Come Play With Us

MTM-O Christmas Tree

I came so close to not making a muffin tin for the girls tonight.  It has been a very fun but also very tiring weekend, spent with lots of family time on both my hubby's and my sides.  I barely remember saying that we would have a muffin tin today, but Big Sis remembered!

We picked out our Christmas tree today, and the girls and I decorated it this evening.  I threw together a Christmas tree MTM to go along with our festivities!

I made Christmas tree quesadillas and then gave the girls craisins, fruity cheerios, carrot coins and fruit snacks to decorate their trees with. 
As soon as I explained the concept, they got right to work!

Big Sis's decorated tree

Little Dude's tree

For a last minute thing, this actually came out pretty good, the girls really enjoyed it, and ate almost everything. 

Check out Muffin Tin Mom for some great ideas!

MTM-Spur of the Moment

I was supposed to make tacos or burritos or enchiladas tonight per my pre-planned menu.  But when I went to make one of those things tonight I realized we had no tortillas.  Whoopsie!

So as I was putting my improvised cheese toast and green beans on a plate and it looked seriously unappetizing to me, I thought Muffin Tin! 

When the girls saw me digging out the muffin tins they got all excited and were running around shouting "Muffin tin!  Muffin tin!"

Since I didn't have a theme and was just throwing this together I thought I better pull out a few picks to make it seem a little more fun.

1. Cheese toast snowflake

2.  Green Beans

3.  Pears with an umbrella pick

4.  Unsalted peanuts

5.  Cream cheese/Ham rolls

6.  Rice Krispie Bar

There was really no rhyme or reason to anything I put in there, except to use up a few leftovers.

Big Sis was prepared for a rainshower and started off with her rice krispie treat.

Classic dirty look from Little Dude.

That's better!

Don't forget to check out Muffin Tin Mom!

MTM-Snack

Saturday was my birthday--34!  I had a nice day with my hubby and my girls.  We went out to eat for lunch and then went to the movie rental store to pick out a few movies. 

Since we had a family movie night, we did another Snack MTM while we watched Sleeping Beauty.

Top Row:  Halloween Pretzels and Apple Slices

Middle Row:  Apple Straws and Craisins

Bottom Row:  M&M's, and String Cheese Bites

The pretzels were immediately rejected by big sis because "Halloween is over, Mama".  They devoured the M&M's after the pretzel smackdown. 

We have been debating on whether to go back to using Netflix for disc delivery.  It is actually cheaper than using the movie store, but the girls LOVE going to the movie store and picking out movies, and the fact that we have a deadline for watching them actually makes us watch the movies.  Our record for keeping a movie from Netflix was 4 months...yikes. BUT the last two times we rented movies in the store, the discs were terribly scratched and nearly unwatchable.

Inside my head right now I am telling myself Move along, Tom. (remember MTV's The Tom Green Show?)

I am going to link up with Muffin Tin Mom.  I am late to the party as usual but better late than never.

 

 

MTM-Snack

We had a pumpkin carving party at Andy's parents with the girls cousins, and had a later dinner over there.  So I just planned a snack for the girls and we watched a little Halloween Shrecktacular.  I love Sunday nights because we usually just watch movies and hang out.

Here are a couple pics from the pumpkin party...

Elin, Addie, Loretta, Cora

We came home and chilled out on the couch with our snack.

Top Row:  Red Pepper slices and string cheese bits

Middle Row:  Pecans and Apple Straws

Bottom Row:  Celery sticks and Peanut butter for dipping

They both tried everything, and everything except for a few pieces of pepper was gone...gotta love a clean plate!

I am linking up with Muffin Tin Mom.  Click over to her site for some great inspiration!

MTM-Spooky

The favorite word at our house lately is "SPOOOOky".  The girls are in the Halloween spirit, and we did a little decorating around the house with spiderwebs, skeletons, and spiders.  We topped the whole thing off with a bloody handprint gel cling on the window. 

So I made a nice and spooky MTM tonight for them. 

1.  Spooky Cookies (Chocolate chip cookies with "candy corn M&M's)<--  These are a mighty tasty add in on the cookies. 

2&5.  Jack O Lantern quesadilla

3.  Grapes with a Grapey spider on top

4.  Spooky trees (ok I just felt we needed something green in there)

6.  Banana Ghost with chocolate chip eyes

I persist in making the girls quesadillas, even though every time I make them, they peel them apart and pick pick out the melted cheese.

So the good news is Little Dude decided that she is done with diapers...we are using pullups at night but she is doing great--no accidents at all in the last two days!  We even kept her in her training pants at naptime today and she woke up dry.  I am so proud of her, and happy to pass off the last of the diapers we had stockpiled!! 

Don't forget to check out Muffin Tin Mom for some fun and spooky MTM's this week!

 

MTM-Better Late Than Never

It has been an absolutely horrid week for me, I worked 70 hours this week, many of them at home, and really did very little other than work, work, work. 

I did actually do our Muffin Tin Meal this week on Monday, after we got home from Dance.  I just made a snack for the girls, plopped them in front of a movie and did some more work while they were munching.

They had chex mix and pickles in the top row, craisins and a cheese moon and star in the middle row, and broccoli and tangerine in the bottom row.

Little Dude ate all the craisins, cheese and pickles, Big Sis ate the nectarine, chex mix and some of the broccoli. 

I don't think they ate much more than applesauce with their supper before I got home and we had to run to dance.  I had been planning on cleaning up the leftover snack myself, but there wasn't much left to speak of...

I don't feel like I was a very good mom this week.  I let the girls watch entirely too many movies, I didn't feed them very healthy food, I only gave them one bath all week....

I guess all I can do is hope that next week is better.

 

MTM-Chili and Fixins

I said in my last post I was going to do and apple theme this week, but we ended up having company over this evening.  We had a lovely visit from my hubby's sister, her boyfriend and our new niece.  I would have felt bad serving them apple shaped grilled cheese sandwiches, so I made chili instead.

So we did Chili with cheese, onion, sour cream and fritos for toppings.  Big Sis enjoyed the chili but Little Dude wasn't a fan. 

We also had apple crisp for dessert, made with apples from our trip to the apple orchard yesterday.

The girls and I took a trip to Pleasant Valley Orchard on Saturday. 

 


The girls had a great time, and so did I.  It was a perfect fall day, and now we have  a whole bunch of awesome apples to use up!

I am linking up with Muffin Tin Mom. Check it out for some cool meal ideas.

 

MTM-

I always feel like I am trying to cram everything that needs to be done in my life into this tiny little time frame.  I am sure every working mom (or every non working mom, for that matter) feels the same way.  I had wanted to do a Circus theme muffin tin, because that is the same theme they have at Big Sis's preschool this week. 

BUT, we had to go get groceries because I realized the hubby was out of lunchmeat.  And out the window went the elaborate muffin tin plan...

1.  Cracker Smashie (wheat thins and cream cheese stack)

2.  Magic beans (Jelly Belly's)

3.  Grape Mountain

4.  Enchanted forest (broccoli)

5.  Pirate Dogs (cheesy hotdogs with a sword pick)

6.  Dessert choice (Big Sis chose Banana Cake, and Dudie chose apple crisp)

I felt like I was in an episode of Dora when I was making up fun titles for all the different foods.

The first thing both girls went for was their water.  Which made me laugh.  Jeez I guess they were thirsty!

I am linking up with Muffin Tin Mom.

MTM-Snacky Supper

Ok, so I had to move my MTM to Sunday night because Big Sis is starting Monday night dance lessons tomorrow.  She is super excited and wanted to bust out the Bella Dancerella yesterday...so the girls got all dolled up and did a little ballerina practice.

I have a feeling it is not going to go that well when Little Dude finds out that she has to hang in the waiting room with Mom while Big Sis gets to have all the fun in dance class....

Our usual Sunday night supper is very casual and pretty snacky because Daddy is taking a nap and Mommy doesn't feel like she has to make a big meal production.  So we eased into our new Sunday night muffin tin routine with a Snacky supper, but in a muffin tin!

I did one 12 cup tin for the girls to share tonight and we did a "picnic" in the living room.  Strawberries, Cantaloupe, Cheese and Crackers.  

They ate every last scrap.  As you can see we are dabbling in potty training with Dudie.  

I will link up at Muffin Tin Mom.

Now I am off to make Cowboy Candy.  Hopefully I can make it to bed before midnight :)

 

MTM-Not on Monday!

I am totally off track right now because of yesterday's holiday.  I totally thought today was Monday...holy cow.  

Today was Big Sis's first day of 3 yr Preschool.  We could have opted out of enrolling her, but we really felt she was ready for some interaction and social time with kids her age.  

I didn't go with for the big drop-off, because after agonizing over it for a couple weeks, I realized that it would all go a lot more smoothly if I wasn't there.  I really wanted to be there, but it is out of the norm for me to be around on weekday mornings and I didn't want to throw her off by being there when I am normally not.  I also realized that me going along would be much more for me than for her, because Daddy is going to be the normal dropper off-er.  

I was so unproductive at work this morning, waiting for a phone call to hear how it went....ok I may have attempted to call home 5 or 6 times...

Well Daddy finally called around noon and turns out she did wonderfully--there were no tears, when they got there she said "Bye Daddy, I'm going to go play!  See you later!"

On to the MTM (MTT):

1.  Carrot from our garden

2. Cut up string cheese (the girls practiced cutting food)

3.  Tomato from the garden

4.  Ham/pickle/cream cheese roll up (what are these called???)

5.  Craisins

6.  Open faced tomato sandwich (my fave)

Both girls ate a ton, and also asked for more.  Big day=Big appetites :)

Don't forget to check out Muffin Tin Mom!