Tray Tuesday!

It's time for another round of Tray Tuesday! It's time to get creative with your food and serve up the perfect portions for little tummies! Together with Mama to 4 Blessings, we are proud to present this week's line up of food! Presenting food in fun and colorful ways, keeps children entertained and ready to try anything!

Every week I like to try out new and fun tools to make the tray fun and different the previous ones. This week I only have my preschooler at home, so it was only 1 tray I had to make up as opposed to 3! I wanted to go with a theme, but little hands were helping me, so he was just pulling out what he wanted! 

This week, I used a crinkle cutter, paring knife and small scissors (to open up packages without tearing them) and a small cutting board. I like to keep all my lunch items handy on a tray in my work space, so I never have to hunt around for items when I need them! This cuts down on time by so much!

Today we served up a fun array of goodies that Roman and Mommy shared together to have the most delightful lunch! You see it on a pink tray, because we carried it outside to sit under a tree and read together as we nibbled. It was a wonderful afternoon of fun!

Tray Food Top Row: Carrots, Cucumbers and Cherry Tomatoes (Garden picked!), Celery, Cheese Sticks, Crackers and Chicken! (Can you tell I went with a C theme, until the little one asked to help!!)

Bottom Row:

Fruit Snacks, Clementines, Bananas, Apples & Raspberries (Freshly picked!) and watermelon! YUM!



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Did you create a fun lunch for Tray Tuesday?! Link up and join us! Presentation is everything when it comes to little ones, get them eating new and fun foods all while having fun! Snag a button, pop it in your post and join up!

It's Tray Tuesday!

Hello friends! It's Tuesday and that means it's time for Tray Tuesday! This is brought to you by myself, Michelle and Nicole over at Mama to 4 Blessings! (she will be joining me next week, but check out her blog, it's fantastic!!) I've said it over 100 times here on my blog, presentation is EVERYTHING and it makes such a difference when little ones sit and eat! 

Grabbing my tools of the trade and getting ready to put together a tray, often gets my creativity juices flowing! I love getting creative in the kitchen! It's pretty much the highlight to my day. I know as the school year begins, I will get a bit more strapped for time, so I am probably going to start with a themed tray to make it all go easier! For today, it's just a little bit of everything that I had on hand! With a busy weekend, I didn't make it to the grocery store for my long trip and was only to make a quickie stop for essentials.

I found that fun plasticware and food picks often make the kids laugh and smile too, so those always help the meal go by quickly and happily! Today's tray was full of fun foods that are their top favorites! 

Left To Right Top Level:

Carrot Sticks, Cheese Cubes, Oyster Crackers, Apple Cinnamon Rice Cakes, Chocolate Rice Cakes, Pepperoni, Cucumber Sticks (garden fresh!), Carrot Sticks

Left to Right Bottom Level:

Apple slices with cinnamon, Grapes, Yogurt, Raisins, Animal Crackers, Grapes, Apples Slices with cinnamon! 

*The apples were all fresh picked from our favorite orchard!!*

The kids are loving tray Tuesday and are starting to ask for them more often! I think these will become a fun after school snack now! Next week, I think I am going to do a rainbow tray! Let's see if I can manage it! hahah!!! Now, link up your fun food! It doesn't have to be in an ice cube tray for the first week, but it's a fun challenge to try in the future!

This awesome tray is on my WANTED list! I am heading to a Container Store this weekend, so I should be able to stop in and pick it up! I just hope they have it in stock. 3 columns makes it perfect for creativity and I could put together 1 column per child! LINK UP!

Friday Run Down!

Wow, the end of the week already? I'm not too happy with that! I feel like there is so much left to do. Do you all realize how close we are to the school year beginning? Where did Summer go?! One thing we discussed today, was collections. One of the things we enjoy collecting, are dice! We love dice of all kinds, textures, colors and sizes! We enjoy how pretty and fun they are and we love making up our own games too.

It was  National Milk Chocolate Day! We made up some Chocolate Scented Playdough and let your creativity lead the way!
Mix 1 1/2 cups of flour, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 1/2 cup salt,1/2 Tbsp cream of tartar. Add 1 1/2 Tbsp cooking oil, 1 cup boiling water. Stir it up, mix well as it begins to clump together. Cook over low heat until dough forms a ball. When cool , mix with your hands.

This has proven to be the most fun of everything we did this week! haha!

I also made up a fun sight word dice game, this has been proven to be a lot of fun for my son, but the other 2 kids also want in on it, since it involves rolling dice and using a do-a-dot marker! hahha!! 

I am trucking my way through this week's 40 bags in 40 days, so much so, that instead of garbage bags, I have filled BOXES! I find it so hard to believe that there was that much clutter in those rooms! In the LIST, the lines in yellow are the places I have already done.

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Treasures...

So many see trash, we see endless possibilities! Join me every Wednesday as we turn one man's trash into our very special treasures!

Here is a repost of one of our favorite projects, where we used upcycled materials in all but the handle of the basket! Enjoy and thank you for joining us!!

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In The Flower Garden....

 Our flowers make me happy...

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Write Some More!

 We're bloggers and we love to write, right? I'm always jotting something down or doodling a quick sketch with an idea. I love the written word, to create it and to read it! It's a passion I guess. I'm lucky in the sense that I have kids that enjoy this too, they even have journals!. It could be that I have set an example and they just want to be like Mom, but it could also be that I like to make writing utensils easily accessible to little hands! I always dress up our writing center AND change it out often, so it looks fresh and fun! You will be amazed at what some new pencil toppers can do, they make kids want to use them right away. Try a new sharpener, even my 3 year old dashes right in to sharpen and then use his 'pointy pencil'. A colorful cup of erasers encourages creativity and 'gasp' even mistakes! Let them know it's okay, just erase and it's brand new again! Different types of paper make it possible for the kids to do all kinds of different things! Postcards, Mini pads, list pads with lines and check boxes, restaurant CHECK booklets, post its plain, post its lined etc. Crayons are there, so that the kids can illustrate what they write!! Try it and you will see them flock!

I always am sure to keep the reading and writing shelf accessible too! This has letters in all shapes and forms (Coasters, rocks, tiles, dice, foam, wood, cardstock etc.) and mini chalkboards too! I will go into more detail on this shelf in a future post!! How do you get your little ones to write more?

Take The Learning Outside!

As the weather warms up, we are all dying to get back outdoors on a regular basis! The kids love to run, jump and yell with no boundries (well except for the fence!). It's fun, exciting and best of all thrilling to get outdoors and play with bubbles, water and sand. Why not sneak in a little learning while you play? 

We took our sidewalk chalk out with us this week and drew reaaaalllly long lines and measured to see who drew the longer one! Then we wrote out number 1-20 on a bumpy hill! We made clouds with numbers on them and hopped from one to the next or just stood still until someone yelled out a number and we all headed to land on that one! We even pulled out the jacks and matched them up to the same color chalk drawing!!

I wrote out some Math problems and before I was done with the last one, my 5 year old was pulling up a chalk and getting right to work!

All the while, I don't think the kids even knew there was a lesson in there! Even Mommy had some fun with the chalk!

Enjoy this month as we near Summer and vacations abound!

Linked up here:

~Michelle!~

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I'm Bored....

 

 One thing I NEVER, ever hear in this house is: 'I'm BORED!' I honestly pride myself in that! The kids always have enough to play with or something to do or a planned activity etc. Today were were working on a challenge put forth by Tinker Lab and while waiting for our paint and mod podge to dry, until we could put on another coat of everything, they said it. First the oldest: 'Mom, I'm bored!' then the next 'Mommy, what should we do?' then the youngest 'Mom, I'm bode (how he says it!) too!'

I quickly looked around at what I had within reach and went with the first idea that popped in my head! Twine and Scissors and a jar of clothespins! I hung up a laundry line and emptied the dryer. Once stringing a line and and putting the basket and jar side by side, I called them in and they have been playing for over an hour so far! It's truly amazing what they do with everyday things!! I'm hoping to string one outside when the rain stops and give them some outdoor rags for them to 'wash' in their water table and hang to dry!

Coupons to use TODAY and TOMORROW only! Hope this helps!!!! Just click to enlarge and print!

What do you do when you hear the dreaded 'I'm bored!'?

~Michelle!~

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Four Fill-In Fun Link Up!1. If not for my significant other, I’d never Get a moment to myself! Love when he is home and wants to hang out with the little ones, letting me steal a minute here and there!

2. On more than one occasion, I have Thrown Up in a car! I tend to have awful motion sickness only in vehicles and it only happens on rare occasions, but it does happen!

3. The worst meal I ever made was My first ever chicken soup! Too many veggies and chicken and nowhere near enough broth!! It was a disaster!!

4. My guilty t.v. pleasure are Soap Operas! I love them, but I don't follow them religiously at all. When I catch AMC or OLTL (about to be cancelled!!) even if it's been years, I sit and watch it and can usually catch right up! haha!!