Lunch Time Fun Time

Lunch time... snack time... messy time...  Caleb loves to eat.  He also loves to re-arrange his food the second I put it in front of him.  It's as if the way I present it just doesn't cut it... it doesn't look good enough to eat.  In no time at all, he has food in his drink, drink in his food, food on the floor, on the walls, on the windows, sprayed over my curtains all over his face, clothes... you get the picture (if not, check this out).  While he can have his picky moments at times (as all kids do) my biggest meal time complaint is how messy he eats.  Messier than most three year olds I know.  So the other day I was checking out some new blogs (a favorite past time of mine) and stumbled across the blog another lunch.  The blog is written by a stay-at-home mom who makes super creative super fun lunches for her kids and then blogs about it!  I was inspired, and thought to myself... what would happen if I played with Caleb's food first?  Would he be more excited to eat it?  Would he still feel the desire to re-arrange his food before consumption?  Would my house stand a chance at remaining cleaner during meal time?  It was worth a try!

Trial number one... snack time this morning.  My niece and nephew joined us for snack time today... and I decided to spice it up.   If I made it more creative and fun... would they be entertained longer and stay out each other's hair long enough to eat?  Yup.  I pulled out my muffin tins and several finger food snack options and let them go to town... arranging and eating their snacks as they wanted.

Caleb's Creation

Keziah's Creation

Snack time was a smashing success.  They were entertained for quite some time... and there was not a single squabble.  How cute is this little munchkin?

Here they are hard at work... 

Poor Silas... looking on from the sidelines.  Maybe when you're 

a little bit older buddy!

Next up... Lunch time.  I don't have all the tricks of the trade for creating fun and creative lunches, but I managed to scrape together a few things to make Caleb's lunch look more fun than usual.

Caleb's eyes lit up when he found his lunch.  It was quite exciting for him... and successful!!  There was very little playing and a lot more eating.  He was so pumped to try everything since it all looked so exciting to eat... and I'll admit, I did have fun playing with his food :)  And while a bit of food still hit the floor, my kitchen didn't look like a disaster zone in the end.  Hooray!

Caleb stopped eating and paused only once during lunch time... all of a sudden he heard the theme song from Diego come on.  He didn't say a word, just sat frozen like this for a good 20 seconds until the song ended.  Then he looked at me and said so seriously... "I think I heard Diego."  Then went back to eating...

I can't really go another post without a few pictures of Emerson!  My sisters would not approve.  Here she is... growing up so fast!  Look at those chubby cheeks :)

Today she's sporting some super cool leggings.  I have legging envy today.

And hair envy.  Yes, my little girl does have a mohawk.