Winter Wonderland Blog Hop: 10 Winter-Themed Activities

I'm so excited to present the Winter Wonderland Blog Hop. For the next month (Jan. 13th-Feb. 13th), 35+ bloggers will be posting about a winter-themed activity, craft, recipe or printable. You can find a calendar list at the bottom of this post of the dates and bloggers who'll post on those dates. Each day I'll pop in to update the link to show the title of the blogger's winter-themed activity so check back often to beat the winter doldrums with super fun activities from some amazing bloggers! 

To kick-off the Blog Hop, I'm posting about 10 of our favorite winter activities! 

1. Build Your Own Snowman Muffin Tin Meal - Our favorite muffin tin meal of all time! 

2. Snow Glad We're Friends Cards - Send a card to a friend just for fun!

3. Winter-Themed Sensory Bin - Use rice as snow for a fun way to explore!

4. Coffee Filter Snowman - Perhaps the simplest snowman you'll ever make!

5. Bring Snow Inside! - If it's too cold (or dark) to play outside, bring the snow inside!

6. Simple Snow Play Dough - Try our simple snow play dough recipe!

7. Snow Tracks - Find and explore animal tracks in the snow!

8. Tot School: Snow Edition - Fun ways to learn with snow-themed activities!

9. Fingerprint Snowmen - Make a village of snowmen or turn them into a card!

10. Build a Snowman - Last, but certainly not least go the traditional route and build a snowman in the snow. Find fun items around the house for the face, arms and buttons, or use Mr. Potato Head pieces!

CALENDAR LIST OF POSTS:
January 13th: The Iowa Farmer's Wife - Introduction Post
January 14th: B-Inspired Mama - Snowflake Drop DIY Baby Toy
                    Kid World Citizen - Ice Sun Catchers
January 15th: Love Play Learn - Snowman Felt Story Board & Song
January 16th: KC Edventures - Fun with Kids Books and Winter Activities
                    Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails - Winter Bath for Kids
January 17th: Milk and Cuddles - How to Make Snow
January 18th: Putti's World - Craft Foam Snowman
January 19th: Nurture Store - Bake a Snowman - Cake Recipe for Kids
January 20th: Creative Playhouse - Homemade Cold Snow
January 21st: Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas - Packing Peanut Snowflakes
January 22nd: Teach Preschool - Snowman in a Bag
                     This Reading Mama - Snowflake Window Wonderland
January 23rd: Housing A Forest - Creating Colorful Icicles
January 24th: Royal Baloo - How is Snow Formed?
                    Home Learning Journey - Potato Print Penguin
January 25th: Two Big Two Little - Comparing Different Types of Fake Snow
January 26th: Ready Set Read - Winter Word Work
January 27th: CraftoArt
January 28th: The Outlaw Mom Blog - Easy Sticker Snow Globe
January 29th: JDaniel4s Mom - Snowflake Mobile
January 30th: Creative Family Fun - Polar Bear Masks
January 31st: Kitchen Counter Chronicles - Snowy Day Felt Board
February 1st: Caution! Twins at Play
February 2nd: Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - Groundhog Day Round Up
February 3rd: Blog Me Mom - Cotton Rounds Snowman Craft
February 4th: Mama Miss - Snowflake Stained Glass Mobile
February 5th: Living Montessori Now - 25+ Snow-Themed Sensory Tubs
                    Ingles 360 - Playing with Ice
February 6th: Glittering Muffins - Peanut Snowman Magnets
February 7th: The Pleasantest Thing - Winter Song: Today is Monday
February 8th: Here Come the Girls - Create an Inside Winter Wonderland
February 9th: 3 Dinosaurs - Paper Roll Snowman
February 10th: Train Up a Child - Penguin Sensory Bin
February 11th: Little Artists - The New Year of China
February 12th: The Chirping Moms - Snow Inspired Crafts
February 13th: My Nearest and Dearest - Winter Picnic

What's your favorite Winter-themed post? Share your post with us in the comment section!

Muffin Tin Monday: Letter P

Happy Memorial Day! 

Last week we learned about letter P so we had a letter P muffin tin on Saturday night! She was SUPER excited about this because we rarely have pretzels around and popcorn is a big treat at our house!

From top left: Pretzels, Pickle juice Popsicle (exactly what you think it is!), Pineapple, air-popped Popcorn, Parsley (from the garden-she LOVES it!), Snow Peas (also from the garden), Peanut butter

Muffin Tin Monday: N is for Nest

Last week we were doing letter N activities and since not a whole lot of exciting stuff starts with N, we talked a LOT about nests! So what did Sweet P have for lunch last week? A nest, of course!

We had lunch inside the cardboard house she got for her birthday (that's why it's in a cake pan).

Nest: whole wheat spaghetti with pesto
Eggs: tiny tomatoes
Top muffin cup: spinach and sage flowers from our garden!
Center muffin cup: cottage cheese
Bottom muffin cup: strawberries

Sweet P: "Did you make me a nest for lunch?!" 

Muffin Tin Monday: Easter

These foods don't really have anything to do with Easter, but RoRo gave us these cupcake liners and picks last year so we have been using them this week.

Sweet P helped with this lunch and decided where to put the liners and picks. I prepared/cut everything and gave it to her to place in the tin. She's always excited about a lunch SHE made!

Top row: baby cucumbers, carrots, fruit strip (cut into small pieces), cheese
2nd row: brown rice, olives, almonds, chopped asparagus
3rd row: kiwi x2, tofu x2

Muffin Tin Monday: Rainbows

Sweet P asked for another rainbow this week and I decided to create one with muffin liners instead of on a plate and she gobbled it all up! She loves to stack them together once she finishes one. I made another one for dinner one night per her request and it, too, was a hit!

From left: shaved coconut, strawberries, carrots, pineapple, avocado, blueberry popsicle, cheese

Build-A-Snowman Muffin Tin Monday

I was so excited about this idea and Sweet P loved it! It's a Build-A-Snowman Muffin Tin Meal! Playing with food at its finest!

After I told her it was a snowman and explained the different parts, she went to town and made several different snowmen before gobbling it up! I chose cottage cheese because the pieces wouldn't sink in like they would in the yogurt we use (it's really thin for some reason). This was so much fun, we may have to do it again!

Clockwise from top left: blackberry eyes, soynut mouth, carrot noses, fig eyes, raisin mouth, celery noses and cottage cheese snow.

She was so excited about her snowmen!

Muffin Tin Monday: Winter Theme

Judging by the "feels like -4" temperature on Friday, winter has finally come to Iowa! So we got out some leftover muffin liners with snowflakes on them and had a winter themed lunch. Not everything fit into the theme, but we had fun anyway!

Far left column: snowman arms (celery), strawberries and chopped snowman nose (carrots)

2nd column: almond butter, snowman mouth (raisins), green olives

3rd column: melted snowman (apple sauce), soynuts and snowman eyes (figs)

4th column: snow juice (soymilk), snowballs (cheese) and crackers

Muffin Tin Monday

Sweet P made her own muffin tin last week. She loves helping out in the kitchen and drags a chair over to stand up at the counter. Here's what she came up with last week:

1st column: clemetines
2nd column: macaroni pasta and peas, coconut, Ak Mak crackers
3rd column: macaroni pasta and peas, pumpkin seed, carrots
4th column: Ak Mak crackers, dates, almond butter

Muffin Tin Monday: Pumpkin-Style

I found the idea for this healthy "caramel" apple in a Parents magazine before Sweet P had teeth and finally got to use it today! Let's just say she was SUPER excited about her almond butter and granola apple. It was such a simple treat!

Besides the apple, we went with a pumpkin theme today. We love punkins around here!

Clockwise from top left: Tomato pumpkin with spinach leaf, almond butter granola apple on a stick, clementine pumpkin with spinach leaf, cheese white pumpkins, carrot pumpkins, cracker pumpkin with spinach leaf and raisin face.

I love that the tomato slices look like jack'o'lanterns!

Check out what other moms are making their kiddos at Muffin Tin Monday (click the button at the top)!

Muffin Tin Monday

Muffin tin meals are super easy, especially after you've just had a baby and need to put something together quickly. Auntie RoRo helped out with this one and made sure Sweet P got some good protein. No theme, but she ate almost everything (save a carrot or two).

From top left: cheese, strawberries & raspberries, ak mak crackers, spinach & tomatoes, tofu, carrots

Muffin Tin Monday: Letter B

Since we did Letter B last week, we made a muffin tin full of foods that start with letter B. Sweet P help cut up the bananas and was excited about the soy"beans" in her tin!

From Left: Sippy of water, bagel with almond "butter", banana, soy"beans", bagel with almond "butter" and Trader Joe's boysenberry fruit strip cut into butterflies.

The After shot. She scarfed down the soybeans and made short work of everything except her bagel. I guess we should have only made half!

Muffin Tin Monday: Sweet P Style

Sweet P has been all about helping in the kitchen lately. I ask her if she wants to help make "insert whatever it is" and she says, "Wanna pull my chair over?" and runs over to grab a chair from the kitchen table. It's the only time she's allowed to stand on a chair and she LOVES helping. She does, however, have a reeeeeeally hard time not eating the pizza dough, unbaked granola, muffin batter and anything else she helps with. Silly girl.

Yesterday I asked her if she wanted to help make her muffin tin and she jumped at the chance. She brought her chair over and I handed her the tin and the silicon liners (they only come in an 8 pack...why? I have no idea). She placed them in 8 places and I got out her lunch. After I told her to wait to eat the food until we'd finished she went to town filling up her tins.
She didn't end up eating much because she was tired and laying her head on the table 5 minutes into the meal.
She was so proud of her lunch! Why yes, she is still in her pajamas. And so was I!

Clockwise from top left: yellow watermelon (from the farm), cherry tomatoes (from the backyard), spinach, yellow watermelon, pecans (from Pops' backyard), watermelon, cottage cheese, pickle, watermelon, raisins and spiral whole wheat pasta

Everything but the pickle is organic/chemical free.

Muffin Tin Monday: Flowers

Our muffin tin last week was pretty fun. I used our flower silicon muffin liners and put several leftover items in them. Sweet P ate the popsicle first, of course, but that wasn't a big deal since it was only watermelon. After that, she realized most of the food would make great faces and we spent 20 minutes making faces out of spaghetti, tomatoes and grapes. This meal was so much fun!

Clockwise from top left: watermelon popsicle (made from watermelon from the farm), avocado, tomatoes (from our backyard!), pecans, grapes from the Farmer's Market and whole wheat spaghetti

Muffin Tin Monday

I decided to use our mini ice cube tray for her lunch last week and it was too funny! It was like a mini meal. She loved it and I think liked the idea of having just a few things in each compartment. I definitely had to find some tiny things!

Clockwise from top left: Red tomato, yellow pear tomato, date, soynuts, blueberries, almonds, cheese, rice, homemade pickles and another red tomato.

See what other moms are serving up at Muffin Tin Monday!

Happy 4th of July & MTM

Happy 4th of July from my family to yours! Hope you have a wonderful day full of being outside, enjoying family and watching fireworks! God Bless America!

Flag: Stars - blueberries and shaved coconut, Top stripe-strawberries, White stripe- plain yogurt, Bottom stripe- tomatoes

Muffin Tin Monday: Happy Belated Flag Day!

We haven't had a muffin tin meal in awhile so I decided we'd try one out on Father's Day. I bought some patriotic muffin liners/muffin picks at 1am one night (it's a long story) and used those for a patriotic theme. I know it's a close enough to July 4th to start celebrating, but I thought I'd say Happy Flag Day anyway (Flag Day is my wedding anniversary). And on with the muffin tin:

Clockwise from top left: snow peas, string cheese, peach, star-shaped banana pancakes, grapes and mushrooms.

She ate everything except a few snow peas and the mushrooms. I'm pretty sure she moved all the mushrooms into one muffin cup so I thought she ate some, after looking at this picture I realized there were a heckuva lot of mushrooms in that little muffin cup when she was done. Silly girl.

Check out what other moms are feeding their kiddos at Muffin Tin Monday.

Muffin Tin Monday

Auntie Rosita sent us bunny cupcake liners with bunny/chick toothpicks. I've never used liners for MTM because I didn't have any and didn't want to buy any (call me cheap), but she had a great time with the 2 in this tin. Though I haven't used them, I've seen the inside out trick several times!

Clockwise from top left: grapes and cheese in a cross shape, dried coconut and pumpkin seeds, hummus, pitas, dehydrated bananas and green beans.

Here's what was left:

Easter Inspired Lunches

We've made a lot of Easter-themed lunches this week. Here are a few of them:

Bunny Theme

The bunny is a cheese and mushroom quesadilla with raisin eyes and nose and yogurt mouth. Celery, carrot and grape flowers, carrot sun and hummus cloud. The random rock on the left is a mushroom. There were 2, but a little hand snatched one before I shot this.

Cross Theme

From top left: grapes with bunny toothpick, pumpkin seeds, plain yogurt with cinnamon and banana pancakes cut into crosses and hearts.

Flower Theme

Top (from left): Sauteed asparagus, dehydrated banana chips, leftover stir fry

Bottom: Flower-shaped whole wheat mini bagel with melted cheese

Muffin Tin Monday

We had lots of fun meals this week so I'll be posting 2 today.

I simply did an Easterish theme for both tins. I used silicone flower muffin liners and the smaller half of a few Easter eggs. She loved dumping her food from flower liner to egg to muffin tin. Silly girl.

NOTE: Cutting shapes out of tortillas is a difficult task!

Starting with left column: grapes, cheese/tortilla bird, spinach, (2nd column) cheese/tortilla flower, grapes, cheese/tortilla flower, (3rd column) pumpkin seeds, cheese/tortilla bunny, carrots, (4th column) extra tortillas and a pickle.

Here's what was left of that tin:

And here's our 2nd tin from last week. I made decorative toothpicks with stickers and she really likes those.

From left: (1st column) hummus, grapes, (2nd column) kiwi, broccoli, pickles, (3rd column) kiwi, peas, carrots, (4th column) banana muffin, broccoli and feta).