"Choo Choo" Lunch

Remember, in my last post, how I mentioned that cookie cutters work wonders for your kid's lunch? Well, here is a little example...

Hans never particularly liked sandwiches. We've learned a couple of tricks to help him out a little.

One, he'll be a little more apt to eating the sandwich if it's warmed up. We were tipped off on this fact when we realized he doesn't like sandwiches, yet looooves grilled cheese sandwiches....so, throw the turkey/cheese sandwich in the microwave for 10 seconds and voila.

Second, his imagination has just been running wild lately. He loves pretending with his toys and we've discovered that we can get him to eat (and do) quite a few things he wouldn't normally eat (or do) if we pretend something is a car or truck, or bulldozer, or airplane, or helicopter, etc. You get the picture. For example, the other night, Hans wouldn't touch his baked beans. He brought them up to his lips in the beginning and then decided that is not what he wanted with his pulled pork for dinner. I was thinking, "how in the world could we make this dinner into some sort of truck- thing?". Then, duh, it dawned on me....stay with me here...the fork is a "bull dozer" and it had to get all of the baked beans, or "boulders" into the "cave" or mouth....yep.....totally did the trick! Hans ate up his entire dinner!! That's not the only time this type of trick has worked. We've gotten him to eat a few different vegetables this way. Tom and I were never allowed to play with our food growing up and we're still teaching good table side manners, but allowing the occasional bull dozer over for dinner to get your toddler to eat is okay with us!

And, it doesn't end at dinner time. When we can't get him to cooperate to get ready for bed, we just take his cars and talk to him with his cars and he listens to them and says, "ok, night night time."! Oh the vivid imagination of a 2 year old!

Keeping the sandwich eating tips in mind, we had a choo-errific lunch today!

Throw on an engineer's hat and you're set. "All aboard!"

Apparently I don't have to try too hard on creating realistic shapes for him to eat. After he finished off the entire train, I gave him the rest of the sandwich that was remaining after cutting out the train. Really, they were just scraps. When I put them on his plate, he exclaims with excitement, "Oh, a helicopter!!!!!". And, after he finished that, he says, "More helicopter please!". Haha!

On another note, Caroline is getting so big and growing out of her clothes so quickly!! I have been thinking that I was short on her current size and then the other day I uncovered one big bin and HUGE bag of clothes that I had overlooked from my nieces....we're talking serious mountain of clothing- it's awesome!!! I've been having so much fun going through all of the darling clothes. We are so so fortunate!

Isn't she cute?!

I love her expression in this one...

Of course, when you glance her way, you get a great big grin. She is All smiles All the time!

Oh I just love being with these kids.