Monday, July 5, 2010
Muffin Tin Monday
Monday, March 1, 2010
Muffin Tin Monday: Wheel Of Fortune!
I got the idea of making the pyramid with the sandwich triangles from a deli's kid's meal. (Super easy: just cut the sandwich into the regular ol' triangles and stand them up with all the center points in the middle and touching the plate.) Then I realized that I had these awesome little spots to put the rest of her food and get the same effect of a muffin tin meal which she absolutely loves!
I've been doing this for probably like 6 months or more and she still loves it! The very first time I fixed it for her, she asked me what it was called. (Is that weird when your child thinks a meal should have a name?) So, I quickly called it The Wheel Of Fortune (one of her favorite shows). I had grand ideas of fixing one sometime in which the first letter of each of the foods would spell out a word. So far, my procrastinating tendencies have managed to keep that from happening. But wouldn't that be fun? It's still fun to even just have her figure out what letter each item starts with.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you what's in it: turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, strawberry, pretzels, and chocolate Teddy Grahams.
Happy Muffin Tin Monday!
Mama Said
Monday, February 22, 2010
Orange You Glad It's Muffin Tin Monday?
Today is Orange Day in the Color Series over at Muffin Tin Monday.
Here's what we came up with:
Cheetos, Cheese Toast, Tang, Orange Skittles, Mandarin Oranges, and Whales
This was fun and a chance to get BFG to try mandarin oranges one more time. Oh, she still hates them, but she didn't know what they were and tried them again. Hee, hee! I guess 5 years of making her try them means she really doesn't like them. I guess I'll put them on the Black Balled List with raisins.
Mama Said
Monday, February 8, 2010
Muffin Tin Monday
Joined in the fun today over at Muffin Tin Monday. It was the perfect excuse to put off cleaning the house even more. Hee, hee!
I just used a plain brownie mix and this frosting recipe. I highly suggest you try it! Don't you love the bone sprinkles? Thank you, 75% off Halloween at Target! Always thinking ahead, ladies. I'm always thinking ahead. Of course, that's why I can't figure out why I'm so behind in daily life! LOL!
(BTW, we did not feed the brownie to the dog. I did give him some frosting, but we bought him his own doggie doughnut to be his birthday treat.)
Mama Said
Monday, October 19, 2009
Muffin Tin Monday: Fall Harvest

Monday, October 5, 2009
MTM: A "Taste"-ful Self-Portrait
First off to the side, I gave her a bowl of buttered spaghetti noodles to build herself. Then, the items for details were: candy cherry slice (Rhett just happened to bring those home from the gas station and I knew it would be perfect for a mouth!), string cheese, sliced grapes, Cheerios, pretzels, and Cheetos.
I gave her a big cookie sheet and let her go to town! She had a blast even making up a story with her picture. You might not can tell, but this is a picture of BFG in the snow (snow falling and snow on the ground) with a radio in her hand and she's next to a fire. She was super excited to show it to her dad and was super excited to eat it! She devoured herself! Isn't it funny how kids love stuff like that?Go on over to Her Cup Overfloweth to see everyone else's take on the theme!
Mama Said
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Muffin Tin Monday: Snow Princess Party!
Our theme for Muffin Tin Monday was royalty. I just happened to have bought some muffin tin liners 75% off at Kroger that have snowflakes and polar bears on them and I kept thinking about my silver serving tray and Voila! A Snow Princess Party was born!
I didn't want to buy any special food to pull this off. Plus, it was very last minute! LOL! I collaborated with my sister and we pooled together every white food we could quickly put together quickly.
The foods I'm listing are in no special order. It would be too crazy since we had 1 muffin tin liner per food per each of the 3 kids (BFG, my niece and nephew).
Snow Princess Party Foods: white cotton candy, Laughing Cow Spreadable Cheese Wedge, Saltine crackers, Rice Chex cereal, macaroni noodles with butter and Parmesan cheese, popcorn, mini marshmallows, deviled eggs, white chocolate covered pretzels, bite-sized sugar cookies with blue ICE-ing and snowflake sprinkles, and Aurora Borealis Milkshakes (Neapolitan ice cream blended with milk topped with Redi-whip and crystal sugar sprinkles). Whew! I think that's all.
Okay, I went a little over the top for this one. But it did make for a fun party that kicked those winter blues! We had Snow Princess hats . . .
And a crown for the Snow Prince . . . (which as an almost 9 yr. old, he hated it and only kept it on for this photo)
We cut out paper snowflakes. I burned a Yankee candle that I thought was called Snow Angel, but realized later it was called Sparkling Angel. Oh, well. I found a Floamies snow castle I had bought 80% off last year after Christmas (See above pic of table decor.) and BFG had a blast decorating that and has been totally occupied with playing with it and her princess Polly Pockets for days. I even played a tape of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. See what I mean? I think I crossed the line into goofy!We played Pin the Face on the Snowman, which turned out the be the hit of the party! It really was fun! My sister and I played too which just thrilled the kids. This game was super easy to free-hand cutting it out and to set up. I did use scrapbooking punches for the eyes and mouth, but you wouldn't have to. This pic was one of the better results. The kids got better at it the more they played.
We finished up with a mini art lesson and art project featuring Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day, which you can read more this project and see close up photos, here.Friday, November 21, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday: Turkey Treat

Her Cup Overfloweth had a theme this week of Food Your Children are Thankful For. I had already been planning on doing this turkey for a while, but I can assure you--BFG is definitely thankful for all the "ingredients" used to make her Turkey Treat. On the plate--Oatmeal Cream Pie. In the tin--pretzels, vanilla wafers, candy corn, icing, mini chocolate chips, and Swedish fish candy.
This is super easy to do and you probably have most of the ingredients already or something that would work even better. For the icing, I used store-bought, put a few tablespoons in a ziplock sandwich bag, squeezed it all down to one corner, and made the tiniest of snips to make a small hole in the bag. Voila! Instant decorating icing!
I did this project with BFG (age 3 yrs, 11 mos) and her two cousins, Curly Sue (age 7) and Boy Wonder (age 8 yrs 9 mos). All three of them loved this project!!! Now, I kindly showed them how I had seen it done with an oatmeal cream pie body, nilla wafer head, candy corn beak, choc. chip eye, pretzel feet, and Swedish fish tail tail feathers. Luckily, they just poo-pooed my ideas and came up with their own! Curly Sue even thought of using a Swedish fish for the waddle!!! They were so into it! They even had last words with their turkeys--giving the turkeys one last chance to say something before they gobbled them up. They were so funny I had to get out the video camera and have them redo it. Check out their cool creations below.


WARNING: I still had over half a can of icing left at the end of this project. I read on the label that it could be refrigerated and used up to 30 days later. Wow! I thought, We'll definitely be making some cookies in December. Folks, do NOT be fooled by this label. A can of cold frosting sitting in the fridge is apparently the ultimate temptation. If you take one little taste, it's over. And, please, please don't dip the pretzels in it. You'll never forgive yourself over how fast you inhale it. Needless to say, the frosting was almost all gone a few hours later and my taste buds are all sore from relishing every cold, gloppy, smooth dollop of it.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday: Southern Heritage
I fixed one of my all-time favorite meals: tea (and by that I mean sweet tea for all you Yankees out there; for a true Southerner, it's a given that tea is sweet), boiled cabbage (yes, fixed with meat grease-the best way to have it), cornbread sticks (fixed in the cast iron pan that looks like little ears of corn), pinto beans, hominy, and boiled potatoes. Now, if I was a good Southern girl, I would've added turnip greens. But I don't like them so I guess I'm not perfect after all. LOL!This meal is the meal I crave if I haven't had it in awhile. Like coming back from vacation where you've eaten out or eaten seafood all week, this is the first thing I want to eat. This is the meal that our second cousins who's father moved them off to Ohio as children (Lord only knows why) can't wait to have when they come back to visit. This meal is everyday Southern, not fancy Paula Deen Southern. Real food, back to your roots food. You could take away my Italian food, you could take away my Mexican food, you could even take away my seafood, but don't take away my Southern food!
The fun thing about serving one of our common meals in the muffin tin was that BFG tried every single thing like she'd never seen it before. She still spit some of it out, but she tried it!
Mama Said
Monday, October 27, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday
Super simple Muffin Tin Monday today: shredded cheese, pickle, Whales, frosted animal crackers, leaf-shaped PB & J, and banana slices. Muffin Tin Monday has moved! Katy is busy with her move to Luxembourg. Check out MTM's new home at Her Cup Overfloweth. Michelle's got lots of good idea on her blog including some last minute Halloween crafts! Have fun perusing!
Mama Said
Monday, September 29, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday: Circles and Spheres

Great minds think alike! Unknowingly, I did the same topic for the shape theme as our Muffin Tin Mama Leader Katy! And I thought I was being so clever. LOL!
As the title indicates, for the shape themed muffin tin, BFG and I did a lesson on circles and spheres. It was pretty fun and BFG loved helping me to prepare it. I broke up some dried spaghetti to be her "toothpicks" to pick things up for dipping and eating. That was fun watching her explore with that up until she dipped a slice of banana for me into the ranch dressing and it fell off and she managed to dig it out and force it down my throat despite my protests. Oh, and excuse my melon balls. I don't have a melon baller and was free handing it.
Here are the contents: grapes, Sixlets, honey nut cheerios, fruit loops, honeydew melon, cherry tomatoes, pepperoni, crackers, dried spaghetti toothpicks, ranch dressing, banana slices, and mini cheese hot dog slices. (Have ya'll tried these? Oscar Mayer makes them and they are so cute! And not too expensive.)
Have blessed Monday, y'all!
Mama Said
Monday, September 22, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday: Build-A-Bear Repeat
BFG had a special request for Muffin Tin Monday today: Build-A-Bear again! We had bear toast that we covered with peanut butter and decorated with the contents of the tin. Here's what we used from top left to right: Keebler cracker sticks, Fruit Loops, Fruit Loops, Teddy Grahams, Fritos, chow mien noodles, Coco-Crunch, sunflower seeds, peanut butter, shredded cheese, granola, and Annie's organic bunny cereal. Of course, BFG didn't eat but a bite or two of the finished bear, but she chowed down on the toppings.Here were our results. I got the bright idea of the Teddy Grahams being the "big bear's" teddies. But I have just laughed and laughed over how these turned out. Doesn't mine look like some weird tribal native getting ready to sacrifice the teddy? Hilarious! I have to say though that by happy accident, an upside-down Annie's bunny makes the perfect bear nose. Check out the other Muffin Tin Mamas over at Sycamore Stirrings!
Mama Said
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday: Hello, Ocean! & Vacation Misc.
We did a thematic unit on Oceans/Beach because that's where I'm supposed to be right now. But God and Hurricane Ike had other plans. We based our unit on the book Hello, Ocean! because I found a cool lapbook on Homeschool Share. You can check out our lapbook below. We didn't quite finish it but that's okay. I'll keep it and pull it out to finish and review when we actually get to go to the beach. Muffin Tin contents: Sand Dollar Sandwich (two tortillas with cheese melted between), Coral (Cheetos), Deep Divin' Desert (blue jello with gummy fish), Wet Sand (peanut butter with graham cracker crumbs mixed in), Shovels and Driftwood for the Sand (Keebler Cracker Sticks and pretzels) and Whales. Oh, and Ocean Water to drink (lemonade with blue food coloring). BFG had a blast with this muffin tin! I think it was her favorite one. She really pretended to be digging in the "sand" with her "shovels" and she kept having "beached whales" (Her Whales would be dipped in the peanut butter.). She would say, "Mom, have a piece of coral." and then whisper to me, "It's really Cheetos!" and giggle and giggle.

Isn't our lapbook precious? I think all this preparation and leading up to our trip is what made not being able to go so disappointing. Luckily, Rhett came up with the idea of going on BFG's birthday which is Thanksgiving week. He thinks he can take just a few days and put it with the Thanksgiving holiday. Shhhhh! We aren't telling the fam yet. So, for this week, I guess we are going to head to the Smokey Mountains. I think we'll have fun. There's a waterpark we can go to and of course Dollywood. And I think we might try one of those dinner show things. It's just not what we all were expecting. But down here in the South, going to the Smokies is like a rite of passage. So, might as well get'er done for BFG.
I found this idea on the Crafty Crow. I didn't make it exactly the way it's supposed to be 1) 'cause I don't roll like that when it comes to sewing (um, 'cause I can't sew) & 2) I was in a super hurry. I still like it though and BFG was mesmerized.
And it rolls up all cute and everything. I think the best part is if she drops her crayons in the car while coloring (which always happens) the crayons will stay all tidy in one place instead of flying all over the floorboard.Well, chickadees, I'm off to the mountains! Holler at'cha when we get back!
Mama Said
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday

Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday (Er, Tuesday): Breakfast Challenge
Here's my late muffin tin! Katy gave us a breakfast challenge this time. Starting at top left: cinnamon toast (cut out with cookie cutters), fresh peaches, mini blueberry muffin, coco-crunch cereal, Barbie princess cereal, and scrambled eggs with cheese. BFG ate pretty darn good. Much better than usual. She ate two pieces of the toast, half her eggs, all of her cereal (both of them), and all of the peaches and asked for seconds. She didn't touch the muffin 'cause she hates those Entenmann muffins. I ate it. I just had to put it in the picture 'cause she was so hungry I didn't have time to fix her anything else. And I refused to take a pic of a muffin tin with one empty. Check out my new profile pic! That's one of the headbands I won on Katy's blog! Isn't it the best?
Monday, July 21, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday: Rainbow Theme
Sycamore Stirrings gave the challenge of a Rainbow Theme for Muffin Tin Monday today. I love the idea of the theme, but I have to admit that once again I was scrambling. You know, that should really be the name of my blog: Scrambling! I think that's all I do like right now I have somehow lost my carefully planned out menus and I have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to fix for dinner tonight. And it's Rhett's birthday and I have no idea if I planned on the menu for something special or not. Not like it's really going to make a difference when I find it 'cause I can't get to my freezer 'cause someone still hasn't put all our stuff back from having the windows put in on Thursday and there's about 3 ft. of stuff piled on my freezer. Whew! Can you tell I'm having a rough day? Back to the muffin tin, here's what is in it from the top: Yogo bites (blue), Barbie princess cereal (pink), Barbie princess cereal (purple), pickles (green), chocolate animal crackers (brown), banana (yellow), cherries (red), sour cream (white), peaches (orange), BLUEberry bagel, strawberry jelly (red), shredded cheddar cheese (orange). It was pretty fun. BFG got into it trying to think of different colored foods and while eating each color she pointed to things in the house that "matched" in color. You can see I also gave her a spoon in every color to add to the theme and I put a drop of yellow and blue food coloring in her milk for her to mix up and have green milk. I wanted her to fix purple milk, but green won.
For those of you with little ones, a great activity to help teach colors is to let your child sort by color in the muffin tin using Fruit Loops, M&M's, or Skittles. Then, make them tell you the color before they can eat it. Works fabulously.
Off to sort out my day,
Mama Said
Monday, July 7, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday: Build-A-Bear!
Check it out! Muffin Tin Monday--Build-A-Bear Style! I very lightly toasted whole grain bread and cut it out with a teddy bear cookie cutter. The contents in the tin that we used to decorate with are (starting at top left): graham crackers, peanut butter, jelly, peanut butter (again 'cause this was my lunch too!), goldfish crackers, apples, pretzels, Cheerios, peanuts, chow mien noodles, mini marshmallows, and chocolate chips. See our results below.
This one was mine. Could you tell? :) I know this sounds weird. But this was absolutely delicious! I devoured anything and everything BFG had left when she was done. It was that good!
Here's BFG's. Aren't they precious? I'm not really sure what the pretzels sticking straight up are, but the apple slices are spider shields. You know every bread bear needs one of those. It's all the rage this season. BFG really had alot of fun with this and she snacked on all the goodies while making them. Another fun way to do this concept would be to use marshmallow cream as your "glue" and lots of different fruit for your decorating. I guess you could even do sugar cookies and make little bear fruit pizzas. Mmmmm! I love fruit pizza! I haven't had one in ages. Are they out of style or something? Man, I may have to hit my aunt up for one sometime soon. See why I need the SHE cards? I ramble constantly! It's gonna be all I can do to not start looking up fruit pizza recipes right now and go back to cleaning the kitchen. {sigh!}
Don't forget to check out Katy's Muffin Tin Mamas to see more ideas!
Mama Said
Monday, June 30, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday: Halfway Mexican Fiesta
Today's theme was Mexican food, but only on the right side of the tin. I'm trying to just use what I have on hand, which is why I couldn't fill all 12 cups with the theme. But I'm content if I can provide a spark of an idea and let you take off from there. Here's what was included starting at the top row left to right: raspberry applesauce, Whales, corn tortilla wedges, salsa, cinnamon graham crackers, sunflower seeds, mini tacos, Fritos, marshmallows, pretzels, shredded cheese, sour cream. I think BFG dipped almost every single thing in the sour cream! Some other ideas for a Mexican theme are black olives, black beans, guacamole, tomatoes, chicken, etc. You could even have all the fillings and provide the kids with tortillas to wrap them up themselves some little burritos. I'm telling ya' this is a party idea for grown ups, too! :)Don't forget to check out http://www.sycamorestirrings.blogspot.com/ for linky-loos to more great ideas!
Mama Said
Monday, June 23, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday: Breakfast Bonanza

Monday, June 16, 2008
Muffin Tin Monday & Not-So-Beautiful Imperfect Cookie Baking

I tried to do a peanut butter theme today (food that is yummy dipped in peanut butter). It only accounts for half the food, but it was fun. I'm one of those people who gets more creative with specified parameters. But be careful if you have really young kids 'cause peanut butter is a choking hazard.
Don't forget to check out http://sycamorestirrings.blogspot.com/ who created this Muffin Tin Monday idea!
Here's what's in mine from the top, left to right:
guacamole Pringles, salami, Ritz crackers, peanut butter, cheese cubes, chow mien noodles, pretzels, apples, mandarin oranges, pecans, marshmallows, and chocolate chips.
It is seriously amazing the new stuff BFG is willing to try and how much she eats just by putting it in the muffin tin. And I promise that she actually eats more healthy foods by having the sweets there are an option too. Weird.
So, after our Muffin Tin lunch, I had promised we would make cookies. I had this Crayola kit for Cinnabear Cookies or something I'd gotten on clearance at Target after Christmas. She'd only been waiting for 6 months to do this, so I thought Why not today? Big mistake! We went from oh-I'm-so-ahead-on-my-SHE-cards-this-will-be-so-much-fun to a flour covered Twilight Zone in less than five minutes. I kid you not. So much stuff went wrong making these cookies I thought it was 9:00 pm on Christmas Eve.
First of all, if you have this kit, throw it away. It was absolutely awful! I had to add a little bit more water to the dough because it wasn't mixing at all. So, then I'm supposed to knead the dough for 2 minutes. Well, it was a sticky, drippy, globby mess. If you know me, you know how much I hate sticky messes. My hands are covered in this mess so I manage to use my elbows or something to get out my canister of flour. I get it open and instruct BFG to put flour in my hands. But, ya'll, it did not work. It was still sticky, goopy, drippy. Well, while I am running around the kitchen screaming, "This is so GROSS!" trying to get to the sink and dripping gobs of it on the floor in the process, BFG makes it "snow" in our kitchen with the flour. Isn't that fun? I am so absorbed with the blob I don't even notice until a few minutes later as I'm finally washing the rest of the dough down the drain. So, she managed to spread her snowfall all over the kitchen and dining room floor. Well, now I'm panicking a little 'cause I promised her cookies, naptime is getting closer and closer, and the floor is covered in flour. Luckily, I had a sugar cookie Betty Crocker mix and I decided to make it by the roll-out cookie recipe because BFG had already gotten down every jar of sprinkles she could find. I wasn't gonna get out of this without doing real frosted sugar cookies. I also decided that this was a perfect time to set a good example for BFG on how to react positively when things go wrong. I paste a smile on my face and fix a sing-song tune in my voice.
Well, I just want someone to tell me how many tablespoons of butter is 1/3 cup? It wasn't on my wrapper and 3 doesn't go into 8 well and then I realized 8 Tbsp is just 1/2 half cup and by that point I was so distracted trying to figure it out that I cut myself on the box for the butter. By the time I cleaned and bandaged up my bleeding finger, I decided surely it couldn't make that much difference and just lobbed off some butter. I think it did though 'cause our dough was a little sticky and the cut-out shapes had a really hard time coming up off the mat. I was about to snap. After 12 bears, I was done and just slammed some balls of dough down as I slid across the flour-filled floor. Teddy bears play with balls, right?
The cookies finally finished baking. I had hurriedly scoured the kitchen while they baked. I had patiently answered "No, dear, they aren't ready yet and I still have to make the icing" oh about 473 times. I pull out the last baking sheet of our sweet teddy bear cookies and unbelievably, I grab on end of the cookie sheet with my finger and thumb. I scream at the top of my lungs, "I am the BIGGEST IDIOT EVER!" So much for the good example. But I did have several moments of hysterical laughing as I ran my fingers under water. It was just all a little too much. So, maybe I taught her the old "you can either laugh or cry" adage. The good news is only my finger has the imprint of the edge of the cookie sheet on it. My thumb was spared so I can fix dinner tonight with just two band-aids on one hand instead of three.
Mama Said
P.S. The cookies were delicious and BFG had so much fun decorating. In fact, throughout the entire project she was singing a made-up song about zippa-de-do-dah she loves Jesus. Maybe I should be learning from her example.






