat cream cheese for the spread. For this holiday, these might be suggestive of pumpkins, but I imagine for Christmas you could also make these to look like Christmas Tree balls! Directions

Image from Family Fun

Visit Family Fun for lots more creative Thanksgiving arts and crafts projects and recipes to make with your kids -- both edibles and festive home decor.

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Share your own favorite Thanksgiving edible creative crafts for kids by leaving a comment with a link to your favorite projects.

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Storm Wrangler Whimsical Fiction Picture Book Educates, Calms Children's Fears of Weather

Book Review

The charm of the American Cowboy and The West shines through in Storm Wrangler, the poetic and beautifully illustrated newly released young child's title. This book is written by Fulbright Scholar and American Library Association Award-winning author Coert Voorhees and illustrated by Mike Guillory, a talented Houston illustrator and designer, who are both heavily influenced by the Texas lifestyle in this work. As the tale unfolds, the fantasy story is told through the title character's persona as a meteorological cowboy style Paul Bunyan protecting all from the power of big, and sometimes scary, weather. No matter if it's lightening and a thunderstorm, a tornado, a hurricane, a blizzard or other type of fierce atmospheric phenomena, the friendly and fearless Storm Wrangler is depicted as a hero that kids will look up to and learn from.

One dark and stormy day in my neighborhood

iPhone Photo by Janis Brett Elspas, MommyBlogExpert.com

As a hard cover, large format picture book the story comes alive, intimately speaking to readers on every page, transforming fear into awe as amazing details about a variety of storms are demonstrated along with delivering the constant promise of calm that always comes after. Inspired by the author's son's own fears during Hurricane Ike in 2009, this tale no doubt will bring little heads across America out from under the covers whenever this is read. It's classified as children's fiction but it certainly is educational too, with a glossary of 20 weather terms included. 

Storm Wrangler Book Cover

iPhone Photo by Janis Brett Elspas, MommyBlogExpert.com

Distinguished child psychiatrist Efrain Bleiberg, MD, professor and Vice Chair, Menninger Department of Psychiatry; Director of Children and Adolescent Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine; Chief, Psychiatry Service, Texas Children’s Hospital has glowing praise for Storm Wrangler. Summarizing the mental benefits to toddlers and young kids this offers, Dr. Bleiberg says, “This is a wonderful picture book ... a lovely springboard to help children develop a sense of security."

Voorhees, also the author of the Young Adult title The Brothers of Torres, is currently at work on other novels. He is the mayor of Grammaropolis an animated website that also features a Top Ten Education iPhone app and a SiriusXM Children's Radio hit song.

Storm Wrangler by Coert Voorhees and published by Bright Sky Press, Hardcover 8.5” x 11”, 28 pages, color. $16.95, ISBN: 978-1-936474-07-3

Who hasn't been afraid during a storm at one time or another? I for one, still remember many a night as a kid seeking safety in my parents' bed from the crashing thunder.  Please leave a comment to reminisce about your own childhood storm fears or that of your child's and how you've dealt with it.

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FTC Disclosure: I received the Storm Wrangler to facilitate this book review. However, MommyBlogExpert did not receive any payment or other compensation associated with this post. See complete FTC Disclosure information that appears at the bottom of MommyBlogExpert's main page and at the bottom of every individual post on this blog, including this one.

5 Fun Twitter Parties Ideal for Moms & Women With Great Prizes Still to Come This Week

Social Media

Looks like another smoking week for an abundance of Twitter parties that women and moms in particular will likely enjoy. Most of these virtual events have great prizes to win, as well as the opportunity of meeting other social media active women and mom blogger Twitter users. An added plus: you'll be connecting with some awesome brands, making these online get-together contests worth the hour or two that you participate in them. 

iPhone Photo by Janis Brett Elspas, MommyBlogExpert.com

Here's a partial list of the lineup for the rest of this week. I'll Tweet about any new parties I hear about, so make certain you're following Mommy Blog Expert on Twitter to get the inside scoop.

Wednesday, November 16

The #WhoDunIt Murder Myster Twitter Party hosted by Rachel Ferrucci and Doc Bonn and sponsored by Yes Video and The Big Toy Book. 11/16 @ 5 pm PST  RSVP Here

Fun and Wacky #ICKEEStikeez Twitter Party hosted by The Big Toy Book. 11/16 @ 6 pm PST RSVP Here
 

Thursday, November 17

Clever Girls Collective hosts the #JRWScents J.R. Watkins Naturals Twitter Party. 11/17 @ noon-1 pm PST.  RSVP Here

Social Moms hosts #RMLTE Real Moms Love to Eat Twitter Party. 11/17 @ 4-5 pm PST.  RSVP Here 

She Speaks Up hosts #HolidayFlavors Torani Twitter Party 11/17 @ 6-7 pm PST. RSVP Here


Coming Soon...
November 30, Daily Deals for Moms #DDFM Twitter Party 11/30 @ 6 pm PST. RSVP  Here

These are just a few of the parties you can join in for some fun, conversation and prizes. If you know of  additional Twitter parties going on this week or for the rest of November that you think should be added to this list, please leave a comment and share whatever basic info you have including products, hosts, date & time, prizes, and most importantly a link to RSVP/Info.

Party Hard & Enjoy!

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FTC Disclosure: I love Twitter parties and try and attend a few every week and am attending some parties listed as a participant. However, this blog did not receive any payment or other compensation associated with this post. See complete FTC Disclosure information that appears at the bottom of MommyBlogExpert's main page and at the bottom of every individual post on this blog, including this one.