Muffin Tin Monday - Oceans and Ponds

It's time for another Muffin Tin Monday!! It is a "No Theme" week, but I decided to do my own theme. This week we did Oceans and Ponds (sounded better than Bodies of Water or something that incorporated both shrimp and ponds that I had in mind). :D

Ashlyn had popcorn shrimp, carrot reeds around a ranch dressing pond, fish eggs (cut up grapes), and goldfish!

I took out the goldfish crackers before giving her the tin because I wanted her to actually eat her healthier stuff. She never really had grapes before and didn't particularly care for them. We found out recently that she likes shrimp, but she only took a couple of bites. She ate all those carrots, though, and was really light on the ranch. She just munched away like a little bunny! Then, of course, she gobbled up the fish crackers, but that wasn't really even a question. :)

To see what other creative people did with their tins this week, visit Muffin Tin Mom!!

Also, HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!

Muffin Tin Monday - Seeds, Plants, and Flowers

It's Muffin Tin Monday! This week is another part of the Springtime mini-series. This installment is all about Seeds, Plants, and Flowers!

I made a peanut butter and jelly flower with a mini marshmallow center (inspiration here), a pastrami, turkey, and cheese flower (inspiration here), Rice Krispies "seeds," extra flower cheese, and broccoli "trees." The broccoli had some cheese on it so maybe we can say the "trees" are bathed in "sunshine?" lol

Ashlyn didn't eat everything, but I was very proud that she tried everything!

To see what creative tins other people made, head on over to Muffin Tin Mom!

Pocahontas Movie Night

Last night was our latest movie night! Aaron picked Pocahontas and I was so excited because I had never seen it before! We decided on this movie fairly last minute so I didn't get a chance to put too much together, but here is our table. I have our Thanksgiving decorations in our back closet since we don't have many to begin with so I pulled out the leaves. And those flowers are ones that Aaron surprised me with a few days before. ♥

For dinner we had a mini Thanksgiving dinner. We had turkey, cranberry sauce (for Aaron), mashed potatoes, corn, and even some pumpkin pie. Yum!

I found a cool Earth Day craft that I thought would be great to do with this movie. We made a wreath with Ashlyn's handprints, put some lyrics from "Colors of the Wind" in the middle, and all three of us (though mainly Ashlyn) decorated it with water, animal, and plant stickers.

The lyrics we used were "The rainstorm and the river are my brothers. The heron and the otter are my friends. And we are all connected to each other In a circle, in a hoop that never ends."

Our next movie night is planned to be The Lion King! I'm hoping to be able to make it a really cool night.

Muffin Tin Monday - Birds and Nests

I hope you are all nice and rested and ready for a new week! We didn't really do a whole lot this weekend, but it ended up being wonderful. A nice, relaxing weekend where we just spent time having fun together as a family. :) All three of us had colds during the week and were starting to feel so much better this weekend, so it was really nice. And what better way to start the new week than with...


MUFFIN TIN MONDAY!!

This week starts a spring mini-series and this week is all about birds and nests.


Ashlyn had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (that is supposed to be a bird... obviously I haven't bought cookie cutters yet), a rice krispie treat nest, and strawberries to act as little eggs (though I put the extra slices in their own cup). This is only the second time she's tried strawberries. She tried a couple of bites, but wasn't really digging them. She didn't hate them, though. I think she just needs to get used to the tartness of them so we'll be giving her bites every couple days or so.

Now, next week's theme is going to be a difficult one for me, but hopefully I'll think of something fun. We have finally decided that our next movie night is going to be Pocahontas, so I'll be in planning mode this week anyway.

To see what others came up with for this week's MTM theme, check out Muffin Tin Mom!

Monsters Inc. Movie Night

Well, whoops. It's been almost a week since our Monsters Inc. movie night and I completely forgot to post about it! In my defense, Ashlyn and I have both had colds and I am just now beginning to feel human again (I think of Beauty and the Beast every time I say that).

So anyway, like I said, we watched Monsters Inc. Before dinner and the movie, the three of us did a little craft. I bought three poster boards and we each painted a door. For Ashlyn's door I taped some paper in some strategic places so when I took it off you could tell that it was a door. Here is her creation (all the purple is her and the yellow is from us making the door details stand out).

Here is Aaron's (you can see where Ashlyn felt his door needed a little purple).

Here is mine.

I really didn't have anything for decorations besides some green plates, green forks, and blue spoons, but the doors acted as decorations. And you know what? I had the. cutest. decoration. EVER! Our very own life-sized Boo! ;)

For dinner we had Boo's Mini Meatloaves (a fabulous recipe I found in Kraft Food & Family magazine - we've only tried the Fiesta ones but all three of us really like it) and Mike's Mashed Potatoes. Quite awhile ago Aaron asked me to make homemade mashed potatoes and once I did, we've never gone back to boxed. They are so good!

To drink we had Sully Punch. We got some of the clear Kool-Aid and put some blue food coloring in it (I don't know if they make blue Kool-Aid but they sure don't sell it here) and had purple ice cubes (grape Kool-Aid). Sorry you can't really tell the colors in the picture, and you also can't tell, but the ice cubes are Mickey Mouse shaped!

For dessert we had Eye Scream Sundaes. It was just so much fun. I still don't know which movie we'll be doing next week, though! Eek! We're going to decide this weekend, though, so I can start planning everything. I really wanted to do The Lion King because Ashlyn just ADORES her stuffed baby Simba, but I can't seem to find someone here who owns it and neither the library nor the little video store thing has it. My dad is sending us a copy, though, so we'll do that soon.

I also wanted to let you all know that tomorrow is NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DAY!!!!! Heck yeah! I am totally making a batch tomorrow to celebrate. I was trying to decide whether to do something like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (I have something I want to make with the oatmeal container so I need to use it!), Congo Bars, or what. But you know, this time I just want to make good old fashioned regular chocolate chip cookies. You can't go wrong there! Unless you're out of milk... but with a 19 month old in the house, we stay pretty well stocked with milk. I am also making rice krispie treats on Sunday because I'm using some for Muffin Tin Monday, but I'm sure we can find some poor, unsuspecting person to burden with our extra cookies and rice krispie treats. ;)

Muffin Tin Monday - No Theme (Mother's Day)

Since Sunday was Mother's Day (happy belated Mother's Day to all the mommies out there!) there was no theme for MTM this week. We didn't really do a tin, but Mother's Day breakfast was MADE in a tin. Does that count?


The three of us had delicious chocolate chip puffins for breakfast!

To see what others made this week, please head over to Muffin Tin Mom!

A Wonderful Cinco de Mayo Meal

Man, I wish I took pictures but alas, I did not. But I still wanted to share with you a quick, DELICIOUS meal that we had last night in honor of Cinco de Mayo. Which also gives me an excuse to give you the links to the great recipes.

Our dinner:
Beef Enchiladas
Spanish rice
Churros

Nothing crazy complicated, just simply good food.

Anyway, the beef enchilada recipe I got from The Pioneer Woman. She has amazing recipes, as many of you know. This is one that is in our regular rotation. Aaron requests it often (as well as her meatballs, but that's another post).

The spanish rice was, honestly, a box of Rice-A-Roni Spanish Rice. The only difference is that we chop up a beautiful, fresh tomato to put in instead of canned. I have nothing against canned tomatoes, but in this we can taste the tinny can flavor more than in other dishes.

My friend over at Momma's Playground shared the churro recipe that she found. I was a little nervous while making it, just because I had never made churros before. I always have some level of nervousness when making a new recipe. But holy cinnamon-y goodness, Batman, they were GOOD!!!! All three of us just loved them and I know I'll be making those again soon.

Ashlyn will be going down for her nap in about 30 minutes and then I am going to heat up some leftover enchiladas for lunch. Mmmm... now after writing this I may not be able to wait until she takes a nap! But if I make it now, she'll end up eating half of it. Decisions, decisions....

Kohl's Cares For Kids

Awhile back I posted about Kohl's and their program, Kohl's Cares For Kids. This is where they sell children's books, as well as coordinating stuffed animals, for $5 each. 100% of their net profit from the sale of these items goes towards children's health and education initiatives nationwide. A great deal AND a great cause? Count me in. They change up the merch from time to time, too! Too cool.

Image from Kohl's website.

Right now, they have two Toy Story books as well as three different (very cute) stuffed toys. You can bet I'm getting both books for Ashlyn. I'm also going to get at least 1 stuffed toy... I'm just not sure which yet. She hasn't seen the movies so I can't say which is her favorite. Maybe I should just get all 3 and let her choose. ;)