Do you remember my Fruit of the Spirit series? Well, it was such a big (and loooong) ordeal that I still think about it all the time. Maybe it’s just been popping into my head this summer as fruit has been more readily available. Anyway, the other day we had a mini playdate (oh, it was to try out our s’mores!) and I had this great idea to make some roll up sandwiches for the kids. But my time got short and sweeping the floor got attention over cute food.

Then I had a stroke of brilliance! FRUIT KABOBS. How cute are these?

But it gets even better! All I did was throw all the ingredients in a bowl and gave all the kids a skewer (yes, even my 1 year old) and let them pick out what food they wanted all by themselves! It was so fun to load up our skewers, then tear them right apart by popping the fruit into our mouths. I also added some deli meat and blocks of cheese to up the protein factor.

But back to the Fruit of the Spirit. I was thinking how fun this would be to do a Fruit of the Spirit activity with these kabobs. You could label the bowls joy, peace and patience instead of bananas, peach and kiwi. Then you could give examples of each Fruit of the Spirit as you slide them on the skewer. Or put them in order and have the kids use their skewer as a memory tool to say the fruit by heart. I’m totally doing this after my next trip to the Farmer’s Market.

See more fun ways to use FOOD to impress your kids!

Linked to We are THAT Family’s Works For Me Wednesday

When Leigh and I were discussing doing a Summer Camp theme I told her I wanted to make ice cream in the ground. I knew I had heard of this and was going to try it. I looked it up online and could not find it anywhere! That’s when I remembered…it wasn’t ICE CREAM in the ground…it was jell-o in the ground. Jell-o, ice cream—whatever! (I still can’t find the jell-o in the ground recipe, but I KNOW my mom did it at camp one year!)

However, I know of another fun way to make ice cream. Not in the ground. Not with an ice cream maker. Just a few basic ingredients:

4 quart sized plastic zip bags
4 gallon sized plastic zip bags
2 cups half & half
2 cups heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla
4 cups salt (rock salt is suggested but if you use regular salt, just use a little less)
1/2 c sugar
ice
gloves (for your sensitive kiddos!)

Instructions:

1. Whisk sugar, cream, half & half and vanilla together.

2. Pour 1 cup of liquid into each quart sized bag.

3. Put sealed quart sized bag inside gallon bag. Add ice–enough to fill gallon bag about halfway. Add salt.

4. Shake the bags for about 5-10 minutes. Asa was our muscle man and did 2 at a time. Lydia used gloves to keep her hands warm!

5. Grab a spoon and eat out of the bag!

This was so fun! I love making food in unconventional ways. This would be so fun to make on a hot day…bring the bags outside, shake ‘em up and eat it all on the porch!

Thanks so much for coming to our 2 Weeks of Summer Camp! Hope you had a great time! Don’t forget to write!

I get so bored with lunches. I always want to do something fun and yummy. Alas, when 12:00 rolls around I find myself staring at the pantry wondering what to cook. I just have a hard time wanting to dig out all sorts of cooking utensils knowing that I will be pulling them all out again in a couple hours to make dinner!

A while ago I heard about muffin tin lunches! It’s the most fun lunch idea ever. You grab a muffin tin and fill it with food creating a super creative lunch for your kids. Michelle from the Muffin Tin Mom.com hosts Muffin Tin Monday every week and you can add your own creative Muffin Tin to the linky.

Sometimes there are amazing themes like this week’s Seeds Plants & Flowers theme…

photo by Muffin Tin Mom

Or educational like this ABC & 123 theme…

(see it? Apples, Bananas, Carrots…the number 1, 2 oranges, 3 sided triangle tortillas…)

And I love this interactive one that Vanessa did…

Usually my muffin tin meals end up being leftovers. I fill it with last night’s spaghetti, coupled with a few pretzels and the remains of our cut up cantaloupe. Sometimes I try to find matching colors at least—the top row of red taco meat, strawberries and leftover spaghetti and the bottom row of pineapple, hummus and tortillas…it’s red and yellow, get it? Ah well, it doesn’t matter. The kids love it for the sheer novelty!

Today we had a last minute picnic outside and I grabbed whatever I could to make a decent meal. It ended up being homemade spelt biscuits, pretzels, leftover tuna pasta salad, bananas and homemade granola. I had planned to just eat out of the containers. Lydia, however, wanted to make her own version of a muffin tin meal and spread her napkin out all the way–then placed each different food in their own little squares! And yes, she ate it all up!

So, next time you’re struggling for a lunch idea, pull out that muffin tin! And tell me, how do YOU make lunch fun?

I, for one, am so thankful that God wants us to be Creative (doing something in a new way).  After all, we were created by a creative God: God saw all He had made, and behold, it was very good (Genesis 1:31).

There are so many ways we can encourage creativity in our children – helping them to “think outside the box,” encouraging imaginative play, reading to them, doing crafts, exploring outdoors – all activities that help grow creativity. My goal is to do something creative with my kids everyday!

But what is something that we do everyday – and can become a boring event (for mom) or even a contentious event (for the kids)?  We eat.  Sometimes it seems my days just revolve around meals – planning them, making them, trying to get the kids to eat them.  If I don’t get a bit creative with planning my dinners, I get bored cooking the same thing over and over again.  And if I get bored making things, wouldn’t others get bored eating the same thing over and over again, too?

We have not gotten too creative with food in the past, though, due to the food allergies in our house.  We’ve stuck to the same ol’ stuff for a while; it was revolutionary to us when we discovered a soynut butter that Elias could eat (we are an official peanut-free zone around here!).  The novelty of just being able to eat soynut butter and jelly sandwiches is wearing off, so to make them fun again, I made sandwich sushi rolls!

They looked a lot like these from Living Locurto, but with soynut butter and jelly instead of turkey, cheese, and cucumber (of course I didn’t get pictures of ours).  But doesn’t that look like a good combo, too?  And look at this beautiful bento box full of sandwich sushi…

Gorgeous, no?  It’s almost too pretty to eat!  To make a sandwich into sushi, roll your bread flat (with a rolling pin or even a drinking glass) before you put any of the fillings on it.  Spread one piece of bread with your nut-butter-of-choice and jelly, then roll the one piece of bread up tightly and cut into small rolls as in the pictures above!  Do the same for the rest of your bread and fillings…  if you want to add things like sticks of cucumber, carrots, or cheese, lay the sticks at one end of your flattened bread and roll everything up around them.

I’m starting to do Fun Food Fridays with the boys – something they can look forward to, something I can get creative with, and something we all will enjoy.  Friday we did Bugs on a Log – simple yet creative, healthy, and delicious!  This was one of the things I lamented that Elias would never be able to eat when we discovered his peanut allergy… but thanks to our soynut butter find, he can now!

They were a hit!  And very messy…

Here are some more Fun Food ideas:

• Our Amanda’s Fruity Shortcakes that she created on her very own!  Way to get creative with the Rice Krispies!
• Look at FamilyFun’s Making Food Fun Gallery – how cool is that pizza caterpillar and the stripey stacked fruits?!?
• Foodie Jr’s Pasta Birds Nests – yum!
• FoodieMama has a healthy recipe for Mini Meatballs – what kid doesn’t like mini food?
• Kabobs and make-your-own pizzas are great for kids, too… and see what else we’ve posted in the past about fun food… Resurrection Rolls, Maple Syrup Snow Candy, Rainbow Toast, Monkey Treats, Banana Berry Smoothies, Dried Fruit, and Parenting Lessons in Cooking.

How are some ways you and your kids get creative with food?  How do you encourage creativity in your kids’ lives in general?

For more of our Christian Character Trait series, take a look at these posts!

It’s Christmas! LIKE FOR REAL. I’ve decorated the house, I’ve bought presents (well, most of them) and even hosted a Christmas party. But I still haven’t sent out Christmas cards. Or made teacher’s gifts. The only teachers in Lydia’s life are her teachers at church (she goes to two services on Sunday) and her ballet teacher. And to Lydia? They are all famous.

When Lydia was 1 I made the cutest card for her teachers at church. I digi-scrapped a picture of her with a nativity scene with the words, “Thank you for introducing me to Jesus.” Her teachers were teary-eyed and some have said they still have it on their fridge!

Along with that picture I made those pretzel-hershey-kiss-m&m treats. Have you had them? My friend Kathy from House of Hills made some with her daughter this week and did a great post about it! I also love the pretzel-rolo-pecans treats she did, too!

I’ve made and gifted Muddy Buddies–you know that yummy peanut-butter-chocolate-powdered-sugar Chex mix? Oh my goodness. It is divine. And very easy to make—you get to throw it all in a giant plastic bag and shake it up. Lydia loved it! Oh, I’m getting hungry!

So, I’ve been on the look out for a new kind of treat to bring to her teachers (and to my tummy) and I think I found a good one from Marie at Make and Takes! Look how fun, easy and adorable this is:

(photo by Make & Takes)

All you do is melt chocolate chips, dip your candy canes in and then gift-wrap! I am so in love with this. I just bought a pack of candy canes today so this is perfect!

And now, I can think of no other good way to segue this except: SPEAKING OF CHOCOLATE, Nestle is giving away a big bag o’treats to one of our lovely readers! They’ve got this big photo contest going on at Nestle Family.com where you can win one of several $50 giftcards! They wanted to share the wealth and have generously offered up a big holiday gift pack which will include coupons for FREE Toll House chocolate chips and cookie dough, Carnation Evaporated Milk and Breakfast Essentials, Stouffer’s, Juicy Juice and Boost Kid Essentials, as well as products from Wonka and Rasinets. Also, a cute silver picture frame and a yummy Carnation holiday recipe guide. The prize value is around $40.

If you’d like to win, please leave us a comment below. Any comment will do—even a simple Merry Christmas! But if you’d like to dazzle the judges with your impressive comment, please tell us about your favorite handmade treat you love to give at the holidays! And as always, you can receive an additional entry if you tweet or facebook this post!

Merry Christmas to you!

The Fruit of the Spirit: Kindness has been…well, kind to us. We’ve had a lot of fun with this one and been able to talk about it a lot. Kindness is one of the easiest ones to measure and act on –especially for a 3 year old with a 1 year old brother! Here’s a few more activities we’ve done this past week and few more we haven’t done—but I think would be super fun!

Bible Story

Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). I just realized this story may have been even better for GOODNESS! Oh well, the point here is the same—a man is kind to someone different than him.  Lydia has just now started noticing differences in people’s skin and styles, so she didn’t quite get the full depth of this story. We read it in about 3 different Bible story books. Her favorite was from the See With Me Bible. It’s the Bible told in pictures. And the pictures are brilliant. Lydia will look at all 350 pages in one sitting. Speaking of which…

Books

I was looking up ORANGE books on Amazon and found this cute book about a bear, Orange Pear Apple Bear. The whole book only has five words in it. They are just rearranged depending on what Bear is doing with his fruit. This would actually be a great one for any time during the Fruit of the Spirit. I’m going to try to check it out at the library.

I went to the Family Bookstore yesterday to scope out their Holiday books (found nothing interesting!) but while I was browsing through the kids’ section, a title caught my eye: Lyle the Kindly Viking! I had forgotten there’s a Veggie Tales DVD of the same title! We even have it at home. This was the Little Golden Book edition. The book is really more about sharing, but I think that is a valid aspect of being kind. And a very tangible one!

Snacks

Jello Jigglers. Here’s another great anytime snack for the Fruit of the Spirit. In fact, you know what I would love to do? Find some cookie cutters in the shape of fruit (uhm, like these!). Then make several different flavors of jello jigglers, cut them out and have some jiggly Fruit of the Spirit!

We made orange jigglers this week–and I don’t think my daughter has ever had jello! She thought it was the best thing ever. We used some Christmas cookie cutters—so we made presents and gingerbread men to remind us to be kind by giving gifts to people. How’s that for creative?!

Movies

After I got the book, we of course, had to watch Veggie Tales’ Lyle the Kindly Viking. Lydia watched it after church with her Daddy. I tried to quiz her about it afterwards…she didn’t quite get it. I said, “Was Lyle kind? Did he share?” She said, “No. He just talked kind.”

*sigh*

Stay tuned this week for our next Fruit of the Spirit: LOVE!

Remember the great kiwi plans I told you about? The plans I didn’t want to tell you for fear I might not do them? Well, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, my kiwi-polymer-clay bead necklace plans have evaporated. I loved our peach pit necklaces so much, I thought it would be fun to make more jewelry to symbolize each Fruit of the Spirit. I googled polymer clay beads and thought I could figure it out–even though I’ve never held polymer clay in my life.

I headed out to our local craft store, looked through the clay (there’s LOTS to choose from) and found a great pack full of many different colors. I also bought some ribbon and other supplies for Asa’s birthday party (on Saturday!!). Well, a day went by and I thought, “Hm. Where did I put that bag of craft supplies?” But I was busy and didn’t look for it. I’ve thought about it off and on for the last few days and after a thorough search of the car and house the craft bag is nowhere to be found. My only conclusion is that I paid for the items and then left the bag at the store. How ridiculous is that?!

I say all that to say: I HAVE NOT DONE ANOTHER KIWI CRAFT. I’ve been really focused on my son’s birthday party which I’ll be able to blog about next week–wheeee! So, instead I thought I’d share a few fun kiwi stuff I found online. I’ll be doing one of these until I can get back to the craft store and see if they held onto my bag. GRRRR.

Felt Kiwi Slices from CardsCorner’s etsy shop. How cute are these? I love felt play food. I don’t sew, but I could probably glue some of it and hand stitch enough to make these!

Mini Kiwifruit Polymer Clay Video Tutorial. There are so many tutorials on youtube it is unbelievable! If you wanted to start a mini fruit making business, you’d be set!

Kiwi Fruit Knitted Hat. I certainly do not knit. But it would be funny to make a little hat with this pattern—we could paint or color a hat. That might be fun!

Fruit Flower Bouquet from Family Fun. This might actually be a great thing to do with all our Fruit of the Spirit fruit. I may save this one and do it when we ever finish. Kind of like a finale!

Kiwi Recipes from Zespri Kiwi. Who knew kiwis were so versatile? I totally want to make the Tropical Kiwi Pops and the Circus Parfait pictured above.

But my very favorite is this Kiwi-Colada Sipper from Conversations with a Cupcake. HOW ADORABLE IS THIS?! And totally yummy, too. I think I have all the ingredients here. If Lydia would ever take a nap today, I’d make this for her when she wakes up!

That’s all I got, folks! If my posting is light this week it’s because I’m up to my EARS in first birthday preparations!

Neighborhood Art Party at BeachBrights {{the coolest non-birthday party ever}}

Tips Are for Kids at Hot off The Garlic Press {{fantastic ideas for getting kids to eat fruits & veggies}}

Glass Jars and Bottles as Frames from Apartment Therapy {{cool to put Bible verses or artwork inside, too}}

Healthify Your Muffins with Catherine Wheels {{great way to use up the abundance of greens from summer gardens}}

Create a Family Mission Statement from Simple Mom {{i can’t wait to sit down and do this!}}

I found this craft online years ago and always wanted to do it Easter Sunday at church. Alas, there aren’t usually ovens on hand during Easter Sunday church services. Now that Lydia is old enough to kinda sorta a little bit understand about Jesus’ death and resurrection, I thought it was time to finally do this one!

Collect the following delicious and somewhat sinful items: canned crescent rolls, marshmallows, melted butter, brown sugar (or cinnamon and sugar mix).

Roll said marshmallows in melted butter. Just enough to get ‘em wet.

I told Lydia we were pretending the marshmallow was Jesus. (I know. Just go with it.) I explained how when Jesus was put in the tomb the women were going to rub his body with precious oils and good smelling spices. So, that’s what we were doing–dipping Jesus in the butter…er, oil. (I know, it’s weird. Keep reading.)

Then roll buttery marshmallow in brown sugar/cinnamon-sugar mix.

Or you know, roll Jesus in the spices.

Place one marshmallow on the wide end of a crescent roll. Roll up and make sure you pinch the edges so it’s sealed tight!

Now, I explained to Lydia about the tomb and it being sealed with a rock. So we pretended the crescents were the tomb and we sealed Jesus…er, the marshmallow up in the tomb.

Cook for the appropriate amount of time.

If you don’t seal the crescents up tight, your marshmallows might leak out…not a pretty sight. And kinda confusing if you’re pretending they are supposed to be Jesus…

As we waited for the tomb-snacks to cook, we read a few stories about Jesus’ death and resurrection. Lydia had lots of questions to ask. Some of them were about the pictures in the book. But some were about the angel that rolled the stone away or other aspects of the story. She was definitely interested.

When the timer rang, I put one tomb-snack on Lydia’s plate. I reminded her that this snack was like Jesus in the tomb. I asked her what she thought happened to the marshmallow. Then we opened up the crescent and peeked inside. Our marshmallow was gone! It was a big empty roll! And Lydia was AMAZED. She stared at it—and was almost afraid! She said, “But where did it go?!”

I explained to her that just like we were surprised that our marshmallow was gone, Jesus’ friends were surprised, too. They didn’t expect Jesus to come back to life. But he did! And he’s alive today.

Later on that day, when my husband came home, Lydia told him all about our snack. She said, “We pretended the ma’smewwow was De-dus!” Then she described how the marshmallow was gone and said, “I was like…I was like…” but couldn’t put her finger on the emotion she felt! She was so excited and I *think* she caught the idea of the surprising and amazing miracle of Jesus resurrection!

(oh, and I *did* finally tell her the marshmallow just melted and wasn’t resurrected!)

PS: these were DELISH.