Muffin Tin Monday- Sweet & Swirly Oh...and my "homemade" Poptarts:P

Today's muffin tin was one of my more time consuming ventures, however it still only took about 10 mins start to finish. And the kids were ecstatic with the results, and that is the real goal:)
The tins today were based on Peppermints & Candy Canes:

 The tins contain a Juice Pouch, Turkey Tortilla Pinwheels, Jello Cup, Candy Cane shaped Apples, Babybel cheese with a CandyCane Cutout, and Vanilla Yogurt with a red swirl with a big fat Peppermint Marshmallow!

I dyed the cream cheese in the pinwheels, and used a small cookie cutter on the apples & cheese. Hooking this Tin up at Muffin Tin Mom

I also attempted homemade Poptarts this morning. I am going to be honest and say they were rather dissapointing. If you LOVE the flavor of pie crust all by itself these are the pastry for you! However I thought they were rather bland, so if you have any ideas on how to "spice" these babies up let me know. All I did was take a premade piecrust & cut it into circles with my biscuit cutter. Then I dolloped a tsp of jelly in the middle ( I didn't want to put more in so it wouldn't ooze out!). I topped the circle with another pastry circle, and then sealed the edges with a fork. I used an egg wash on the top to add sugar sprinkles for texture and looks. They looked nice & yummy...but not so much:/

Friday Fast Five- Closets

This Fast Five is because I am running out of "fun" things so you get practical stuff;P
I took pictures of 5 closets in my house, so you could get an idea how I organize stuff. If you have questions feel free to comment.

1) This our Main/kids bathroom. I couldn't get a good picture of the whole thing, due to the setup of that bathroom. SO you get a couple of different shot/angles. Do you like the dirty clothes in the basket:/

2) This is the Hall Closet. Suppose to be for coats but we don't need to many of those in NC. So I shoved it full of games, crafts, and educational toys. Oh and the Dyson, which looks naked cause I gave it a bath yesterday, and haven't put it back together yet!

3) This is my Bathroom. Nothing special, again I left the dirty clothes in the basket just for your viewing enjoyment;)

4) This is Gideyon's room. Probably my favorite closet. Simple & clean. Have had that shelf forever and used it in his closet all kinds of ways! He doesn't have any "nice" clothes to hang, and we hang all our jackets on peg racks in the family room. Hence the lack of clothing in his closet.

5) And now to finish off with our resident packrat:Gilly! I try my best but that gal has to many "special" things. Gideyon's fit all in the little basket on the top of his shelf. NOT Gilly, she pretty much takes up the entire top shelf of her closet:/

SO there ya have it,  a peek in my closets:) Promise to be more creative with my Fast Friday next week!

Muffin Tin Monday- A little Ginger Guy

Today's Muffin tin didn't have much advance thought put in it, so it isn't my best work...However it is Christmas themed, so the kids were excited.

Our first Muffin tin of this Advent was a Gingerbread Guy theme:

In our tins: Some Marcona Almonds (the kids sampled these a Costco and LoVe them!) with a decorative Gingerboy pick, a PBJ Gingerboy Sandwich, Some milk with a pink straw(my kids think a straw makes any drink "fun"), some Gingergirl cheese cutouts, applesauce with red sugar sprinkles (those came out FAST!), and gingerbread boy shaped marshmallows!

As usual I am linking up at Muffin Tin Monday.

Friday Fast Five-Advent Edition

I am really excited about this Friday's Fast Five. It is something I have been thinking about the closer it got to Advent season. If you know my family at all, you know that my mother started a Christmas Countdown with all of her children that we all strive to duplicate in some form or manner. I have always done a small treat or activity/craft with my guys in past years. And in fact I will still give them little goodies throughout the month. However the focus of our Countdown this year will be on GIVING not GETTING! I had perused a bunch of blogs and ideas and here is what our family is doing this year:

This is a little baby food jar with slips/sticks of paper with Random Acts of Kindness on them. I took some from several different blogs, so I will share my inspiration with you in my Fast Five list!
1) This was where I got my "jar" idea.
2) This blog has some really easy/cheap R.A.C.K. ideas
3) This is a list of ideas for each daythat you could simply print out if you don't want to be fancy
4)This gal has a cute printable card to go with your give aways/RACK. Plus more ideas!
5) This is my favorite blog about this type of Advent! She articulates how I feel about it well. Plus a really awesome Printable Planner and Idea List:)
So hopefully I have inspired you a little this season, or at least given you some ideas for next year!

Bento - "Minis"

SO I have been making the kids "bentoish" lunches for Homeschool co-op & days when I have meetings. I haven't taken any pics, so I had not been sharing them. But today I was so pleased with my theme and the ease of it, I had to post! This is what the kiddos took to Co-op today:

I know this doesn't look very special (and really it's not) however, everything in this box was a "mini" version of something. Their Lock & Lock 4 square boxes held:
A mini orange (clementine), baby oreos, a tiny turkey & cheese sandwiche, and a mini container of yogurt. If you look at the items on a regular paper plate it better shows the size ratio.

I used the little cocktail bread to make the mini sandwiches. I would love to tell you my kiddos were impressed, however I think the theme alluded them:/ Oh well , it made ME happy!:) Thanks for looking!

Going "Nuts" for this Muffin Tin!

So I am a little bereft to see fall go. In fact I am clinging to it all week, before openly embracing the Christmas season. I love fall, and if you follow my FB you saw the little Acorn plates that I am currently in love with this season:) I used them for my inspiration for this weeks MTM. So here it is, my last fall Muffin tin of the year...

This Acorn themed muffin tin contained (from top left to bottom right):

A Juice Box, Hazelnuts (which my kids thought were great fun to crack!) and little acorn shaped tuna sandwiches. On the bottom are acorn bites (made out of donut holes, sprinkles & pretzel sticks) green grapes (to look like green acorns!) & pretzels sticks/acorn stems;)

I am linking up at Muffin Tin Mom:)

I will hopefully be back later this week, to share some Advent Ideas & Inspiration.

A Plump & Perky Turkey for our Muffin Tins!

I have been thinking about our Thanksgiving/Turkey themed muffin tins for a while and I was SO excited when I found these fun "tins" to put them in last week!

They are actually ceramic, but my kids are older so I thought they would be fine. Plus they were only $2.50! So I couldn't say NO;)

We just read the book a "A Plump & Perky Turkey" for our Thanksgiving unit, and it inspired me!


This book is way cute, so we borrowed it's title for our theme this week.

So here is my version of "Pete" (that is the name of the turkey in the book), he is beside some applesauce garnished with a cut apple "leave"

Then I made some cute chocolate acorns (thanks Pintrest!) and filled another cup with

"Cornucopia Trail Mix" (this was simply Bugles & Runts)

I also included a Juice Box and dried cranberries & cherries, but as Gideyon put it "there is nothing fun about the fruit, Mom!" :/

Hooking up over at Muffin Tin Mom. 

My first Thanksgiving Muffin Tins, pretty fun if I do say so myself!;