Muffin Tin Monday - Spring/Easter

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Happy Monday, everyone!! I had a lot more fun with this week's theme and already have some great ideas for next week, too, so that should be fun as well. :) The kids LOVED their lunches, it was fun to see them so excited as they were looking at everything.

Top row: jelly beans, hard-boiled egg made to look like a chick, carrot sticks w/ranch

Bottom row: blueberry Greek yogurt with bunny cookies, pb&j sandwich shaped like a bunny, and an apple with a mini butterfly cutout

Both kids ate everything except the egg (I made Dawson try a bite and he almost threw up... have I mentioned I have picky eaters?) and they each had a carrot stick or two leftover. Not too bad!

To see more muffin tin lunches head on over to another lunch.

Muffin Tin Monday - St. Patrick's Day

Pin It now! Hello! It's been awhile since I've participated in MTM! It's been awhile since I've posted regularly in this blog, too, but I've recently decided I want to try to be more active in here. I've always loved Muffin Tin Monday so I knew that I'd definitely want to jump into that again.

When I started thinking about what I was going to put in our St. Patrick's Day tin I imagined our tins turning out to be a lot more fun. I didn't really "plan" it and I think that was my problem, I'll try harder next week. The kids were happy with their tins so that's really all that matters, right? Right!

On the top row we've got a rainbow of fruits and veggies, with ranch for dipping. I put some pesto in the ranch to turn it green! Veggies include green and red pepper slices, cucumber slices, and carrot sticks. And blueberries and red grapes for fruit.

On the bottom row we have some lucky charms and a mini pizza on a whole wheat muffin. I toasted the muffin then put some alfredo sauce on it, then some mozzarella cheese, and a couple pieces of chopped spinach and then stuck it under the broiler for a minute or so to melt the cheese.

Ashlynn ate everything except the pizza, Dawson ate everything except the veggies! Next week's theme is Spring is Sprung! I should probably start planning that now so I can make their tins a little more fun next time. :)

Visit Another Lunch to see more Muffin Tin Monday meals. :)



For those of you who may not know us, let me introduce my little family to you!

I'm Jamie (the mommy), Dawson is my very energetic and smart 4 year old, and Ashlynn is my sweet and smart 2 year old. Dave (not pictured) is my wonderful husband and the best daddy in the world. :)

Thank you for stopping by!

(Happy) St. Patrick's Day Cookies!

Pin It now! Me and the kids made these cookies a couple of weeks ago. It was my first time decorating with royal icing! (I got the cookie and royal icing recipes from Bake at 350) I definitely need more practice but I think the cookies turned out pretty cute. And they were definitely yummy!

Here are the ones that the kids decorated. They both love to help in the kitchen!

Ashlynn got to try out her new Snow White apron that Dave's mom made for her. It's so cute!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! :)

Turkey Veggie Tray

Pin It now! I know it's after Thanksgiving but I wanted to share this before I forget, in case any of you are put in charge of the veggie tray next year. ;) I had asked my dad a week or two before Thanksgiving what he wanted us to bring and he told me he'd let me know. A couple days later I got a text from him asking if we'd bring a veggie tray. Now, normally I might be a little bummed, I'm sure you've noticed that I love to bake, but thanks to Pinterest I was excited!!! I had just seen a pin where they make the veggies look like a turkey! I didn't pin it (I was wrong, I did pin it, you can see the pin here), but it was easy to remember what I had to buy for it.... veggies! :) So here's how mine turned out...

Isn't it so cute! Who knew a veggie tray could be so FUN?! :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Pin It now! Happy Valentine's Day!! We made these cute little Valentines (and cake pops!) for Dawson's music class.

(sorry about the crappy picture, I took it with my phone last night)

I've seen these on quite a few blogs and on twitter this year and the more I seen them the more I wanted to make some! They turned out super cute. Ashlynn's music class is too young for Valentine treats this year so I didn't make any with her. I will next year, though! :)

I hope everyone is having a lovely Valentine's day!! ♥

Christopher Pop-In-Kins is here!

Pin It now! A few nights ago before bed we read Dawson and Ashlynn the Christopher Pop-In-Kins book. After we were finished reading the story we asked him a few questions about it to make sure he understood what we read. He understood very well that Christopher comes to visit and we can not touch him or else he'll lose his magic. Before he went to sleep he told me he was going to dream about Santa and Christopher Pop-In-Kins. ♥

The next morning he had seemed to have forgotten about the story and Christopher was hiding on a wreath that we having hanging up. Dawson walked past him a few times without seeing him so I decided to remind him about the story that we read. Then I said maybe Christopher came to visit us, we should look for him! It took Dawson a few minutes to spot him but when he did he was SO excited!! That was a few days ago and since then whenever Dawson wakes up he is excited to see where Christopher is hiding or what he is up to. Besides sitting in the wreath he has also been holding on to a balloon and playing with some of Ashlynn's toys. We're having a lot of fun with him already and it warms my heart to see how excited Dawson gets to see him everyday.

I plan on posting a few pictures every couple of days to show what Christopher has been up to. Here he is playing with some of Ashlynn's toys.



To learn more about this cute little elf you can read my Christopher Pop-In-Kins review here.

Do you have a cute little elf visiting your family this year?

Handprint Thanksgiving Turkey Craft

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This is one of my favorite crafts that we have done in a long time! I love it because it has Dawson's little handprint (age 3) and Ashlynn's little handprint (10 months old). I made the handprints into cute little turkeys and then I wrote "Happy Thanksgiving" and Dawson traced it! He did such a good job! He's really been getting into tracing things lately. He has me write the entire alphabet a couple times a day so he can trace it. (He does pretty well with writing most of the letters by himself already but he has fun tracing too) He loves to write, draw, and make art projects. He's so creative!

Anyway, I saw this craft on Pinterest and knew it would be perfect to do with Dawson and Ashlynn. Have you done any Thanksgiving crafts this year? If so please leave me the link so I can stop by and see!

Muffin Tin Monday - Halloween!

Pin It now! Happy Monday!! I have some BIG news!! My baby boy, Dawson, is going to be THREE years old tomorrow!! Can you believe it?! His birthday party is going to be on Saturday so I decided to go ahead and do our Halloween lunch this weekend since I'm sure we'll be too busy with other things next weekend to even think about it. So here's what he had...

mummy dogs (hot dog wrapped in a crescent roll), ghost shaped marshmallows, witches hats (bugles)

ketchup for dipping, Halloween shaped spook-aroni and cheese, Greek yogurt with Halloween sprinkles
And for dessert a Jack Skellington cake pop!

Here's a closer look at Jack:

And a closer look at the rest of his meal:


He LOVED this Halloween tin! I made him save the cake pop for last and he finished everything except maybe 1/3 of the hotdog. Yay!

To see more muffin tin meals head on over and visit Muffin Tin Mom.

**Don't forget to enter my Just Me Music CD/DVD giveaway! There are not very many entries and there will be 3 winners so your chances of winning are not bad at all. :) And your little ones will LOVE hearing their name sung by their favorite characters.

Jack Skellington Cake Pops

Pin It now! Not too long ago I watched Nightmare Before Christmas for the very first time. I have no idea what took me so long to see it but I loved it! Even before I had watched it I had been wanting to make some Jack Skellington cake pops, so after I watched it I really wanted to make them. So I did. :)


I did a quick Google search for Jack cake pops before I made them and found a cute little template for his body from The Party Animal. I had to have it so I printed some out and I love the way they turned out. Between the Jack cake pops and the Cinderella cake pops that I made, I don't know how I'm ever going to make character pops again without printing out accessories to go with them! I love how they turn out. :)


**Don't forget I've got an awesome Just Me Music personalized CD/DVD giveaway going on. The prize would make a great stocking stuffer for your little one! And there will be 3 winners!

Muffin Tin Monday - Easter Bunny

Pin It now! Happy Monday! We decided to go with a Easter Bunny theme this week.

carrots (bunny food), bunny shaped grilled cheese, bunny marshmallows

yogurt with sprinkles, hard-boiled egg and bunny graham crackers

Dawson ate a little bit of everything except the sandwich and the egg. For some reason he wouldn't touch either one of those things and he usually loves grilled cheese sandwiches... :/

To see other Muffin Tin Meals head on over and visit Muffin Tin Mom.

Hamburgers and Fries - April Fools!

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Order up! I made some yummy burgers and fries for lunch today... ok, ok, April Fools! ;) They are actually cupcakes, brownies and sugar cookies! I wanted to send something to work with hubby for April Fools and ever since I saw these in Bakerella's blog a couple of years ago I knew I wanted to try them. They were a lot of fun to make and I think they turned out pretty cute!


Did you do anything fun for April Fools?

Halloween: A Look Back

Pin It now! Amanda over at Funny Days with Mommy and Maddie has a linky up for posts about kids in Halloween costumes and I thought it would be fun to join in! So here's a look back at what Dawson has been for Halloween...

This was in 2008, he was born just 6 days before Halloween so we didn't buy him a real Halloween costume because he was so small. He did have a few really cute Halloween onesies though!


His onesie says "this is my costume!" He's also got on a cute little pumpkin hat and pumpkin socks. :)

I also really like this ghost onesie that he had.


I think all together he had 5 or 6 Halloween onesies, we got a few of them as gifts and couldn't resist buying a couple ourselves since we knew he was going to be born so close to Halloween.

Last year he was a dinosaur! And it was his first time trick-or-treating. He had just turned a year old so he didn't really get in to it much but he liked being outside walking around with everyone.


Rawr!


This year he was going to be a skeleton but when we took him shopping for a costume we learned that he is scared of skeletons so that wasn't going to work. We ended up finding this really cute pirate costume that he wasn't scared of and I like it a lot more than I would have liked a skeleton.


Doesn't he look adorable?! The boots are a little big, we actually just trimmed them down a little bit this morning so they would fit him better because he is wearing his costume tonight! The housing that we live in is having a Fall into Fun party tonight and kids are supposed to wear their costumes. We are looking forward to going, it should be a lot of fun and I'm excited to see Dawson dressed up in his costume again.

I think he's going to have a lot of fun trick-or-treating this year and seeing all the other kids in their costumes. He has already mastered saying "trick-or-treat" so he's ready to go!

Muffin Tin Monday - 4th of July

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Happy Monday! It's been a couple of weeks since we've done our lunch in a muffin tin, mostly because I have been super tired lately. I couldn't pass up a 4th of July tin though!

Top Row: strawberries, berries with whipped cream, blueberries
Bottom Row: pb&j sandwich, cheese and crackers, more pb&j

He loved that his sandwich and cheese were in the shape of stars, he kept showing them to me and was really excited about it. *lol* He ate pretty good too!

To see what others did head on over and visit Muffin Tin Mom.

Father's Day Gift Idea

Pin It now! I thought I would share what me and Dawson made Dave for Father's Day last year in case anybody is still looking for ideas.


Aww!! Look how little my baby was! I can't believe that was just a year ago! This isn't a perfect picture of the shirt that we made Dave, but I think you'll get the idea. I used some fabric markers to write out "Best Dad in the World! Hands Down!" and then I put Dawson's handprints on it. It turned out really cute and Dave loved it!

I hope everybody has a great Father's Day weekend!

Easter Cake Pops

Pin It now! My husband had never had a cake pop before so I decided to make some this week. They didn't turn out exactly how I had imagined, but they tasted great so that's ok.


They didn't turn out quite as cute as Bakerella's but I'm glad that I made them anyway.

I hope everybody has a great Easter weekend!

St. Patrick's Day Crafts

Pin It now! I ordered Dawson a table and chairs set two weeks ago and last week it came in! I was able to put it together while he was napping and when he woke up I was anxious for him to try it out, so I had a couple activities set up for him.

First of all I printed out a St. Patrick's Day page for him to color. I have tried coloring with him a few times since before he was even a year old and he really hadn't gotten the hang of it. He was more interested in eating the crayons. So I really didn't expect him to do much, but I figured we would try again anyway and he totally surprised me! He colored! On the paper (and on the table, thank goodness for Mr. Clean Magic Erasers!) and he did such a great job!


I love how he was actually moving the crayon back and forth on the paper. Yay!


Don't you just love it?! I am so proud!

Next up was a sticker collage. A few weeks ago I saw a post over at Three A's and a C where she did a sticker activity with her daughter who is about the same age as Dawson, and I knew I wanted to try it with Dawson, too!

I handed him the stickers and let him put them wherever he wanted. I had to push the stickers down after he placed them because he kept trying to take them back off.


Here is how his sticker collage turned out:


He had a lot of fun and so did I. I am happy we have a little table for him to do crafts at now, I'm sure we are going to get a lot of use out of it.

Muffin Tin Monday - New Year's

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Is it really Monday already? It has been so busy around here since last MTM (I am sure the same goes for all of you) so I really didn't have much time to think about what we were going to do this week. I'll keep this short and sweet because there really is not much to explain. :-) This week's theme is New Year's/Party...

First 2 rows: 2010 (ham and cheese sandwich)
Last row: streamers and confetti (twizzlers pull-n-peel & puffs) & noise makers (lil crunchies)

Can you guess what Dawson ate first?


The twizzlers, of course! At 14 months old I can't believe he already knows what the sweets are.

To see more MTM posts head on over to Muffin Tin Mom.

Book Fan Friday - Happy HoliDogs!

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So, I'm not sure if Three A's and a C is hosting Book Fan Friday this week since it is Christmas and all. But I couldn't skip this week even if nobody else is going to do it. And to be honest I am not really looking forward to Christmas... I want to try to think of it as just another day. Luckily Dawson doesn't really know the difference yet. Santa will still visit our house and we will still open presents, but other than that I want it to be like any other day. It's so hard celebrating all these holidays without my husband. Dawson and I have been spending time with our family, but when it's time to go home it's just the two of us again. Everybody else has a family to go home to. :-( Maybe I'm just feeling sorry for myself. I'll stop now.

Anyway, this week was another very special storytime for us because Dave sent another book and DVD for us to watch.

Happy HoliDogs! by Ed Heck

I put the DVD in as soon as we got it and handed Dawson the book. We watched it together and as soon as it ended he kept saying "dada" and would point at the TV. So I started it again and I grabbed my camera to take a few pictures.


Dada even wore a Santa hat! I should have put Dawson's Santa hat on too!


We watched it 3 times in a row the first day that we got it before Dawson was ready to play with some of his toys. We have watched it twice a day since then. He loves being able to see and hear his daddy.

Oh, and a little bit about the book. First of all I am so glad that it was Dave reading it and not me! It's basically the 12 Days of Christmas with some words changed so it's all about dogs. You have to keep repeated everything again and again and the list of things that you are repeating just gets longer and longer. And it's impossible to read a book like this without singing it. I've read Elmo's 12 Days of Christmas to Dawson a couple times and I am always out of breath by the end. *lol* Maybe I should make a video of me reading that book and then I'll only have to read it one more time! Genius!

Visit Three A's and a C to see what others were reading this week. And Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

Pin It now! Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Chocolate Covered Oreo Reindeer Pops

Pin It now! We had another family Christmas party to go to last night, this time it was for my dad's side of the family. Last week was the Christmas party for my mom's side of the family and I made cake balls to hand out to everybody. Those were a big hit, but I wanted to try something different this time, something a little easier.

I decided I would make Chocolate Mint Oreo Pops...that's not really a great name, is it? I'm not sure what else to call them though! What I am sure of, they are super easy to make. No baking or rolling involved.

I was just planning on decorating them with Christmas sprinkles, but then I saw these cute reindeer cake pops that Christina from Three A's and a C made. I have seen them on Bakerella's site before, but it didn't hit me that I could do something like that with the chocolate covered Oreos that I was making until I saw them in Christina's blog. (Or maybe it was when I saw how cute her reindeer turned out I knew I had to make some reindeer, too!)

What you'll need:

• 1 package of Oreos
• 1 package of chocolate bark
• lollipop sticks
• wax paper

For decorating:

• sprinkles (or anything else that would look cute)
  

For reindeer:

• pretzels
• M&M's
• white confetti sprinkles for the eyes
• edible marker

Melt a piece or 2 of the chocolate bark, stick your lollipop stick in the chocolate and then place it in the creme filling of the Oreo. (If at all possible don't take the sides off the Oreo, just push your lollipop stick in between the cookies. That way you don't risk breaking one of the pieces and it stays together a lot better when they haven't been pulled apart.


After you have all the sticks in place wait about 30 minutes or until the chocolate is completely dry before you start dipping the Oreos in the chocolate, that way they won't fall off the sticks. :-)

Once the chocolate is completely dry, melt some more of your chocolate bark and then dip the Oreo into the chocolate until it is completely covered. Tap off any extra chocolate.

Decorate them however you want and then set them on wax paper to dry. (Or you can stand them up in styrofoam. I put mine in styrofoam after they were dry just for picture purposes.)


I ended up only making 5 reindeer because Dawson came down with an awful cold and needed some extra kisses and cuddles the day that I was making these and the reindeer were just too time consuming. (It really doesn't take that long to put the reindeer together, but when you have a sick baby you need to cut all the corners that you can to get finished quickly!) I needed to hurry up for my baby boy. :-)

Putting sprinkles on them was much quicker.


I made sure each family was going to get one reindeer and then a whole bunch of ones with sprinkles.


After I was finished making all of these, I realized that I had delicious melted chocolate and pretzels... I think you know what happened next!


Yum! And I had the perfect thing to put them in... Super cute Santa cupcake liners!


I was really happy with how everything turned out and everybody at the party loved them, too! :-)

Merry Christmas!