Tray Tuesday!

Welcome to 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! After being gone for the Holiday last week, it was fun to get another tray going today!

This week I had fun with Edible Markers from Betty Crocker! They are such a blast to work with and always bring out smiles all around when served to the kids! Let's Eat!

Left To Right:
Caprese Bites, Pretzels, Carrots, Boiled Egg Man, Celery, Whole Wheat Pasta, Snap Peas
Grape Cabobs, Apple Slices 2 times (Quick Orchard visit!!), Apple Sauce, Chocolate Chips, Marshmallows and Graham Crackers! YUM!

<a href=”http://www.michellescharmworld.blogspot.com/” style=”border: none;”><img alt=”MichellesCharmWorld” src=”http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/WDWwedding2004/Tbutton.jpg?t=1312923300” style=”width: 129px; height: 129px;”/></a>

Please grab a button and link up your fun foods!!

Enter the Pretty Lovelies Giveaway HERE!

Linked Up Here:

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!



<a href=”http://www.michellescharmworld.blogspot.com/” style=”border: none;”><img alt=”MichellesCharmWorld” src=”http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/WDWwedding2004/Tbutton.jpg?t=1312923300” style=”width: 129px; height: 129px;”/></a>
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!

Fun with Food!

Before we get to the good eats, remember that food does not only have to be eaten! When the outside of some of our apples were a bit bruised, we sliced them in half and got to work with paints!

They looked so pretty that I wanted to display them! The kids had so much fun playing with their food, that we have decided next time, we will make the prints on something other than paper, so that we can keep them longer!

The first day of school was fun for everyone and the perfect back to school snack, was Caprese Bites that I then drizzled with olive oil and lightly salted and peppered. They were perfect! I would have added the basil, if I had known the kids that came over would have liked it, so I erred on the side of caution!

I love making everyday things cute with very little effort! Masking tape and a sharpie make the perfect note on something that will be thrown away anyway! A rubberband holds the napkin and spoon right to the pudding cup and they both nestle right into the snack bag that has also gotten a little glam!

Cookie cutters and cupcake wrappers, GO GET THEM! These 2 things are enough to make lunches absolutely memorable.

Tray Tuesday will be back next week! With the rush of the first day, we were on the go all day, so I am slowly getting back to normal!

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!

Fun with Food...

Good Morning Friends! I hope everyone has slept well last night, I am loving this crisp Fall air that has entered the Midwest and I truly hope it's here to stay! This is a post of having fun with your food! I'm creative by nature, so of course I bring it to all aspects to my life.  When my children asked me for a late night cookie snack, we got baking! Since it was already pretty late, I didn't want them to have too much to eat and figured a fun way would be to make them some bit sized snacks! I pulled out the cookie cutters and made these awesome M&M and Chocolate Chip cookies. This way there were plenty for the rest of the week, some for Daddy when he got home from work and they each were able to have 3 that night. A tall and fun glass of milk helped top it all off just perfectly!

I was inspired to make the bite sized cookies, because my cookie cutters are always out on display. I use them almost daily to make lunches cute and fun. After testing out many ways to store them so that I get the most use out of them, this has turned out to be the best.  I store them in a paper towel holder right on the counter in my lunch prep area. I store my entire collection in a covered bin in an under cabinet, but this allows me to highlight some of my collection and change them out in relation to Holidays, Colors, Themes etc. I Love It!

When my kids asked for pancakes, I knew I wanted to spice them up a little. We've done shapes before, but we had not tried rainbow pancakes yet! This was the perfect touch to a last minute breakfast. I use Mason Jar lids, to make easy circles and it gives me a chance to see how much to pour for a thicker pancake!

Sitting on Facebook one night and my friend posted a photo of Uncrustables PB&J sandwiches! I laughed, because I remember that my husband and I got married in Disney World right on the day hurricane Frances swept in. As weather got worse, they cut the food hours on resort property and began setting up bags of food so that we wouldn't have to leave our rooms anymore. These were one of the things in the bags and we were hooked!

I knew I could easily make some of my own, since they were pretty simple! My kids and I were headed on a picnic the next day, so I decided to get right up and see if I could put it together! First, I spread the peanut butter and then the jelly (Leave the jelly in the middle, so the bread doesn't get too soggy!)

What can't you use Mason Jar lids for?! I used it as a larger and thicker cookie cutter, to get it all in one good twist! To get the clean circle, I used a knife to get the edges out intact.

Use a fork to press down the edges, so that it gets that closed and pretty look! These were an absolute success and the kids have already made a request to have these in their school lunches 'some days'! I love when I can make them smile!

This is a reminder of my newest Fun with Food segment, TRAY TUESDAY! Head on over there and check it out! I have one new co-hostess signed up, but there is still room for more. Thanks so much for visiting my little neck of the woods! Hope you have a fantastic day!!!

Have You Added Me Yet?

Twitter: @MichellesCharmW

Facebook: MichellesCharmWorld

Tray Tuesday...A Call For Co-Hostesses!

Hello again! I am starting a new weekly post on Tuesdays, called Tray Tuesday. As you can see from my photo above, this is pretty much making up a meal that all fits in the slots of an ice cube tray! I'm a huge fan of making meals fun. With children, presentation is everything, if you show them food served up in a fun way, they get more excited to dive right in! Check out that little hand in there trying to sneak something as I am setting up.

Today's tray features many goodies, presented from Left to Right: Animal Crackers, Apples, Grapes, Strawberries, Vanilla Yogurt with Cinnamon, Raspberries, Animal Crackers, Apples. Bottom Row: Pretzel Rods, Cheese Cubes, Carrot Sticks, Bread Slices, Ham Rolls, Raisins, Fruit Snacks, Strawberries.

<a href=”http://www.michellescharmworld.blogspot.com/” style=”border: none;”><img alt=”MichellesCharmWorld” src=”http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v456/WDWwedding2004/Tbutton.jpg?t=1312923300” style=”width: 129px; height: 129px;”/></a>
All you need to do is serve up a Tuesday Tray, photograph it and share what is inside! This way we all get ideas on what we could put in for next week and it drives viewers to our blogs! This will be a linky post every Tuesday, all you need to do is post and add the button above. If you are interested in being a co-hostess, I will add your blog button to my sidebar of my blog AND will feature a link to your blog every Tuesday with this post. Please only join if you can commit to doing this every week! Please post this intro and button on your blog today to spread the word!!

Have You Added Me Yet?

Twitter: @MichellesCharmW

Facebook: MichellesCharmWorld