Muffin Tin Monday--Mini

It's Muffin Tin Monday! I just finished walking the Twin Cities Breast Cancer 3-day, so I am sore, I have blisters, I am sunburned, and two nights sleeping on the ground in the cold was a bit less than restful. I also have no idea what today's theme was supposed to be! Hubby fed the kids lunch (great guy that he is, he took today off so I could sit at my computer and watch movies and rest.) And he didn't serve them in muffin tins.

BUT! I served them a plethora of Muffin Tin Meals last week, so I have one to post anyway!

Here it is, Muffin Tin Monday (served last week, not on Monday), Mini themed!


Here is Kutey's:

Top: Mini (cherry) tomatoes, Mini (baby) carrots, pizza sauce for dipping (love pizza sauce in a squeeze bottle!)
Center: mini (bite-size) monster cookie
Bottom: Mini (Babybel) cheese, frosted Mini wheats, Mini chick'n (nuggets)

And Kiddo's:

Muffin Tin Monday--BONUS

So it isn't Monday. Sigh. I have a lot going on, not the least of which is preparing for the new school year. With that, I have not been blogging or blog-reading as much. That also means that Muffin Tin Monday is late. BUT! For those of you who were patient, for those of you who are dedicated, for those of you who are committed (or should be committed), today's Muffin Tin Monday post, though late, is special! Today we have not one, but TWO muffin tins to share! That's right, we have had more than one meal in a muffin tin and I am sharing them!

The first is themeless, of course. Kiddo likes to make "Hodge Podge," where he simply picks what he wants from the food available in the kitchen. I like it because typically there is no cooking involved and Kiddo can get most of it himself. Serving it in a muffin tin just simplifies things because I don't have to use 5 bowls per kid (and there have been days where that has happened!)

So here is our first muffin tin to share:


A few new things are finding their way to our tins these days. Babybel cheese is a new favorite around here, as are the yellow cherry tomatoes we have been eating from our garden (the only thing that has produced anything edible. Sigh.) We also had a bag of Bugle chips, which Kiddo has adored. A favorite snack has been Bugles stuffed with refried beans. Who would have thought!

Kiddo's:


Kutey's:


The second is themed, but it has nothing to do with the preset theme. And the theme was not planned. It just sort of started to happen. It started with mac and cheese (because I know Kousin will eat that). I added the yellow cherry tomatoes from the garden, and the peaches, and then realized that just one more thing in the same color would fill out the tin. So I added cheddar goldfish. We usually eat the pizza flavored fish around here, but we happened to have a sack of the cheddar ones about and they were the perfect color.

Here it is--Orange or Yellow, or as I like to call it Yellow-orange:

Very little variation in the color, huh? A little scary.

Here is Kiddo's:

And Kutey's:

Muffin Tin Monday-- NOT Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

The next few Mondays are just bad for me. We have a ton going on, I still have Kousin coming, and I just don't have time to be creative! I hope to get back into the swing of Muffin Tin Monday in September, but for right now...let's just say we have what we have!

We didn't follow the theme today, which was Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. We just put our lunch in a Muffin Tin. Some time we will catch this theme on a themeless week, cause I think my kids would love it! I made Mac and Cheese because it is the ONE thing I know Kousin will eat! My kids thought it was fun to eat it out of their tins, so it was fine.

Here they are!


Here is Kiddo's:


And Kutey's:

Willy Wonka Jr.

We live on the border of two school districts, which has advantages. One of those advantages is the existence of two community education programs within easy driving distance. In fact, many of the activities for the district we do not live in are closer than those for the district we DO live in.
This summer, BOTH community education programs selected the same play to perform: Willy Wonka Jr. And worse, the two productions were the same week. I thought about seeing both, but in the end, we wound up only getting to one--the one in the district I do not live in.

It was quite well done. The actors were all between the ages of 5 and 15 and there were only a few mistakes. We saw it fairly close to the first performance, so some of the mistakes I chalked up to nerves. And none of them detracted from the overall performance. My kids loved it. They always enjoy going to theater performances, and I think they are excellent theater patrons: They sit quietly, don't kick the seat in front of them, applaud when appropriate, and are respectful of others around them. A performance like this is wonderful for teaching them these behaviors. I never had to ask them to please be quiet, nor did anyone else. I will not say the same for the handful of young boys behind me who seemed to think there was no one else in the theater! They finally settled down after a few pointed shushings.

The production in general was very good. The young man who played Willy Wonka did an excellent job. He sang beautifully and delivered some lines very well. The boy who played Charlie, though, was I thought the best performer in the show. There was just something about his portrayal of Charlie that made it utterly believable. Grandpa Joe was very well done, too.

The Oompa Loompas were the youngest members of the cast and did a very good job. They had a great deal of choreography to remember, and I found myself wondering if Kiddo would have been able to remember all the words to the songs and what he was supposed to be doing.

We have seen the movies, so the story wasn't new to us. I think the play was a bit easier to get the lessons out of, however. There just wasn't so much business going on, so the words, especially in the songs, were more prominent. I picked up the Roald Dahl book from my library (well, not my library, the neighboring library), so we will do it for read aloud as soon as we complete Alice in Wonderland.

They are putting on Winnie-the Pooh this fall, and I can't wait! For less than $20, it is a great outing for the kids.

Muffin Tin Monday--Primary Colors

It's Muffin Tin Monday! This weeks official theme was Celebrate/Party. I admit to feeling wholly uncreative this week and therefore ignoring the theme entirely. I had no idea what to do that would not have consisted of entirely too much sugar! Instead I went to the fridge and pulled out food. What I wound up with was this:


Then I noticed: red, yellow, blue. Primary colors. YAY! So that was our theme. Red is Kiddo's favorite color because his art teacher told him it is the strongest. But he also likes the primary colors, so this was a hit! It also felt more colorful than we some of the muffin tins I have prepared lately, which made it more fun, too!

Here is Kiddo's:


Top Row: Mini bagel with cream cheese and lingonberry jam, strawberry, other half of bagel
Next row: BLUE-berry granola bite (it's a stretch, but it counts as blue, right?), strawberry, another granola bite
Next row: Yellow cheese, yet another strawberry, and more yellow cheese
Bottom row: berry blue jello

And Kutey's:

Kutey's is the same as kiddo, except her bagel has strawberry jam. Still red, though.

I didn't make one for Kousin today, he wouldn't eat it anyway. So he had a plate with his usual: cheese and a bagel.