Muffin Tin Monday ~ A beachy tin

Top Row: Tuna sandwich, pineapple/apricot juice with lifesaver straw ornament, cantalope fish with raspberry jellyfish

Bottom Row: Sea Weed (Fruit leather) with chocolate shark, goldfish crackers, and another tuna sandwich

Muffin Tin Monday! "Cloudy with a chance of chocolate"

Getting back to the fun stuff doesn't just extend to school work! That means we are back to the fun stuff in life too! Like Muffin Tin Monday. Today I just used what we have on hand and only loosely followed a theme (which is honestly perfect for our 'Spring' we have had so far. It has been pouring for days), but I look forward to enjoying many more MTM's in our near future.

Pirates Booty 'clouds', water (in best homemade sippy EVER), Roast chicken and cheddar roll up

Peanut butter and chocolate peanut butter (it is NOT Nutella, that stuff is filled with nasties), celery, and a couple of shortbread/chocolate mushrooms.

MTM ~ School Days

Someone was really excited we are doing Muffin Tin Monday's again! :)

This weeks theme is 'School Days'.

Top: Peas and carrots to help us mind our "P's and Q's", Ranch Dip (of course), and the ever faithful school size chocolate milk.

Bottom: Apple (for the teacher), a 'school' of goldfish, and the trusty sandwich. I left the crusts on... and expected my kids to eat it. ;)

All the kids were just thrilled to be back in the game after a long market season of me working. :)

Muffin Tin Monday ~ Or Muffin MOON Monday

This weeks theme over at Muffin Tin Monday was "All About Me". I didn't have a whole lot of bright ideas since we have spent the week being terribly sick, but the kids wanted to put it together so I thought; what is more "all about me" than a dinner, completely picked by the kids?

In this meal is my kids favorite soup; tomato with noodles in it, apples and carrots to signify the season, and 'full moon' cheese sandwiches to celebrate the full moon (Cyan was VERY into celebrating the full moon)... and then leftover Oreo's from a visit from our cousin. Which are a fast favorite that the kids know I will never buy... so they loved adding it in here.

I found this little dinner tray at goodwill the other day and brought it home for my vehicle loving Logan. He thought it was just about the best 'plate' ever!

And to drink... the boys had Keifer (a yogurt drink) and Cyan and I had pink lemonade in fancy 'girl' glasses.

"See mama? I told you it looked like the moon." lol...

Someone likes Muffin Tin Monday

I woke from nap after Cyan yesterday and this is what I found:

How cute is that? I guess someone likes Muffin Tin Mondays. :)

MTM ~ Beetles and big rigs

Because my market day is on Sundays, I have started doing MTM with my kids on Saturdays. On Mondays I am just too beat. But I still post them on Mondays to join in with all my peeps over at Her Cup Overfloweth. This weeks theme was Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. With how obsessed my toddler is with various motor vehicles of all sorts I knew I needed to find a way to do this MTM. Yells out when we see a big truck, crane, dump truck, garbage truck, back hoe, digger, police car, fire truck, bulldozer... oh I know there are more. Gets angry when we don't see the same things he sees. He is OBSESSED with all caps. So on Saturday, I went all out and made turkey meatloaf in the shape of a car. With fried zucchini wheels. And a big rig made from brown rice crispy treat bars and fresh baked brownies. And he didn't even notice. LOL! Sigh. He kept saying that his car was a cookie and he needed to get "the green" out of his cookie. Oh well.... some win and some lose. I could see it. Could you?

Mashed potato clouds, salad hills, and a VW beetle made from meat. lol! Complete with katsup puffs of smoke.

And for desert, a special big rig pulling baby brownies, hot from the oven. It even has double wheels!

Occasionally I am just a bit too much of a dork for myself even. My husband now just shakes his head and laughs.

MTM ~ PIRATE DAY!!!

Ahoy matey!!

So last week, I got a wild hair and decided that I was going to do a pirate themed Muffin Tin Monday this week. I pulled out my pirate tin liners, pirate flag picks, and sword picks and started to think about what pirates ate. First thing I thought of was cheese and bread or biscuits (crackers). Then I started to think about what pirates needed to eat... and the idea of them living on ships and getting scurvy kept getting to me... so I added some very not in season, and not at all local, oranges to our lunch. Then it kept evolving... soon I had orange boats with pirate flags, star fish crackers, and left over chicken meat...

My friend called the other day and asked if she could bring her slip and slide over. PERFECT for pirate day! They all came dressed to jump over board and Cyan followed suit. (Pun completely intended.) Dressed in bandannas and swimsuits along with a token pirate hat from her son we were all ready to get wet and have a pirate day!

Top row: almond butter cookie... (I swear, it looked like a pirate hat in the store), chipped roasted chicken, orange boats with pirate flag picks.

Bottom row: Starfish goldfish cookies, cheese cubes, and crackers.

I guess the theme could have been orange too. lol! Becuase that is the only color there was (and not a vegetable in sight... just like true pirates!):

They all loved their lunches! Everything was eaten except one little one didn't like his oranges. They were playing with their pirate orange boats for quite a while... singing pirate songs and shooting each other with pretend pirate cannons.

After lunch came two more hours of slip and slide fun, followed up by an awesome craft idea (turned Pirate and Ocean themed) from my friend Valerie over at the Frugal Family Fun Blog.

Soon after, our pirate friends went home, but the theme went on. We watched Oceanography with Bill Nye the Science Guy (always a hit and he has TONS of DVDs at our local library)...

Even our nature table got into theme. We have tons more stuff still in the car from our beach trip to go on there so I left it open for the kids to cover in beach rocks, shells, and sand as they please.

All in all it was a great Pirate Day!

MTM ~ More dips and sauces

Ok so we had dips and sauces for two full meals this week. lol! But the first time around I got so many great ideas that I had to use them, or like bubbles I would loose them. Maybe I need to start making a MTM notebook! Wouldn't that be cool? Michelle, what do you think? Do you have something like that?

So for Dips and Sauces round 2, we had:

First Row: Raw honey, Trader Joe's BBQ sauce, yellow mustard

Second Row: Homemade thousand island dressing, ranch dressing (Trader Joes again), and Thai Peanut Sauce

This is what we had to dip in them. Roasted summer veggies and all natural chicken nuggets with sword picks (cuz picks make any meal better).

We also had company! This is our sweet friend Shelby. She was over all afternoon and had dinner with us. She loved MTM! The kids tried everything. Cyan even decided that zucchini got a 50%/50% ok this time around. Mushrooms were still a no, but onions were ok. Esp dipped in BBQ sauce.

Dips and Sauces Round 3! Dessert!!

First Row: Strawberry Jam (Trader Joe's), left over frosting, homemade peach jam.

Second Row: Peanut butter, sprinkles, and cream cheese.

This one went over famously, as I knew it would. All three kids loved it! Logan esp, liked the dipping...

But even the girls liked the treat. I loved watching them find new combinations like cream cheese and peach jelly. Wow... that one was good!

Happy Muffin Tin Monday!

MTM ~ Dips and Sauces!

My kids are so excited that I unpacked the lunch trays. They are the only plastic dishes in my house and for some reason they are a favorite. They feed all of us really well too... even Alex gets full this MTM! This week, the Muffin Tin Monday theme is Dips and Sauces!

Top row: olives, alphabet graham crackers, yogurt to dip the grahams in.

Bottom row: Carrots and Humus, tiny crackers and spinach dip

Three kid lunches all in a row.

MTM ~ Independence Day!

Today over at Muffin Tin Monday Michelle's theme of the week was 4th of July!

Two days ago, while looking around on the internet for fun kid food options with a 4th of July theme I came up with very little that was healthy. So I set out to make a menu that wouldn't be completely loaded with junk, but also not devoid of fun. Armed with a few goodies from market yesterday, I set it my mission to make a healthy lunch that was loaded with red, white, and blue.

Top: This cup was filled with raspberry lemonade with frozen blueberries in it (it looked really good, but they got a hold of it), and then large pretzel rods, and a star shaped sandwich.

Bottom: Orgnaic strawberries and blueberries from the market seperated by homemade whipping cream. Cream cheese to dip the pretzels in and sprinkles to decorate them with. They LOVED that:

Red, white, and blue sprinkles = $2

Pretzel rods = $3

Independence to play with your food = Priceless.

Muffin Tin Monday ~ Copy cat

With all my copy cat posts lately, I was surprised to find that the theme over at Muffin Tin Monday was Copy Cat. LOL! We have been copying so many other blogs in the last week that I didn't feel the pressure to copy any one muffin tin perfectly... but I did find a general theme that I had wanted to try for a while; Breakfast!

Today I woke up early and made my kiddos this:

Top: cherry and vanilla granola, strawberry keifer, fresh WW raspberry mini pancakes

Bottom: Maple syrup for dipping, fresh raspberries, scrambled eggs

They were pretty darned excited. I haven't 'made' breakfast in I don't know how long because of the moves, and house hunting and such. We have pretty much survived on organic instant oatmeal, granola and yogurt, and Cheerios. Not that any of these are bad... I added these things to my shopping list for this time in our lives on purpose... but it just doesn't have the personal touches that a good warm breakfast has.

Cyan discovering that she had raspberry pieces in her pancakes.

Logan enjoyed his meal most of all I think... everything got dipped in the maple syrup. lol! Even the granola and the eggs.

Copy Cat...

How would the first days of vacation be complete without a raspberry jellyfish??

I have become a copy cat. So many people just have so many wonderful ideas! Please tell me I am not the only one?

This wonderful seascape dessert idea came from copies of Her Cup Overfloweth and her kids shark dessert and a wonderful tiny jellyfish idea from Heather on the Muffin Tin Monday flickr page. The kids LOVED it!

If you ever want to get a toddler involved in cooking... let them pound cracker crumbs! Logan LOVED doing this and was upset when I said he was done.

(He is not wearing makeup... he fell last night in the bathtub and gave himself a horrible shiner. He also got into the strawberries day before yesterday and ended up with hives all over. Poor baby is a mess right now. :( )

And soon to be copied: Card Board Castle!

Muffin Tin Monday ~ Unit study on Apples and Peanuts

Top Row: Cyan's strawberry Applesauce, toast with Alex's peanut butter, string cheese (trying to balance the meal).

Bottom Row: Apple cider (homemade), watermelon (first from the west coast), celery with Alex's peanut butter.

Muffin Tin Monday at Her Cup Overfloweth this week was Make Your Own Theme Week! As with all things for us, we made it into a big fat homeschool lesson! This morning the kids woke up to notes for school that said that we were going to make peanut butter and applesauce! The kids were really excited and finished their morning chores quickly, wanting to move on to the 'fun school stuff'. :)

I had gotten books on both George Washington Carver (the 'inventor' of peanut butter) and Johnny Appleseed, and then a speical treat... the PBS special on Johnny Appleseed with Shelly Duval, Martin Short, and Molly Ringwald. Cyan and Alex made everything themselves with me standing their giving direction (I like to take over, so this was a challenge for me too).

MTM ~ The Giant Jam Sandwich

This week the Muffin Tin Monday theme was a piece of children's literature. I love this theme! I think I could plan all our meals around books I love. lol! (On an aside: If you haven't been over to Her Cup Overfloweth to see the other ladies that enjoy MTM, you should check it out... Michelle is amazing and her themes are always a big hit!)

At first, my plan was to make a lot of gum drop bees. But I sent Don to the store for spice drops and he came home with Dots. Out of two boxes of Dots, there was ONE (no kidding, one) yellow Dot. So I printed out these cute little wasps and Cyan put them on toothpicks to eat our pasta with.

Top row: Jam sandwiches (Of course... lol!), wheel shaped pasta (for the carts and wagons it took to get the bread to the field) with grass from the field (spinach cut into ribbons).

Middle bit: Jam spreaders (pretzels with a marshmallow stuck on the end, covered in jam and frozen. All Alex's idea!)

Bottom row: More wheels and 'grass', and a birds nest for the birds that came to take the sandwich away (and ate it for a hundred weeks). Made by Cyan and complete with left over dark chocolate eggs from Easter.

Ocean Side at MTM!

This week Muffin Tin Monday headed out to the shore.

Top row: Seaweed juice (superfood), Iceberg with jelly penguin, candy sushi

Bottom row: Tiny shells with seaweed (parsley) and cheese, octodogs (both sides), mini goldfish crackers

Seriously, I have been planning this for days. The kids were very involved in making this weeks MTM meal... they helped with every step.

I learned something new about my children today... they both know how to use sharp knives... correctly. I knew I hadn't been worried about either of them around knives forever now, but today I put my finger on why I was so comfortable with them using my Cutco's and my other really sharp knives. They have knife technique. Stabilizing with their finger above the knife, holding the bottom of the blade, everything. I was not that surprised with Alex, but Cyan too.

I love being home with them to learn these things. It makes me happy.

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter
4 cups mini marshmallows
6 cups crisped crispy rice cereal
20-25 gummy worms
1-2 box fruit leather

Directions

Grease a 12x17" baking sheet.

Melt butter in a 2 quart saucepan over medium heat.

Add marshmallows and stir until smooth.

Remove mixture from heat and stir in rice cereal until it is evenly coated.

Turn the baking sheet so that the shorter ends are at the top and bottom (I covered with parchment paper so that it wouldn't stick at all).

Then press the marshmallow mixture onto the sheet, distributing it evenly.

Starting at one side an inch up from the lower edge, place gummy worms atop the mixture end to end in a horizontal line.

Gently roll the lower edge of the marshmallow mixture over the gummy worms (this is where the parchment paper came in really handy. I rolled it just in the paper just like I would us a bamboo roller with real sushi).

Then stop and cut the log away from the rest of the mixture.

Use the same method to form 3-4 more logs.

Wrap the sushi rolls in a fruit leather and then slice each log into 1 inch thick"sushi" rolls using a very sharp knife (do not press down much or you will squish them).

The only thing that I could say to improve this is if you are not going to eat them right away, don't cut them until you are just about to eat them. The cut gummies get hard really fast (like hours) and are hard to eat.