I can’t tell you how excited I am about the fact that our local market has recently started stocking berries that a) don’t cost an arm and a leg and b) actually taste good again… I look forward to this time every year! Of course, a fridge filled with all kinds of colourful fruit means delicious fruit parfaits, and with St. Patrick’s Day quickly approaching it means rainbow fruit parfaits {with clouds on top just for fun!}
Oh my goodness… We’ve totally been on a popsicle making streak. We can’t seem to help it. It’s summer and summer requires a freezer stocked with delicious frozen treats… Right?? Currently, we’ve got polka dotted blueberry lemonade pops, chocolate avocado pudding fudgesicles, fresh fruit freeze pops, and these beautiful chunky fruit popsicles in our freezer and they’re all delicious!
So though I haven’t mentioned it yet, Miss G and I have been pretty much stuck in the house for the last week and a bit… We’re not sure what’s going on, but she’s dealing with some sort of bladder issue that is causing her to have to go every few minutes, the poor thing. Needless to say, our usual routine of being out of the house every morning on fun adventures and meet-ups with friends is not happening right now. It’s just too hard.
In the meantime, we’re getting things done around the house {like painting a chalkboard wall finally and adding new pictures to our photo wall} and trying out some fun new activities. This morning, we decided that we’d have some fun with our breakfast! Instead of toast and fruit {a regular morning meal in our house}, we used our ingredients to create adorable little toast animals {or TOASTIMALS thanks to our friend Tairalyn} and admittedly, we had waaaay too much fun doing it.
The best part is that all of our toastimals can be made with these four ingredients – bread, your favourite spread, bananas, and berries (strawberries and blueberries to be specific). For ours, we used delicious walnut bread from Paul and almond butter, though cream cheese did make an appearance part way through. {Honey or any other nut butter would be good too!}
Before starting, we sketched out some of our ideas… First, I was the drawer, and then Gracen added to our idea sheet afterwards. Her illustrations include monkey toast {my drawing wasn’t doing it for her I guess}, FRUIT FLY toast {bahahahaha!}, and lizard toast {plus a cloud and some rain of course}.
Then it was time to get to work. Here are the 5 fun toastimals we came up with…
A bear {a favourite though not a new idea – we’ve been making this one since Miss G was wee}…
A kitty…
An owl…
A monkey…
And a chicken!
This poor guy did not get Miss G’s stamp of approval, sadly. He was supposed to be a pig, but kind of turned out looking like a dog or a bull or something else, and she declared him ‘very mix-upded’. Perhaps we’ll have to rework him and try again next time…
For now, however, I have to say that our little zoo of approved toast animals is pretty cute. ☺
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With our complex’s kids Christmas party happening this afternoon, Miss G and I hit up Pinterest this morning for a little snack inspiration. I knew that there would be plenty of sweet treats (there always is) and with Gracen not eating sugar, we always try to bring something healthy, but fun. As soon as we began our search, Grae fell head over heels for this awesome upright fruit tree. I loved the look of it too, but I wasn’t thrilled about attaching food to a styrofoam cone, and knowing how much we had going on today, knew I wouldn’t have a ton of time to experiment with a healthier alternative. As we continued browsing, we came across this fun Christmas tree vegetable platter, which we both loved. Gracen thought about it for a minute and then asked if we could make a broccoli tree but with fruit. Sure thing, little lady. A broccoli tree, but with fruit it is.
Apple cars are one of Gracen’s all-time favourite snacks. Since we’re heading out on vacation tonight and today’s goal was to eat up as much of our produce as possible, I decided we’d take the apple car idea to a new level and use other kinds of fruit too.
Miss G riffled through the crisper and found kiwi, apples, and nectarines (perfect for car bodies) and blueberries and grapes (perfect for wheels). While fruit cars don’t really lend themselves to a ton of toddler participation, Gracen was my official passer and counter. First, we cut thin slices of kiwi, apple, and nectarine, then we chopped the grapes in half. Since the blueberries were already quite flat, we just left them as is. Gracen’s favourite part was taking the spaghetti noodles and breaking them in small pieces – a job that’s easy and perfectly safe for toddlers.
Grae carefully passed me spaghetti pieces one at a time and I poked one through the front and back of each car body.
Next, we added our wheels. Two on one side…
And two more on the other side.
Soon we had a whole fleet of little fruit cars.
Snack time!
But before you can eat them, you have to zoom each one around the plate of course.
Then carefully disassemble the cars and neatly pile the spaghetti sticks on the table…
Then eat! A perfect snack for a summer’s day.
♥