Homemade Happy Meal

My five year old has been bugging me to make homemade kids’ meals for the past week or so. I think it’s because we never buy kids’ meals at the fast food joints – it’s much cheaper for me to just get the 4 piece nuggets and value fry – not to mention I don’t have to worry about them getting some crappy cheap toy. Today I finally had the time to get everything prepared, so we had chicken nugget kids’ meals!

We invited some friends over for lunch after kindergarten and got to work.

I printed out templates for the french fry boxes from this website. The template had two boxes on each page, which was perfect because we did one for french fries, and one for chicken nuggets. I pulled out the crayons and stickers and let the kids decorate their boxes (before they were folded and taped – I figured it would be easier that way).

For the bags we used brown lunch bags and the kids stickered and colored those as well. Decorating their paper goods may have been their favorite part.

While the kids were decorating, I got busy making lunch. I cut a bunch of Russet potatoes into shoestring fries (by hand – you could also use a fancy kitchen gadget). I rinsed them in hot water and dried them off before putting them in the oven. Supposedly that makes them crispier, but you probably have to not use so much oil. Oops.

Chicken nuggets are easy – I cut some chicken breasts into bite sized cube, doused them in some scrambled eggs, and tossed them in a baggie full of flour and seasoned salt. Shake and bake? Then I fried them in a little oil in a frying pan on the stove. you could use a deep fryer, or you could even do them baked styled in the oven (how I usually do them, but since I was doing fries too I figured the stove would be easier).

Once the food was cooked, we loaded up the fry boxes and the bags, I served up some ketchup, we doled out juice boxes, and the kids felt like they were at their favorite fast food joint!

I meant to let the kids pick out some toys or crayons or something for their kids meals. Or books, like Chik-fil-A. Next time.

This may become a tradition (once a month?) because it really was a lot of fun, and it made lunch time that much more enjoyable!

What’s your favorite lunch time tradition?

On a Golden Springtime

On a day like today who could stay inside?




Food always tastes better at a picnic!



Where are you eating lunch today? Where is your favorite picnic spot? How are you enjoying spring?

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Pancake Art

I bought a turkey baster at the local thrift store the other day for $.75 so I could make pancake letters. Tonight, V decided he would make us pancake shapes for dinner. He asked everyone what their favorite shape was, and then he proceeded to prepare the pancake batter (with help). He actually did really well “reading” the directions, and by the last ingredient (Eggs) he knew to look in the right column for the amount. I was really impressed with his ability to read a chart and sound out some of the words on the package!

I let him do a few shapes (a triangle, and a star, and a heart) and then I took over and tried my hand at some fancy pancake shapes. I had way too much fun, but the kids got a kick out of it. Our little friend who is staying with us (and is 3 months younger than J) told us his favorite shape for pancakes was “circle” and even when I made airplane, train, and dinosaur pancakes he still opted for a “circle” pancake. I’m not sure he realized what a novelty it is to have pancake art for dinner!

Do you play with your food? Do you let your kids help in the kitchen? What is your favorite “breakfast for dinner”? What is your favorite pancake shape?

Play Food

V has been feeding me play "food" and bringing it to me in a cardboard "magic box".




This is ice cream. Mint maybe? Or cotton candy?




Donuts and "square apples" - I am unfamiliar with that type of apple. Now Braeburn, Gala, Fuji - I know those. But square apples are completely new to me.

Pretend play is really important for kids. It is linked to the development of a lot of cognitive skills in children, including self-regulation (which any mother of a tantrum-throwing two-year-old would agree is a very important skill).

A number of researchers have focused on the relationship of play to specific cognitive strategies such as self-regulation, narrative recall, divergent problem solving, and rule understanding. Following Vygotsky (1978), who theorized that young children use private speech in play to regulate their behavior, eventually transforming this private speech into self-regulation through internal thought, Krafft and Berk (1998) compared the private speech of preschool children in Montessori and traditional play-oriented programs and found that more private speech occurred in the play-oriented setting, especially during pretend play with fantasy characters

How often do your kids engage in pretend play? Do you ever join in?

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Sam I Am

I don't know about your kids, but one of mine is a picky eater. The pickiest eater I have ever known. If he hasn't eaten it before and loved it, he will have a meltdown at the thought of even putting a "foreign" substance in his mouth.

Meltdown. Complete meltdown. I need to get it on tape one of these days.



My awesome parents give my children books for birthdays and Christmas (thanks, mom and dad!) and this book was added to our collection this Christmas.

So far it hasn't had a major life-changing effect on V's feelings toward new food, but today I think I had a minor breakthrough.



I fell in love with starfish when I was in Puerto Rico with my husband (yum yum fresh fruit) and the other day when I saw some at the grocery store at an affordable cost I had to buy one. We tried it for lunch today. The kids got a kick out of the fact that the slices looked like stars, and J was more than happy to devour her share of star fruit - but the cool star shapes didn't fool V. "I don't like it!!!" waaaaaah!!!

I had used the "Remember green eggs and ham, how the guy tried them and then he liked them?" before, but it wasn't working this time.

Then I said, "You can't say you don't like it, because you haven't tried it."

Of course, that kid is too smart for me... "Then I don't want any."

Definitely more accurate than not liking it, but I still wanted him to try it. I told him it was kind of like an apple (which still didn't sway him) and that he could have some fruit snacks if he would try the star fruit (that did the trick).




He told me after he tried it that it tasted like a pear. My bad.



And of course, J loved it and wanted more.




I'd say we did pretty well.

How do you get your kids to try new foods? Are some of your kids picky eaters, while others would eat anything?

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