Muffin Tin Monday - I Love You, Orange Bunny

During a routine trip to the Dollar Tree store, Little Z happened upon some cheap, nasty-looking little stuffed bunnies. She wanted an orange one. It was $1. And we were headed to my dentist appointment right after, so I used it as a bargaining chip towards good behavior. [It worked. She sat there (mostly) quietly while I consulted with the oral surgeon and got my X-Rays. I wouldn't have taken her for a cleaning/check-up, since I can't talk to her or hold her, but this was a consult about a shadow on my previous X-Ray, and would be shorter. Plus I couldn't find a sitter.]
She calls this rabbit Orange Bunny. For a while there, I thought I'd have to go back and buy extras as back-ups, since we couldn't leave the house or go to bed without Orange Bunny. We've misplaced Orange Bunny, and she asks about her occasionally, but doesn't demand a search party anymore. But most of her drawings are either of a bunch of girls, or Orange Bunny.

The lines sticking up out of the top of the larger figure are the bunny ears. I think the lines sticking out the sides are arms and whiskers. 

The one on the egg-shaped Magna-Doodle didn't have room for ears, but she assures me that it's Orange Bunny.

Our library system has a great search function online, and they let you place holds on books and will send them to your local branch to pick up. So I searched for "orange bunny" in kids books. After sifting through a variety of books on raising rabbits and such, I stumbled upon I Love You, Bunny Rabbit.

The bunny is a yellowish orange, just like her Orange Bunny. Hooray! It's about a scruffy, stained, well-loved toy that needs to be replaced. I think the author kind of missed her mark a little, and made a bunch of it too subtle or way over their heads for kids, but Z loved the story and asked for it again and again. Basically, after trying to wash it, when the mom takes Micah to go buy a new bunny, he keeps hinting that he gets dirty all the time too. It would have been nice to see that explored more; the whole concept of "Well, I get messy, but you don't replace me." In the end the mom realized how much he loved his bunny and took him out for a milkshake instead. But the reason why she stopped pressing for him to replace Bunny Rabbit wasn't explained, or even mentioned. As I mom, I totally got it. But it was too subtle for kids. "Okay choose a new bunny" "I love you Bunny Rabbit." "Would you like to go get a milkshake?" Whaaaaaa? Even just a "But Micah's mom saw how much he loved Bunny Rabbit and blah blah blah." would have made the story make sense, for anyone not intuitive about that kind of thing. Nice pictures, fun comparisons "Oh, don't worry Bunny Rabbit. I've taken baths lots of times." And a cute premise. I give it a 6 out of 10. Maybe a 7, since she liked it so much. But I called it the Orange Bunny story, which may have biased her towards it a little.

And since I'm slowly going through the colors with my Muffin Tin Meals, and we're due for orange (plus with Easter coming up,) I thought it would be fun to do an Orange Bunny MTM.

Orange Bunny

Carrots, Ranch, cupcake, orange bunny,
PBHoney bunnies, yogurt, bunny crackers

I chose carrots because, well, duh. Bunnies love 'em, and they're orange! I used a leaf pick in the top of a carrot stick, and a silicone bunny head cup for the Ranch (Yeah. It's yellow. We can't have everything.) I opted not to color the Ranch, because... Well. Ick.

Annie's Cheddar Bunnies were also an obvious choice, and I happened to have some handy from a snack-pack assortment from Costco.

PB Honey Bunnies: Used my sandwich stampers again. I used mini confetti sprinkles for the eyes, and food writers for the hair bow and ears. I'm telling myself that peanut butter is kind of orange-ish. I was also going to use pumpkin butter, but Little Z insisted on honey.

Orange Yogurt Bunny: I had planned on using some unsweetened orange Kool-Aid mixed into Greek honey yogurt, but there was almost no yogurt left, and there was a patch of mold inside. So I threw it out and thawed a Go-Gurt (I keep them frozen so they last longer and they help keep the food cool in the lunch bag while they thaw.) I chose a pink strawberry-flavored one, squirted it into an orange silicone cup and mixed in some orange food coloring. I used a bunny shape outline to keep the non-pareils sprinkle mix in a bunny shape and mini confetti sprinkles for the eyes and nose.

Orange Orange Bunny: I used a mini orange, peeled and halved. Then I took two segments from the unused half and used half-toothpicks to hold them in place. I used food writers for the face.

Orange Bunny Cupcake: My husband made butterscotch cupcakes for his cooking blog Saturday night, so I had him make some mini ones to use in this lunch for Sunday. I had planned on using candy corn for the ears, but couldn't find where I'd put the bag, so I chopped up a jelly orange slice candy. I used icing tubes (left over from Halloween and Christmas projects) for the face.

 While I was preparing her "nunch," she was scootching her little chair around the kitchen and gazing longingly at the cupcakes. She said she wanted to put one in her lunch. My husband had some on the counter, and some in a Tupperware container. All the mini ones were in the container. So I showed her the "Z-sized ones" and told her that we'd put it in her beautiful lunch last, but that she could put it in the lunch. She then sat at the table looking longingly at the cupcake box, then cradling it in her arms.
I heard some rustling plastic, and I couldn't figure out what she could be doing, so I asked her what she was up to.
"I'm trying to sneak into the computer room with the treats."
Turns out she took the cupcake box and a baggie of candy (from one of those by-the-pound candy stores) that happened to be on the table. I finished making the face on the orange, or whatever I'd been working on at the time, and met my husband in the hallway and we went to check out what she was doing in the computer room with the door closed. Well. She'd gotten the Tupperware open and was working on forking the frosting off her third cupcake.
After we finished laughing, she was admonished and the cupcakes were yanked away.
She didn't eat much lunch.

She ate some bunny crackers, a bite of yogurt, and a carrot stick. Later, she ate a sandwich and some more crackers, carrot and some orange.


I will be linking this to Muffin Tin Mom's Muffin Tin Monday and JDaniel4's Mom's Friday Read. Explore. Learn!

Update 1/20/12 - This meal won Bento of the Week on Bento Blog Network! Check out the competition! Fierce!