Muffin Tin Monday - Circus of Colors

Go on over to Her Cup Overfloweth to find out more about Muffin Tin Mondays. It's simply feeding your kids a meal in a muffin tin - just to be different.

This week even though it's a theme less week but since I didn't really do a theme last week when it was children's literature week I thought I'd do one this week. I got the idea while I was reading this book to Isla for the 4th time on the weekend.

Circus of Color by Lisa Hopp, Illustrated by Chiara Bordoni.
It's a cute book where each page is a different colour and a different performer at the circus. Here's my interpretation.




Red - Meatball with ketchup - Kooky the clown's red nose
Yellow - Apple sauce with star sprinkles - The great yellow Starini
Green - Grapes - Big green balloon that's about to POP
Blue - Yogurt with blue food colouring and face - the silly blue clown
Grey - PB&J sandwich in elephant shape - the great grey elephant (I know it's not grey but what food is)
White - Rice - the snow that's turning the circus tent white.
Pink - Also served with strawberry milk - Pretty pink tightrope walker.
I invited one of Lilo's friends over - they thought it was cool but just wanted to play so didn't eat that much. Isla enjoyed it.

How to make my birthday extra special

Vote for me - well actually my girls. I've submitted my technology photo on the Durham Region Baby site to win $250 towards graphic design from Sweet World Media. I really want to win this. I've been putting off starting my own kids/mom accessory online business and I need a kick in the pants. If I win this I could get a logo and maybe a web header. So I really, really want to win.

So please everyone go and vote - and then vote again on another computer and maybe even ask someone else to vote too. Vote for Lilo almost 4 and Isla 1 1/2.

If you vote for me you can consider this my birthday present and you won't need to get me a gift.

Thanks

Update: Thanks everyone who voted and there were a lot of you - unfortunately someone else won. Oh well, that's life. But I'm still considering this my kick in the pants and I will be starting this business of mine.

Muffin Tin Monday

This week's theme from Her Cup Overfloweth is Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Since we haven't read the book or seen the movie I sorta used the theme and just threw in stuff we had in the fridge.

It's left over spaghetti, carrots, cucumber, meatballs, cheese, jello.

So I have meatballs so that's themish :)

I was going to do the muffin tin meal tomorrow instead but since Lilo didn't want dinner I thought this was a way to get her to eat. They are both eating now but I think Lilo is just eating the Jello - which she thinks is really cool.

How to make a Survivor Immunity Necklace

With another season of Survivor starting up again I thought this "cool thing" I made back in April would fit now. I made an immunity necklace for my nephew for his birthday. I've been trying to make some of my gifts and thought this would be fun since he's a fan of the show.
I started by doing a bit of research - ie: watching the show and trying to find a picture online, which there wasn't a lot of good pictures of it. So it's really just an interpretation of the original from last season from my memory.
After going through my stash of junk to find stuff that would work; leather, buttons, twine and wire. And then off to the dollar store to find some additional supplies; feathers and beaded necklace.
The base or frame is made from a piece of cardboard with some medium gauge wire bent to fit around the neck. I covered it all in masking tape so it was one piece. Then on the back side I started gluing feathers using a glue gun.

Then I flipped it over and looked at my supplies to get inspired.

I cut some of the leather I had into strips to wind around the ends, securing with hot glue.

Then I cut a large piece of leather for the front and glued it down, folded the top edge over to the back. Then embellished it with some textured leather, buttons which I layered and in the centre is a pendent from the dollar store necklace, and the 2 wood beads are the earrings from that set. The necklace itself I used to frame the lower edge. Then I used twine to finish it off.

Then flipped to the back and covered with more leather - I think I had to piece it in the back since I was running out.

And there you go, your very own immunity necklace so you can never be voted out.

I know most of you have given up on Survivor many seasons ago but we're still giving the show another chance this year. Have fun.

How to make PB&J cookies

This is a super simple idea that turned out so yummy. It's just 2 peanut butter cookies with raspberry jam in between.

Since Lilo is in school now, it was Isla and I that made the cookies. She was so cute trying to stir and really just lick the spoon. We made the super easy recipe that's on the back of the Kraft peanut butter jar - if you haven't tried it, you should.

1 cup crunchy peanut butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

Jam

That's it. Just mix together and then roll into balls and press with a fork to give them that trademark look. The dough is really sticky so I put a little flour on my fingers when I roll them and then I flattened them down (I wanted thin cookies for this recipe) and then dipped the fork in the flour to press down.

Bake in a 325 oven for 15 minutes (the top oven took 15 mins and the lower took only 10 but it was on an older, well seasoned cookie sheet - so just keep an eye on them) so they are a nice light brown colour.

Cool on cookie sheet and then I put them in the fridge for about an hour or so - til Lilo came home to help me finish them.

Add a spoonful of jam on one cookie and place a second on top.

It will make 1 dozen filled cookies.

YUM YUM - Lilo is already asking to make them again.

How to do a Muffin Tin Monday meal

Michelle over at Her Cup Overfloweth came up with serving her kids meals in muffin tins. You can check out her site for lots of great ideas. Some weeks she has themes; like this week is "Apples" and other weeks there isn't. I think it's a neat idea to do something different. Some days, like today, I think I'm doing it more for me than the kids - I think Lilo would rather of just had a peanut butter sandwich.
Today we had apple slices with carmel to dip, PB & J cut into an apple shape, peanut butter and apple rolls, cucumber and dip and apple sauce.

The sandwich was cut with a pumpkin cookie cutter. The rolls are a slice of bread rolled flat with a rolling pin and then spread with peanut butter and some apple slices and roll up and cut into kids sushi. The idea came from On a Whimm blog - see over here for her tutorial - she cuts the crusts off, I didn't this time and it still worked (if your crust are firmer it would be easier to roll without them). I've also made these with cream cheese and apples to bring to nut free places.

Here are some other muffin tins we've done. This one was the "People and Faces" theme.

The top meal was Lilo's and bottom Isla's. It's PB&J cut into a man, yogurt with face, cheese cut with mini cookie cutter and some extra carrots, grapes and strawberries.

This one here was no theme - Isla's upper; pretzels, grapes, potato salad and tuna. Lilo's has good ole PB&J, grapes and pretzels.
I like how you can see Isla's hand in her's - she can't wait for me to take the picture :)
As you can see I started with just these 2 disposable muffin tins but got these super cute heart muffin tins from the Muffin Tin (MTM) swap that Her Cup Overfloweth hosted. My partner was Denise and she sent me those great muffin tins and some fun sprinkles and stuff.

I wish I had taken a picture of the fun dessert muffin tin we did once - I gave the girls bowls of ice cream and filled the muffin tin with different sprinkles, marshmallows, chocolate chips, strawberries, etc to add to their ice cream. It was yummy and a special treat for a Friday night.

How to have your kid learn while they eat breakfast

I can't believe my little girl had her first day of junior kindergarten today. Time flies by so fast.

I saw these on some blog - somewhere (I really need to save the links so I can credit people). EDIT - I found the original site where this idea came from Avocado & Papaya.

I made these alphabet pancakes on Tuesday to get her excited about school.

The secret is a turkey baster - just make sure your batter is thin enough. I've also heard that you can use one of those ketchup type squeeze bottles and put the batter in. I used the turkey baster and most letters worked the first time, but I'll admit that some broke in the transfer to the tray.

Lilo was trying to spell her name with it - we turned the T into another L. Then she wrote MOM and figured out on her own that she could make another M with the W.

As she was eating the letters we were coming up with different words that start with each letter.

With rest of the batter I made a couple heart pancakes - you just use the baster to make the heart and then let it cook a little and then pour the pancake over top of it. This would be an easier way to do letters too.

Since Lilo likes pancakes a lot for breakfast I will often make up a full batch of pancakes and then freeze the extras. I put them single layer on a cookie sheet and then put them in a ziplock when they are frozen for a quick weekday meal. To heat, you can put them in a toaster or I just throw them in the microwave. They aren't the best in the microwave but Lilo still tells me I make the best pancakes - so in other words kids usually don't complain.

Here's the recipe that I have for pancakes.

Ingredients

2 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla (optional)

2 eggs

2 Tblsp oil

1-2 cups milk (depends on how thin you want the batter - for the alphabet I used 2 cups)

How to get your kids excited about starting school

Lilo starts junior kindergarten in a week and she is super excited. I think it's cute since she doesn't really know what school is. She has visited it once and knows there will be lots of friends there - so that's all that matters.

My hubby was thinking that we should have some sort of count down to the first day for her. And then the next day I found this idea on a Back to School countdown chain. Perfect, a super simple craft that Lilo can help me make.

I don't have a picture of ours but it's pretty close - this is the one from Brassy Apple blog. Lilo had fun trying the stapler, she was a little frustrated when the chain slipped out before she could push it all the way. But of course she didn't want any help. After it was all stapled together I numbered the chains so she could count easier.

I hung it up high so Isla can't reach and Lilo rips a ring off everyday. We have been making them into bracelets afterwards. Then we count down the days left. It has been a good learning of patience for her too. She's been wanting to rip another one off and we've been trying to explain that we have to wait until tomorrow. It was hard at first but she's understanding better now.