Muffin Tin Monday

Its Muffin Tin Monday!

Lucy and I started pulling leftovers out of the fridge: garlic toast, a yellow pepper that looked good... It was feeling a little random until I remembered that it was Monday.  A muffin tin makes it all better!  We rounded the meal out with ranch dip, cheese, crackers, and lunchmeat.  (Actually Julia had sauerkraut in her tin, but no peppers or lunchmeat.)  :)  Happy Monday.  Happy kids.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This morning we enjoyed heart shaped toast with raspberry jam for breakfast.  The girls were thrilled to find new headbands and stickers on the table when they woke up.  :)  I love how excited they get about special days like this.  

Lucy and Julia enjoyed a Muffin Tin Meal for lunch - shark crackers, yogurt, clementines, heart shaped cheese, strawberries, and lunch meat for Lucy.  We also had cupcakes for dessert.  I had hoped to make some heart picks or be a bit more creative with lunch, but we ended up with a busy day.  Grandma babysat while we took Leia to the vet in the morning and then I had to leave again for a dentist appointment right after lunch.  The girls were thrilled with the tins anyway and appreciated the effort.

It was also box day!  I was so excited to have most of what we need to get started with Little Hearts For His Glory.  (We are just waiting on the science book to arrive.)  I used Swagbucks gift cards to purchase a few books from Amazon and got the rest used from someone.  I had been checking the tracking all week and was hoping my packages would arrive today.  Lucy begged to get started right away.  I really found the teacher's manual to be "open and go", because that's just what we did.  Julia joined us for much of it and had a blast.

I've spent more time tonight looking through everything and am excited.  I think it will be a good review for Lucy in some ways, and I can see both girls having a lot of fun with the activities.  For math today we wrote numbers across the top of a page and glued the corresponding amount of hearts by each number.  We are using Little Hearts as it is written, and using My Father's World for the phonics portion.  We'll also continue our Bible timeline, Bible notebook, and 100 days chart.  I think this will be a good change and am excited to see how the girls do with it.

Hope you had a fun day too!

Muffin Tin Monday - Smoothies

What my kids thought they ate:

peanut butter and honey sandwich, chips, and a smoothie

What they really ate:

peanut butter, almond butter, and honey sandwich, chips, 

blueberry keifer, spinach, carrot puree and carrot juice, flax seeds, strawberries, blackberries

Gotta love it!  For more fun food ideas check out Muffin Tin Mom.  :)

Muffin Tin Monday - Pumpkin

I haven't posted a Muffin Tin Monday in a couple of weeks.  We've been eating them, they just aren't inspiring enough to take a photo of.  (The maple tree in my front yard however, totally inspiring.)

In honor of the pumpkin theme this week I made the girls pose with their pumpkins.  I can hardly get them to look at the camera at the same time, let alone smile!  They didn't like that the sun was in their eyes either.

They did enjoy the pumpkin lunch though.  Lucy thought her pumpkin sandwich was so pretty that she ate everything else and saved it for last.  We ate pear - leaves, raspberries, peanut butter and honey sandwich with a green bean vine, orange yogurt, and cheese - pumpkins.

Happy Fall!

(Can you believe this was just a small potted mum that I stuck in the ground once?  It comes back every year and is huge now.)

Muffin Tin Monday - Numbers

To celebrate Muffin Tin Monday today, we had a fun snack.  Our tin consisted of sweet pea tomatoes, string cheese slices, sesame sticks, cashews, craisins, and pretzels.  We took turns rolling the die and choosing that many pieces of snack from the tin.  Lucy's favorite were the little tomatoes and Julia kept choosing pretzels.  They both enjoyed rolling the die and counting out the snack pieces.

We started school (at home) with Lucy last week and she could hardly wait through the weekend to continue her lessons today!  Here is our first day of school picture:

I'm off to bed now, but have lots of fun bloggy posts coming up soon so be sure to check back!
Happy Monday!

Muffin Tin Monday - ABCs

Its Muffin Tin Monday today, and Grandma's birthday.  We invited her over and had a combined birthday ABC lunch together.  The theme started out ok, but got sort of lost in the second row.

Apple slices with an A stamped in them, Blueberries with Balloons, cheese with a C cut out, ...this is where we loose the theme... ham and a strawberry?, cucumber tomato salad, and crackers.  

The girls enjoyed it and had fun sharing their special Muffin Tin Monday with Grandma.  Here is a picture of my cuties from today (and yes, Julia is smiling - that's her latest picture face).

I'm considering starting first grade with Lucy later this week, we'll see if all things fall into place by then or not.  Did you enter the giveaway for the Wilton Alphabet Cut Outs yet?  I'll pick a winner Weds!

Muffin Tin Monday - with a Giveaway!

Happy Muffin Tin Monday!  Lucy and Julia enjoyed their lunch of crackers, lunchmeat, water, yogurt with sprinkles, fresh peaches, cheese letters, and fruit leather.  (Actually Julia screamed in dislike until I gave her lunchmeat to Lucy, but that's beside the point...)

The picks are stickers on construction paper with a toothpick sandwiched in between.  The girls love having special picks and we always have stickers around so this works well.

The coolest part though, is the cheese letters!  I'm in love with this Wilton set of Alphabet and Number Fondant Cut-Outs:

Spelling a child's name, learning letters and numbers, encouraging words, .... so many possibilities!  Today I cut the word "love" out of cheese to go with our heart tins.  The letters are tiny, so I used a flat toothpick to help push the cheese out of the cutter.  Lucy and Julia were impressed and Lucy even read the word herself.

The other day I made fruit leather and the cutters worked with that as well.  Check back tomorrow for how to make your own fruit leather, its surprisingly easy.

Would you like to win a set?  Wilton sent these to me for review and is offering a set to one of you.  Leave a comment on this post letting me know a fun idea that you think you would use the cutters for.

For extra entries you can:
- follow this blog
- subscribe by email to this blog (must confirm subscription)
- like both Wilton and One Little Word She Knew on Facebook
- share this with your friends on Facebook (go to my Facebook page and underneath my post about this giveaway click "share" and it will be posted to your profile)

Leave a separate comment for EACH entry, being sure that you include your email address.  I'll close the giveaway on August 24th at midnight.  Enjoy your day!

*Just a note about these after reading some of your comments:  They are very tiny.  I don't think they would work for cookies...  lots of other good ideas being given though!*

Giveaway is now closed.  Congrats LKB!

Muffin Tin Monday - Birthday

The blog has been pretty quiet this week - my mom is here visiting from Texas!  We have been so busy I haven't had time to sit down and write.  I've been taking lots of pictures though and have plenty of blog posts in the works.  We tried out a few new recipes and worked on some fun projects that I can't wait to share with you.

For now, here is a birthday Muffin Tin Monday that we had last week.  It was Julia's 3rd birthday, so she got to choose the contents:

blueberries, pickles, 3 small cookies, leftover waffle pieces, crackers, and peaches

I found the birthday muffin tin liners and picks in the grocery store - perfect!  (Tip: I turned the liners inside out so the pattern was visible on the inside.)  Lucy and Julia both loved their special lunch.  As you can see, Julia ate her cookies up first, but that's ok on birthdays.  I even let her have Nutella toast for breakfast.  Shhh....

Check back next week for a super cool awesome Muffin Tin Monday related giveaway!  :)

Muffin Tin Monday - Potato Heads

I saw this idea over at Casa Camacho while browsing Muffin Tin Monday posts last week and just had to try it!  I'm not sure who was more excited, me or the kids, when I told them we were going to eat Mr Potato Heads for dinner.

We started with baked potatoes in Wilton Silly Feet cups.  I provided cherry tomatoes in two different sizes, carrot sticks, sliced cheese, shredded cheese, red pepper lips, and shell and bow tie pasta.

We had to use rather small potatoes as the larger ones tipped the feet over.  I'd suggest trying the potatoes out in the feet cups before you bake them to be sure you select the right sizes.  Toothpicks worked well to hold the features on.  For a few things we broke the toothpicks in half.

Mine (above) has shredded cheese hair held on with sour cream, a bow, and shell ears if you can't tell.  

Lucy made an adorable little guy with a bow tie.  She had a blast and even ate the red pepper lips (something we don't normally eat).

Julia only wanted cheese on her potato head.  At one point he did have a bow tie, but she quickly ate it.  She decided that her guy was in the bathtub so he didn't need to be dressed up.  She only ate pasta for dinner anyway.

Esther enjoyed sucking on a carrot and a red pepper stick while we ate.

  

Ross even got in on the fun and made this guy.  Along with some grilled chicken, this was an easy fun meal that we all enjoyed!  I'll be serving this again soon.  (Check back tomorrow for my secret tip to making the tastiest, easiest baked potatoes ever...)  Happy Muffin Tin Monday!

Muffin Tin Breakfast

bagel with cream cheese, bananas, water, raspberries, blueberries, and vanilla yogurt

We had a Muffin Tin Monday breakfast today.  All three girls are sick with stuffy noses, coughs, and sore throats.  I thought making breakfast fun would encourage them to eat and would be a good way to include healthy foods.  I was right; they were way impressed.  "We've never had a muffin tin breakfast before!", "Is it lunchtime Mommy?", and "Do we have to nap after this?".

Remember the dinosaur sandwich lunch?  They are obsessed with it and ask for it every day.  I have to include rocks and dinosaur food every time too, although it can vary what that actually is.  As I was making this lunch, Julia said she wanted an elephant sandwich and Lucy suggested we find an elephant cutter so we can have elephant sandwiches.  I was relieved to find tiny elephant picks in our swap package and they were thrilled.  I do believe Mr Elephant is purely responsible to Lucy eating her bananas, so I thank him for that.  The meal went over well and they polished off every bit of it (after I bribed them with watching a Dora dvd).

Thanks for stopping by!  Check out the aden + anais burpy bib giveaway while you're here, it closes tomorrow.

Muffin Tin Monday - on vacation

I brought cupcake liners and colored picks along on vacation just for Muffin Tin Monday!  We've had some upset little tummies, so we had to stick with chicken soup, banana blueberry picks, and Cheerios.  I am excited to try out my new supplies, but that will have to wait until next week when we're home.  I just bought these coolest ever picks, and organized everything into plastic tubs before we left:

The boxes are labeled: Egg Molds and Picks, Mini Cutters and Sandwich Punches, Cookie Cutters, Silicone Cups and Trays, and more Silicone Cups.  I cleared out the cupboard above the refrigerator, banishing the crystal bowls to the basement.  I do have to stand on a little chair to reach these, but I love having everything organized and ready to create with!  Do you have a good storage system for your MTM supplies?  Do share!

Muffin Tin Monday - Swap

Lucy and Julia enjoyed a Muffin Tin Monday snack today.  They were looking forward to using our new MTM supplies from the recent swap, but we ended up eating lunch at a friend's house instead.  I'll have to make them a full out muffin tin lunch later this week.  For snack we had blueberries and string cheese pieces.  They polished this off in no time and then had fun putting more blueberries on their pinwheels to eat.  

Speaking of the swap - my partner Lisa at 1 Wasabi Mommy is awesome and sent my package already!  We got such a fun little assortment of supplies.  I've been wanting to try the egg molds, so I'm super excited about those especially.  Lucy helped me open the box and when I told her they were Muffin Tin Monday supplies she instantly asked me what day it was.  And kept asking me every day if it was Monday yet.  Training my kids to look forward to Mondays can't be a bad thing, right?  ;)

Egg molds, flamingo picks, pinwheel picks, animal cookie cutters, and more cute plastic picks!  I'm looking forward to making some fun lunches with these.  Thanks Lisa.  Hope your package arrives soon too.  

Muffin Tin Monday - Dinosaurs

Here is a fun lunch we had the other day:

peanut butter and honey dinosaur, grapes (rocks), cashews (dino food), and veggie crisps (sticks)

The dinosaur was made with a sandwich cutter that I picked up at the grocery store.  I love easy ways like this to make food fun!  Speaking of fun - did you enter the giveaway for the super cool pineapple tray?  There are a few other giveaways running and more to come this week.  Click the purple Prizey button on the right at any time to see what is current.  Happy Monday!

Muffin Tin Monday - with a Giveaway

We got to try out these super cool Nibble Trays for Muffin Tin Monday.  Dr Sears has teamed up with Zak Designs to create a line of mealtime products for kids.  I absolutely love Dr Sears' books and have talked about The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood in the past.  One thing he mentions is letting your children graze on healthy snacks.  Filling up a cute tray like this and having it available when the munchies hit is a great way to make eating fun and healthy.  The tray has a lid, so you can chop up fruits and veggies and have them in the fridge all ready to go.  The green part can actually be detached and frozen to keep dips cool.

I love that the tray comes with some ideas for making meals fun and feeding your kids healthy foods.  You can also find tips, recipes, and even a forum on the Zak Designs website.  The Nibble Tray is PVC, BPA, and phthalate free.

We filled our trays on Saturday after a trip to the farmer's market.  Strawberries, cherries, peas, cheese, carrots, crackers, and ranch dip made a perfect lunch!  Lucy ate all of hers (with some coaxing), and Julia refused a couple of things (of course).  My girls are always asking for snacks, so I'm going to try filling this up tomorrow morning and just letting them pull it out all day when they are hungry between meals.  Maybe seeing those peas multiple times a day would convince them to try one?

Want one?  Zak Designs is giving one away to one of my readers!  You can enter the giveaway a few different ways, leave a comment for each entry.  Be sure your email address is included or available on your profile.

- leave a comment letting me know your little one's favorite healthy snack
- be a follower of my blog
- like One Little Word She Knew on Facebook
- email subscribe to my blog
- blog about the giveaway and leave me a link to your post
- update your Facebook status with a link to this post

Remember, leave a comment for each entry.  I'll close this in two weeks on July 6th at midnight.  Thanks for stopping by; enjoy your Monday!

Zak Designs was kind enough to send two Nibble Trays for my girls to review.  They give these an honest two thumbs up!  The Giveaway is now closed - congrats to Bar7Ranch!

Muffin Tin Monday - Birds and Nests

Muffin Tin Monday is celebrating spring this month with a couple fun themes! This week was birds and nests, so I made a bird and a nest. ;) The bird is from Family Fun magazine and the nest is spaghetti noodles with butter and garlic salt.

isn't he cute?

on his nest

Lucy gobbled hers up right away!

Julia tried the egg a couple times, which was great. She normally doesn't eat hard boiled eggs and has a hard time trying new foods. Chalk one up for Muffin Tin Mondays!

Excuse the laundry in the background; this weekend we were busy with a garage sale so my house was a bit neglected. Next week's theme is seeds, plants, and flowers. I'm thinking of including sprouts - check out my posts from last year. If you've never grown sprouts, its super easy and fun. Thanks for stopping by!

Muffin Tin Monday

Well, once again I was unprepared and forced into this by my sweet little girl exclaiming "Its Monday? We can do Muffin Tin Monday!" We pulled something together and enjoyed our fun lunch. If you've never done this before feel free to jump in, its really that easy. :)

We had fruit salad, avocado, cheese, crackers, and strawberry yogurt. Somehow putting all that in a muffin tin makes it more fun. I didn't even cut the cheese into cute little shapes, someday soon we'll be prepared and have a super fun MTM again. Check out Muffin Tin Mom for some much more creative ideas. I'll be back later this week with a homeschool update, more summer reviews (with discount codes), and more. Thanks for stopping by!

Muffin Tin Monday - Dairy Party!

This week we were learning about cows, so we had a dairy Muffin Tin Monday! Butter (that we made by shaking cream in a jar), bread for the butter, lunchmeat, ice cream, crackers, cheese, and yogurt. The girls were pretty excited to have ice cream for lunch! We talked about foods that are made from milk and we even went to visit a dairy farm.

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be closing the Dippy Cups giveaway tonight so be sure to enter if you haven't yet. I've got a few fun summer reviews and giveaways coming soon so be sure to check back often.