All for the Boys

Messy Recipe & Chance to Win an LG Oven Range!

All for the Boys — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:01:08 +0000

Kids + messy recipes + clean ovens don't go together very often. My boys love to help me cook and want to participate in the entire process but no matter the recipe it seems to end up a mess! I have a messy recipe for you today that the boys like to help make but that leaves my oven (and kitchen) less than desirable. It's definitely worth it though!

Living in the Southwest we eat a TON of Mexican food (ok we'd eat tons of Mexican food no matter where we lived) and this dessert finishes off a Mexican feast perfectly.

CINNAMON FLAN

2/3 cup white sugar
14oz can of condensed sweetened milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
5 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2-1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350ºF

In a small saucepan place the sugar with a bit of water (you're going to make caramel) heat on medium - medium high constantly stirring (sugar burns easily) until a caramel forms (once it starts boiling you can lift the pan to just above the heating element to reduce burning risk). Remove immediately from heat.

Poor into a 1.5qt casserole dish or 9" cake pan and swirl to coat the bottom - set aside.

In a blender combine the rest of the ingredients and blend on medium/high for about a minute (don't let it get too frothy)

Pour over caramel until it just reaches the top of the pan (can you see how this recipe gets messy?!)

Place cake pan into another larger pan and slide into the oven. Add HOT water to the 2nd pan (about an inch or so)

Bake for 50-60 minutes until set. It will still be jiggly but not watery. Remove the flan pan from the hot water and let cool a bit. Invert onto serving dish and enjoy warm or cold (we like it cold!) you can spoon some of the extra caramel on top to make it extra sweet!

(the mess comes from the inevitable spilling of the flan, getting the water into the pan, and getting everything OUT of the oven!)

So good!

I'll just leave the cleaning to my husband I think ;) OR I could get an LG EasyClean™ Double Oven Range that allows you to clean your oven in minutes! Oven cleaning definitely gets put to the back of the list around here and builds up making cleaning it take FOREVER. I'd love a quick, easy way to clean up our messy recipes so that we can get on with more important things of the day, like swimming!

I love simple solutions to issues that take away from family time like this and the LG EasyClean™ Oven is definitely one of them!

About the oven - LG EasyClean™: A Clean Oven in Minutes, Not Hours.

Not enough time to clean your oven? No worries. LG brings you the new generation of oven cleaning with EasyClean™. All LG double oven ranges provide a quick and convenient way to clean your oven, while still being able to use the conventional self-clean method. EasyClean works in three simple steps. Spray the oven interior with water, press the EasyClean button, then in just 20 minutes, wipe away any residual bits of grime*. No chemicals or high heat needed to keep your oven sparkling clean.

*Heavy build-up may require additional manual effort or use of the full self-clean feature

Find out more about this awesome new product on their website!

GIVEAWAY!

Guess what?! In addition to making our lives easier LG wants to give away an LG EasyClean™ Double Oven Range. No that is not a typo!

Just answer the question "What is YOUR favorite recipe that leaves your oven messy?"

Sweepstakes Rules:
No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winner will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

BlogHer will pool entries from participating blogs and select a sweepstakes winner at random and will contact the winner with details about fulfilling the prize.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 5/22/13 - 7/15/13.

Cowboy Week Part 3: Mining!

All for the Boys — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:53:44 +0000

How about a little at home gold mining?! This always seems to be a fun activity for kids. Dirt, water and gold, what's not to love?!

I love how Restless Risa set it up at her party

This is such a fun activity for kids - if you're doing it at a party you could even have them pay for goodie bag items with their gold!

You could set up a whole play mining town for your Cowboy week or party as well like this party at Hostess with the Mostess

Cowboy Week Part 2: DIY Horseshoe Game

All for the Boys — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:31:10 +0000

Real horseshoes are banned in this house from an incident with a large heavy horseshoe, a mom who shall remain nameless, and slippery sunscreen hands. We decided to make our own and came up with a version that could possibly be played indoors as well!

For the post we put some heavy rocks in tin cans and duct taped them together. You could make one out of a paper towel roll and paper plate with some sort of weight on the bottom as well.

For the horseshoes we cut the shapes out of cardboard. You'll need some sort of weight to the horseshoes for them to throw easier. Little kids may do ok with just plain cardboard or doubled up cardboard. You could add nuts and washers or coins as well. You'll want weight on the bottom and top of the horseshoe.

Wrap with foil or duct tape and you have your set!

Cowboy Week!

All for the Boys — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:53:11 +0000

Howdy Partners! Welcome to cowboy/camping week! This week we'll focus on cowboy/camping/farming type activities and inspiration.

Every cowboy needs a horse so if you aren't lucky enough to have a real one - make your own!

A cute sock version by light blue grey

A recycled 2L bottle stick horse from Tia Ale

and a paper bag version from Almost Unschoolers

Click here for all cowyboy week activities

Fort Friday!

All for the Boys — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:43:34 +0000

Now I know why people don't always like going on vacation - it's crazy when you get back! This week has flown by for me and next is the boys' last week of school. So crazy!

Here at All for the Boys we celebrate Fridays with some awesome fort inspiration from around the web. Whether made of sheets, cardboard, wood, or sticks, forts are a place we can go to transport our minds to wherever we want to go. You can play, dream, relax, or create in a fort. Everything is better in a fort!

You can share your forts by emailing me, Facebook, or Instagram and tag @allfortheboys and #fortfriday (by contacting me you are giving me permition to share your photo on the blog. Let me know if you want it linked up anywhere) - some are tagging me properly and I'm not able to pull it up again later :( So if you don't see yours here, email it to me!

You never know what you'll come home to when you leave the house - a huge fort maybe?

Anything goes when fort building - use anything you can find! from The Natural Mom

Love this happy fort from @lifeasyouliveit on Instagram

Whether it's for your action figures or yourself you can't go wrong with a cardboard castle from Reading Confetti

Check out this awesome fort Six Golden Coins found!

Happy Fort Friday!

Dinosaur Week Part 4: Activities

All for the Boys — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:48:08 +0000

I've got some fun dino related activities for you to add to your "to do" list today!

A cute dinosaur bean bag game from toddler approved

Dinosaur skull matching from Living Montessori Now

DIY volcano from Flutter Flutter

Create a large dino land like this one seen on Domestic Candy

or make some dino tales from Running with Scissors

Let's Hear It For the Boy

All for the Boys — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:41:16 +0000

It's Let's Hear it for the Boy Thursday! A link party all for boys! Each week myself and 3 other Bloggers pick our favorite projects to highlight from the previous weeks party. If you have a blog, feel free to link up. If you don't, click around to find tons of inspiration for the boys (and men) in your life!

On to last week's top picks:

Kim from seven thirty three's picked:

What you can make with a pool noodle round-up by The Crafty Blog Staker

(Turns out, A LOT!)

Heidi from Mom's Crafty Space's picked:

Static Electricity by Kids Activities Blog

Sara from Mom Endeavors top choice:

Constellation Sandwiches by Between a Dog and a Hard Place

Allison from All for the Boys chose:

Turbulence on a Plane explained with Jello by Kids Activities Blog

PARTY GUIDELINES: 1) BOY related projects only (projects for grown boys are OK) 2) Link to your blog post, not your main page 3) Display our party button or link back to any of the 4 blogs to share the love 4) To make it even more fun, visit others that have linked up and leave comments

Dinosaur Week Part 3: Plastic Dinos

All for the Boys — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:27:00 +0000

Man a lot of people must like dinosaurs because there are a TON of great ideas out there! Today I'm linking you to some awesome projects with plastic dinos that you can find easily (even at the dollar store!)

The Design Editor has a downloadable dino book made with plastic dinos

Dinosaur toothbrush holder from Parents

A dinosaur corn cob holder from Instructables

Dino photo stands from Photojojo

Dinosaur terrariums are fun to build, move around and display!

from Yellow Brick Home

from The Haps

from Craft Foxes

from The Gold Jellybean

Dinosaur Week Part 2: DIY Dino Eggs

All for the Boys — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:59:00 +0000

These DIY dinosaur eggs are a great way to keep dinosaur lovers busy. Once you've surprised them you can have them make their own!

Projects for Preschoolers has all the intructions and info. You'll need dirt, flour, salt, sand, and of course, dinosaurs.

I'd love to see if you try this yourself! Make it more interesting by giving them tools to open and clean the dinosaurs.

The Gingerbread Mom made some out of balloons and paper mache to fill with treats for a party - that could be a fun way to start off dinosaur week with some dinosaur activities inside!

Welcome to Dinosaur Week!

All for the Boys — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:43:43 +0000

Happy Monday everyone! I'm back home after being gone since Wednesday afternoon. Missed my guys for sure! We are kicking off Dinosaur Week with some great ideas from my friend Allison Aars. Her blog You Have Your Blog We Have Aars is a GREAT source of inspiration for activities!

She does themed months for her little guy and they featured a month of dinosaur activities so I thought I'd share my favorites.

DIY dinosar feet

Footprint Fossils

Dinosaur footprints

If you have dinosaur projects you'd like to contribute this week - send them over!