Monday, May 30, 2011

MTM & a "recipe"

Today I made some corn pancakes for lunch. They were yummy :) It's a recipe of sorts but not from scratch. I have a bunch of boxes of corn muffin mix that I wanted to use up so I decided to make one into corn pancakes.  I'll post the recipe at the end - first here's Heidi's Muffin Tin Monday lunch.

grapes, grated cheese, flower-like strawberries
corn pancakes & maple syrup to dip them


She's still eating but so far the grated cheese, half of each pancake and some grapes are popular. She already ate at least one pancake when I was making them so I am not expecting too much.

Corn Pancake Recipe
1 box corn muffin mix (8.5 oz)
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 Tbs sugar
pinch salt
3/4 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1 cup kernel corn (I used frozen, thawed)

Mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Make a well and add the beaten egg & milk. Stir until just combined. Add the corn and stir. You want the consistency of a slightly thicker pancake batter. You can either drop spoonfuls ( I used a mini ice cream scoop) onto a non stick skillet or griddle, or a skillet with butter/canola oil, or like me a slightly buttered electric griddle.

Cook and flip like regular pancakes.

Serve with butter & maple syrup for corn pancake deliciousness :) Using my mini ice cream scoop this made about 23 pancakes. We ate some before this photo - I can't blame little Heidi for all of the missing ones ;) ;)


How I would make this differently next time . One thing I had wanted to add was a can of cream style corn (but I didn't have any at home). So next time I might try decreasing the milk and adding a can of cream style corn. I think it will give it a little extra corn kick. I wouldn't decrease the whole corn kernels though - use both. I wanted to use butter/canola oil in a skillet but mine wasn't very big and I could see this would take forever. I switched to the electric griddle which I use for regular pancakes every Sunday morning. I have never buttered it before but I think it adds a little richness so definitely I will stick with this method for corn pancakes.

click the button to see some fun Muffin Tin Lunches:

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

I heart you!

Hearts for the girls! This is Monday's lunch. There was no school today as it's a public holiday. Bermuda Day :) We spent it at the beach. It was bliss!

Rosie's hearts
cucumber hearts, apple jacks cereal, cherries, grapes
fruit leather heart, heart sandwiches.
She ate everything except the cherries.


Amy's hearts:

Amy has the same as Rose except watermelon instead of cherries. She begged for the rest of the fruit leather so I put the trimmings on her sandwich. It's not pretty but it made her happy :)

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Monday, May 23, 2011

Crabby Lunch

This was last Friday's lunch I believe. Rose had a party at school  (again!?!) so didn't have to bring lunch, and Amy didn't have pizza lunch (it's every other Friday).

Amy's Lunch
Trix yogurt, carrot sticks, goldfish (& spoon for yogurt)
honeydew melon, grapes, autumn apple fruit leather mini fish cutout
ham crab sandwich

Only a few bites of carrot came home and she ate all of the rest :)





Silly Monster

Here are two lunches from last week that I didn't get to post. They were supposed to be silly monster sandwiches but the hair gave me trouble. I was going to use sour straws candy but SOMEONE ate them all! Then I tried gummy worms but they were too thick, so I tried to cut them in half but it was kind of hard. I ran out of time in the morning, almost made the girls late - and forgot the noses! LOL.

Amy's Lunch
mini blueberry muffin, oreo crisps, string cheese
honeydew melon, cherry fruit leather, monster sandwich.
( oh and she didn't eat the gummy worms because some got peanut butter on the ends!)


Rose's Lunch
mini blueberry muffin, chex mix & goldfish mixed, string cheese
honeydew melon, peanut butter sandwich
( she ate her gummy worms - probably first!)

Friday, May 20, 2011

Keep 'em busy with workboxes!

I have had a really crazy week so far and I wanted to keep the girls entertained while I got some work finished. So, I filled some workboxes for them to play with/work/entertain themselves on their own.  Of course I kept an eye on them and helped out a bit but I must say it was nice and quiet in the house and the living room did not get overly littered with toys as per normal! Very productive work afternoon for me. Phew. I am now officially all caught up.

So here's what they had: Rosie's first (3 year old)
alphabet beads and laces


Heart colouring, cutting & gluing page
from Carol's Affordable Curriculum - February

a few pages out of here -
I didn't pull the pages out she just likes to flip around and do them.

colour bean bags and matching colour cups
Really this is for Heidi but Rose wanted to play with it

A family favourite activity.
Each cup has a number 1-5 and she uses the chopsticks to transfer the pom poms to the right cups. She counts them as she goes. Everyone loves playing with this.

Alphabet matching.
The other side of the card has pictures and you can match the beginning sounds.
That's still a bit too hard for her so she just matches the letter side.

Number puzzle 1-10
Amy butt in on this one - she loves puzzles of any kind!

2 things:
Butterfly letter B/colour matching cards
from  Letter of the Week by Confessions of a Homeschooler

Letter A word search
There are actually words that begin with A in this word search
but she just finds the A's and circles them.

Play dough & number stampers
This caused a little disagreement as Heidi wanted in on this activity.
They worked it out and played together.

Pink pig colouring page (CAF again)


Now Amy's (recently 5 years old)
Same as Rose - they both wanted these and we have one set and they both wanted them in their own boxes! It worked out OK as they did it at the same time. Good thing because Amy was actually trying to spell words and she needed some of Rose's beads. Ah cooperation.

Amy just loves these even though she probably isn't learning much anymore
since she's quite good at handwriting!

Dolch words list 2 and letters to spell them
She really just loves doing this.

Dolch words list 1
This was supposed to be in the other box!
Oops don't know what happened here.


Amy's pick - these are fun.

Amy picked these too.
I think she just really likes to use the write & wipe markers.

beginning sounds & ending sounds underneath

I purposely did not put the little objects to match in here.
She came and asked me for them when she was ready. Heidi just loves these and will sneak them out and play with/hide them all over the house. Since I was working and not totally watching them with my hawk eye I wasn't taking any chances of losing them!

letter stamps
She spelled a bunch of random words.
Amy chose this too - she just loves stamps.

practice, practice, practice.
She really loves handwriting.
I don't know if it's this program or not but her handwriting is just getting better and better. She really is quite good. It could just be all of the practice :)


Rosie is very proud that she found all of the As.

I put a few activites in some workboxes for Heidi but I didn't take any photos. They weren't that exciting but it mostly kept her from interfering with her sisters' work.
Mainly she played legos on the floor while they worked (her favourite).

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Queen for a day!

Well for a lunch :) I made both girls little crown sandwiches for lunch. I took a little extra care compared to the last time I used this lunch punch and I think it was a huge improvement. This was yesterday's lunch for school. Monday's lunch was totally boring so I didn't take a photo. Once again, very similar lunches. for each of them. I must say this really makes life easy - doing the same or almost the same for each one in the morning.

Queen Amy's Crown
popcorn, yo kids cherry yogurt, fruit leather 'A'
cantaloupe, peanut butter crown sandwich

This was a miniature re-trial of the fruit leather. Last time she hated it and said it was gross. This time she said it was the BEST THING EVER. It is Stretch Island Fruit Co. cherry - she came home and wanted some more and also tried the strawberry one again and now she likes them both. Sheesh. I bought an apple one also to try but they haven't had a chance yet. So the verdict is still out on apple.

Queen Rose's Crown
popcorn, cheese & crackers, fruit leather 'R'
grapes, cantaloupe, peanut butter crown sandwich

Amy got the last yogurt, so Rose had butterfly cheese and crackers which really has nothing to do with her crown but it just happened to be the kind of crackers we had.
 Rose did not love the cherry fruit leather R - or the strawberry one either :( Each crown was in their favourite colours so they were thrilled! I used coloured sugar for the hearts and Wilton jumbo diamond icing decorations for the jewels. Who wouldn't love that for lunch?

MTM - Oddball lunch

I have a lot of posts to catch up! I was all ready to post and then blogger was acting up. I've been pretty busy and didn't get a chance to come back until now. I'll probably do this in 3 or 4 posts so stay tuned :) I have lunches and workboxes to post about.
This was Sunday's last minute oddball lunch. We were planning to go and see my Mother in Law but she wasn't feeling well so we ended up staying at home and having a quick odds and ends lunch.

Amy's Lunch
diced peaches, Vienna sausages, strawberry pieces
yogurt with sprinkles, cinnamon toast star with cinnamon sugar, cantaloupe pieces.

Amy chose the Vienna sausages at the grocery store last week. I don't know where she had them before but she claimed to love them. Ya well,  she didn't and I don't blame her. I don't like them either. I tried to make a tulip shape out of one but it failed so I just left them as their odd looking column shapes.

Rose's Lunch

Heidi's Lunch


Both of these are the same - the only difference from Amy's is they have mini cinnamon toast & jam sandwiches (Amy doesn't like jam!) and Heidi just has a little bit less food in hers.

So everyone ate their lunch except Rose who ate her own lunch plus she ate Amy's Vienna sausages because it turns out she loves them! Ewwww.


Added to Muffin Tin Monday:

Friday, May 13, 2011

Snacks!

Well I lounged around and watched Grey's last night - Private Practice too. Fortunately I discovered that Amy had pizza lunch today so all I needed was snacks for both girls. They are kind of boring but here we go!

Amy's Snack for pizza lunch day
 granola bar, cantaloupe
strawberries, chex mix

She ate everything except some chex mix & one half of the granola bar. Pretty good I think since she ate pizza at school too!

Rose's snack for pizza party day
afternoon snack top: grapes & chex mix /gold fish
morning fruit snack : cantaloupe & strawberries

Rose didn't eat much today - but since they had a party at school she did eat plenty at school. Apparently there was a lot of party food. She doesn't always eat her afternoon snack at school because we pick her up right on time - sometimes they have all woken up from nap and eaten snack - sometimes not. It just depends. She often eats it in the car at pick up time. So no worries - all three girls finished these off afterschool!

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Elephant starts with e.

Amy sometimes has a little trouble with the e sound in reading. The way that I usually remind her is e like elephant. So today for fun I made her an elephant lunch. If I had planned ahead last night and we didn't get up at uh 8:01 this morning!!!! I could have been more creative with other e foods - like egg, or elephant animal crackers or peanuts ( elephant snacks - we have some but they were not yet roasted). Since I was a lazy bones and didn't get out of bed - she got this elephant lunch instead :) I think it worked out fine as she ate everything except for some of the orange slices. Since eating a healthy lunch is the main goal here it was another successful lunch in my opinion! Oh wait, except for the salty goldfish, the sugary choc chips & the sugary yogurt - some healthy lunch - lol. Hmmm...

Elephant starts with e.
trix yogurt, grapes, goldfish, oranges
chocolate chips, elephant bologna sandwich

From a creativity standpoint I really need to get my act together and do a little organising/planning the night before - like making the boiled eggs, collecting the right crackers, cutters, picks etc. Really I do everything in the morning and usually really quickly. It might be neater if I had a few extra moments to step back and look at lunch or just take a few more minutes in assembly of the tricky bits. The only thing I really do ahead of time is cut up some fruit - but that's more cutting up the whole melon or pineapple when we are ready to eat it - not in a lunch by lunch organised way. I wonder what other people do - does anybody do almost everything (or everything) the night before? Anyway food for thought... I only have one lunch to make tomorrow so maybe I'll try a little planning tonight, or maybe I'll just lounge around and watch  Grey's Anatomy  :)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Superstar!

Amy is well and back in school today so I am back to packing two morning lunches :) It's short lived though as Rose will have hot lunch tomorrow at school, and a birthday party at school on Friday so they will have pizza lunch & birthday cake courtesy of the birthday girl. I don't know what's up with these mega birthday parties at nursery for the whole school - but I digress. Today they had the same star theme.

Amy's Star Lunch

carrots, cucumbers & peanut butter dip, yo kids cherry yogurt
apple stars, apple cutout and grapes underneath, icing decoration starfish
bologna star sandwich with a ham cutout

Rose's Star Lunch
three changes:
she has French dressing dip and a cheese cutout on her bologna sandwich
Rose has a clam shaped icing decoration since we were out of stars

Come and check out other fun lunches on:


Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Sick day workboxes

Even though Amy was at home sick today, it was really just a day to rest so to I filled a few workboxes that she could do to keep entertained if she was feeling better. I didn't make a schedule strip or number them and it wasn't formal. I just left her to do them as she pleased. I went in to work for a little bit today and Daddy was at home - so it helped him out a bit too since he didn't have to play lego ALL day :)

Amy is Pre-K I think in the US system, last year of preschool in our system. These workboxes were filled with some fun things she likes to do, but I guess you could call them Preschool boxes? I don't homeschool - Amy goes to a Montessori school and Rose goes to a nursery school. During the school breaks I use the workbox system in a slightly lax way. More to keep the girls engaged in appropriate activities - but I also put things like watch a DVD, computer game time, play outside, chores/clean up etc on the schedule. It also helps me with planning my day. Occasionally I do it on a Saturday or Sunday too but that's usually if there is bad weather about - it also keeps the girls from begging to watch TV constantly if they can see a list/schedule of fun work to do instead. No one says "I'm bored" in this house !!

Heydon the Heart from Carol's Affordable Curriculum February
 It's cutting, pasting, colouring & stickers - her favourite things to do!

 I don't buy every month of CAF but a few here and there. We do the obviously seasonal projects on time and save some of the others for a rainy day. I like having short, fun crafts on hand where everything is all together and it doesn't take up a ton of room in the house. I really love CAF and would use them all of the time except shipping to Bermuda is a bit crazy (not their fault - it just is!) so I go with a few months here and there - it works out perfectly for us.


Handwriting without Tears
This is the same program they use in the classroom and it's just handwriting practice.


wooden pieces and letter formation cards
I took a couple out of the box so you could see what they are. This is also from the Handwriting Without Tears program. I don't think they have the wooden pieces at school. I think Amy is a little beyond this now but she still likes to make the letters out of the wood pieces. She asked me to put it in today, so I did, since it's all about fun work not challenging work today. There is a card that shows you how to make the letter and then you use the correct wooden pieces to replicate it on the blue foam mat. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! That's what she says after each one  - LOL.


reading/spelling
The words are from Dolch List 1. The school sent them home as lists to read - I just printed them out on coloured paper and put them on a ring for easy practice. She likes to read them and then spell them out with the little plastic letters. This was also by request today! She can read words on the other lists but I don't mind using the first list for this activity. She sometimes misses words like "that", "they" & "said" so it's good practice/review.

Counting Game - from Lakeshore Learning
This is just a bit of counting fun - I put it in since I realised there wasn't any math work today and I like to keep it a bit more balanced than that - even for fun work days. She can count well over 100 so again not challenging work, but it is still a fun game.


Reading Books
These are her actual school reading books that she brought home to read from the classroom library on Friday. She only had to read them 3 times and return by Monday but since she was out sick she just read them a few extra times. I suppose I could have chosen new ones from our book shelf but I didn't since the school books were right there.

I should have included something that we could work on together for Amy to take for show and tell on Friday. The class is learning about birds, specifically Bermuda's birds. Last week we did some investigation of the Eastern bluebird and it's life cycle. I found a fun program online and it was a painting program so she painted a picture of the bluebird and printed it (about 5 times !), then we also found some good photos of the life cycle and the first 16 days of growth for the baby bluebirds online and she cut and glued them on to some construction paper to take to school. Show and tell must be something that everyone can learn from (and I usually encourage Amy to think of something related to the current unit of study) so we will come up with something bird like - we're usually more organised by now! We did see a bluebird mobile online that she wanted to make - maybe I'll print that and we can do it over the next two evenings. Her last ballet recital is on Thursday night so it will have to be today or tomorrow to be finished in time for Friday.

Anyhow, that was a little peek into our sick day workboxes - now I'm off to make dinner; meatloaf, steamed veggies & mashed potatoes :) YUM!