Muffin Tin Monday - Hop Little Bunny, Hop Hop Hop!

On Tuesday I had a medical thing, so Nana came over to watch Little Z. I threw together a quickie Easter-y themed "beautiful lunch" for her to snack on while we were gone. Which is good, since I didn't get around to making her an awesome Easter one on Sunday, as I had planned. So at least I'm not going two weeks with no MTMs!

At preschool there's a song about sleeping bunnies (here's a version on YouTube, but we only do the first bit about the bunnies and repeat it a few times.) It's one of her favorites. And if I start singing the "Hop little bunnies, hop hop hop!" bit when I want her to get a move-on, she usually cooperates.

Hop Little Bunny, Hop Hop Hop!

Cheese nibblets, Carrots, Ranch, Apple butterflies;
Tuna pickle sandwiches, candy powder, Annie's Graham and Chocolate Bunnies

This year there were so many cute Easter cupcake liners, and an actual excuse imperative reason to buy them, so I'm afraid I have quite an assortment. I have 5 Easter-themed ones (plus 2 mini ones, and some with matching picks) and a butterfly/Spring one. (Plus 4 more, some with picks, and another mini-cupcake liner I found the next day *cough*)

Found at (from left to right, top to bottom): Target, Party City, Target
Party City, Target, don't remember. Party City maybe?

I got out one of each of my liners and let Z put them in the muffin tin. She enjoyed helping, and then ran to clear off a space on her "little table" out in the living room. (I got end tables at Ikea for $12 each, compared to their kids tables at $25! And right now the same table is on sale for only $6! Awesome! I bought 2, and they roam through the house. They're nice and lightweight, and the perfect size to stand at and play or color. Or cook. I often drag one into the kitchen when I need more surface area, of if she'll be helping, or if the Kids Cooking Class ends up being at my house. The only downside is that her little chairs are too tall for her legs to fit under the table.)

 I found all the newer ones (not pictured) together on a display at Safeway. Super cute! Check them out! Hop N Tweet party pack, Fuzzy Bunny Combo pack (also available without picks,) Sweet Spring bunny and mini birdie baking cups (sold separately,) and the Sweet Spring Combo pack (pictured in Amazon link as well.) Plus while searching for links to these, I found the Spring Flowers ones, which they didn't have on the display. I think I didn't buy the Fuzzy Bunny set, and maybe not the Sweet Spring combo pack, but not sure about that last one... and I don't remember where I put them. Shh. Don't tell my husband! He already thinks I have too much of this stuff scattered around the house!

Food Prep:

• I cut up a stick of string cheese into nibblets, since that's her favorite right now. She hardly touches any other kind of cheese anymore.
• I used a new tool I got at Daiso to make the carrot flowers. It's a small V-shaped blade that I scrape down the side of the carrot as many times as desired to cut gouges out to make the cross-sections look like petals. MUCH easier than using the veggie cutter on every carrot coin, and also great for carrots that don't have a large enough circumference to use the veggie cutters. The Ranch is in a mini silicone cup from World Market ($3/12, if I recall correctly.)
• I used my mini butterfly cutter on some apple cross-sections, and chopped up some of the scraps into "fries." I accidentally used orange-carrot juice instead of apple juice, since I forgot I had another kind of juice in the fridge and just grabbed the first jug I saw and started pouring. Oops. Tasted fine though.
• I made tuna fish and pickle bunny-head sandwiches with one of my sandwich punches, and used a bow-shaped cutter in the handle of the punch to make pickle bows. She loves pickles, and I think she likes the tuna fish sandwiches because she gets pickles with them. The tuna has been popular enough that now we're buying cans at Costco in bulk, rather than one or two at a time. I hate anything involving tuna other than me eating it on crackers (spread by someone else,) and luckily she hasn't figured out that I am physically capable of mixing it together for her. So far I'm getting away with "Oh no! There's no more tuna! You'll have to wait for Daddy!" Luckily (for her) there was a teeeeeeeeeny tiny bit left that my husband had mixed up previously. So little, however, that I wouldn't have bothered putting it back into the fridge. But whatever. Just enough for two tiny bunny sandwiches. She chose mini sweet pickles to go with. Blech.
• I got a pack of 6 plastic carrot containers filled with candy powder from the Dollar Tree store. I bought them to dump out and re-use as sprinkle or salt containers for lunches, but figured she could have one as a special treat. She ended up clogging the powder together with her spittle too much, so when Nana started trying to break it up with a straw, Z took it back and used the straw as a dipper and to suck powder through. Now she gives me no peace. "Can I have another powder carrot Mommy? Please? I ate a bite of my lunch/used the potty/slept all night in my big girl bed. Please?"
• Using up my assorted packets of Annie's Bunnies. Her favorites are the Chocolate Chip bunnies and Cheddar Bunnies, so I'm trying to get her to finish up the Graham and Chocolate cookie bunnies first.

I didn't get to stick around too long, but I told her that she'd have to wait for Nana to decide when she'd eaten enough lunch to get the "carrot powder." I think she ended up eating most or all of the carrot flowers, a little of the sandwiches, but all the pickles out of them. Maybe some apples. The tin got knocked onto the floor soon after we got back, so we just threw the leftovers out. (And by "we" I mean "Nana." I sat on the couch like a pretty, pretty Princess) Carpets + kitties + moist-ish food = blech.

Check out the other fun Muffin Tin Meals this week!