Kids and Muffin Tin Meals

We've been busy again! Once Island Dad is back (10 days!!) I should be able to update a bit more. Mostly, we've just been up to the same old routine, but that takes a fair amount of our time!

I got brave and took both kids to the beach again yesterday. The beach we went to was one that we've only been to once before. It's less protected than the one we've been frequenting lately, and so has more waves. Island Boy, who usually is part fish, wanted absolutely nothing at all to do with the waves, and was perfectly content to play in the sand the whole time! We had fun, he learned how to bury feet, and Island Girl spent some time chewing on a sand toy (that did not have any sand in it).

Island Girl has been making developments in all areas lately. She's going great guns with self-feeding. She still loses a fair amount of it, but her pincer grasp is getting better daily. She is not crawling on her hands yet, but is pushing up on them more and more. She is babbling a lot more instead of just shrieking at the top of her lungs. And, thankfully, the pitch of the babbling has come down some lately, too. It was getting pretty ear-splitting.

On to our muffin tin meal for the week! Lately, the meals have been Sunday night dinner, instead of Monday lunch. Between playgroup and other errands on Mondays, lunch time doesn't end up happening at home. When Island Boy saw that he was having a muffin tin meal again tonight, he declared "yummy yummy yummy!!!" And was jumping up and down in the kitchen :D

This week's theme was pumpkins. I did jack-o-lanterns, to make it a bit more obvious to a two-year-old.

Top row, left to right: Jack-o-lantern corn muffin, jack-o-lantern macaroni and cheese, and jack-o-lantern peach yogurt. On the muffins and Macaroni, the eyes and nose are red and yellow bell peppers. On the yogurt, the nose and eyes are raspberry pieces, and the mouth is a slice of strawberry.

Here's a close-up of the corn muffins. I just used Jiffy mix, and turned it orange with food coloring. I should have accounted for the batter rising when I placed the faces on, but on the whole they turned out fine.

Island Boy LOVED the corn muffins (in cement mixer mini-muffin cups, which he adored) and didn't even notice the peppers baked into those. He immediately picked the peppers off of the macaroni and cheese. He also gobbled up the yogurt and berries. I actually thought the macaroni would be the most popular part, but he proved me wrong when he ate only one tin of that, and then asked for several more servings of strawberries and raspberries, while he kind of picked at the remaining bits of corn muffin.

But since he didn't seem to mind the peppers baked into the muffins, I think I will probably resort to "vegetable espionage" in the future, as well, much as I would prefer he eat them by themselves. Lately, they usually get picked out or around.