Malteasers slice

My husband and I went to see "Cuban Fury" on a recent date night and Nick Frost makes a random comment about white chocolate malteasers, which automatically makes them next on my list of treats to devour. Being suggestible and pregnant is not a good combination, especially when our local supermarket seem to be lacking in their stock of white chocolate malteasers!

Searching the Internet for a suitable substitute I discovered a recipe from Mum's Lounge for a delicious Malteasers Slice!  (http://www.mumslounge.com.au/entertainment/food/2429-malteser-slice.html)

Yummy!

I love how ingredient list allows for snacking on malteasers as you go, otherwise my slice would have been sorely lacking once I munched on my fill. 

 

 

Chocolate alternatives for easter: Sidewalk chalks

My little one loves her egg shaped sidewalk chalks so much that I picked up some for my nieces and nephew for Easter this year. I just adore the pastel colours and cutesy egg carton container! I found shape of the chalk was ideal for little hands and my little one was easily able to cup the chalk in her palm and decorate our driveway! Daddy loves coming home from work to see what new art has been created that day.

 

 

 

Easter basket for a toddler

My toddler loves chocolate already, Oreo's are her favourite. We have been very lucky and been given little chocolate eggs every time we visit the shops and my little one carefully peels her egg and savours it for ages. Chocolate covers everything and her little smile is contagious, luckily the sugar rush is manageable. Easter will be a bombardment of chocolate if we are not careful, so I have been looking at chocolate alternatives to balance the sugar overload.

Some of my research, aka google searches, have shown little baskets of gifts as a popular alternative. Here are some of the ideas I found:

• Baskets full of healthy treats
• Basket of gifts with a theme of a favourite cartoon character
• Baskets with the daily essentials like PJ's, slippers and tooth brushes
• Baskets with craft activity supplies. 
• Baskets with religious items like a new bible

I decided on a Sesame Street themed basket and combined a lot of different items; I found an Elmo Easter parade book, Rosita plush, Elmo PJ's, some stickers and hair clips that I could put in little plastic eggs and will add a few little chocolate eggs and chocolate bunny. I am still contemplating adding a new toothbrush to the basket, but have not quite decided yet.

Oh, and finding little plastic eggs was a nightmare! Pinterest would have me believe that they just grow on trees, reality was much different! I had nearly given up on finding plastic egg cases before I found these ones in a stationary store.

 

Egg Carton Easter Baskets

Easter is approaching and its time for craft! Time to pull out the poster paint, egg cartons, painting tarp and get messy! This year we are making Easter Baskets for relatives and friends, which we will fill with chocolate eggs and goodies. I set up a tarp over the old coffee table that I had in storage in the garage and it was the perfect height for my little one to stand at and paint. It was so fun to see how enthusiastic she became mixing colours and decorating her egg carton masterpieces!

 

 

 

 

Can not wait to visit everyone and let my little bunny share her treats with everyone!

Easter crafts and individual peculiarities

My husband did crafts with our little one today, it was nice that he was able to have some special art time with her. Since Easter is coming up and we have copious amounts of cotton balls (more than any person may go through in their lifetime), a fluffy bunny picture was planned.

I left my favourite pair to their crafting fun and got some gardening done. I was surprised to see my little one peering out from the window to watch me gardening soon after I left and wondered how crafting with Daddy was so quick. It made me giggle to think of impossibility of our toddler being rushed through the fun of smooshing things in glue.

Later once my task in the garden was done I searched out my little family and I asked how their crafting went. My husband laughed and explained that it was going well until our little one accidentally got glue on her hands and then some cotton ball fluff attached itself to her. He explained she got so overwhelmed wiping the fluff off with one hand only to have transferred it to the other that she was stuck in an endless loop.  

Lunch Ideas: Cruskits

An old favourite! Cheese and tomato slices on Cruskits sprinkled with black pepper. My little one devoured the tomato in record time and I ended up having to share the tomato from my Cruskits!

Lunch Ideas: Omelette triangles

Today's lunch was a sneaky attempt of adding some more vegetables to my little ones diet.

I bought one of those frozen cubed vegetable bags and it lives in the freezer as an easy filler for lunches/snacks/dinners. I could claim that I make my own diced variety from fresh vegetables, but lets face it, I'm not that amazing. I usually avoid the kitchen at all costs, but there are moments where I wish I was super organised and had fresh options. My little one does not notice whether I had help from Coles or whether I spent an entire afternoon stocking the freezer, so I spend more time thinking up ways of filling her little belly with yummy meals to make up for those moments I spend wishing I was a super mamma.

Lunch was a mix of egg, diced vegetables, diced frankfurter and grated cheese. Cooked, cooled in the fridge and served in toddler friendly triangles.

Lunch ideas: Salad Rolls

My little one helped prepare lunch today, she dragged a chair up to the kitchen bench and started eating before I even had a chance to put together our salad rolls! I sliced large chunks of tomato, cheese and meat, then finely sliced lettuce and onion. Glued together with a smidge of mayonnaise and Ta-da! Yummy salad rolls!

Rolls are lots of fun for toddlers, they are big enough to easily grab in two hands and eat as a whole thing or a fun finger food dish. My little one decided to taste all her toppings individually then she had a blast putting the last of the toppings back on the bun and finishing up with a traditional roll. I think the bite of diced onion made her eyes pop a little, but she kept going back for more.

The recycling man and his truck

Apparently trucks and cars are fascinating even from a young age. My little one runs to the window in excitement whenever she hears the recycling mans truck coming down the street. She climbs the couch, standing on tiptoes to wave to him as he goes by.

This morning I had a few bags of recycling to take to the curb and could already hear the trucks coming. I gave a bag to my little one and we took the recycling to the bins. We each had bags to carry so we were not holding hands close to the road, and normally this kind of freedom would mean she would be running to explore. Luckily there must be a tiny bit of caution in her little bones and she stayed close. 

We got all the recycling in the bins and she kept peeking from around my legs to try to see the truck. I decided we could wait at the fence and wave. Little arms wrapped around my neck, she leaned as far forward as possible and her little face lit up with excitement as the truck came closer. She waved to the recycling man and he waved back. More excitement. Fascination came next when the truck scooped up the bin and tipped it inside. A few more waves and the recycling man and his truck disappeared. 

I am constantly amazed at how such mundane, everyday things are so amazing to my little one. Such happiness and joy from waving to the recycling man, checking out his truck up close and just having a new experience.

Lunch Ideas: Mini Pizza

Oh no! Basically out of all my staple food items for lunch, what to do?!?! I rummaged through the freezer and found a measly two mini pizza bases. Would it even suffice!?!?! Chopping up a tomato, dicing onion, grating cheese and then a minute or so in the oven to warm everything up nicely. Yummy!