Fun with Food

Leah P. asked me to share with you how we have fun with our food at the Potter house. I have 5 kids under the age of 7. My mom used to do fun things with our food sometimes when I was a kid. She'd make green shamrock pancakes on St. Patrick's Day, cut faces in our bologna and arrange our fruit in flower shapes. So when my son was around 3 it seemed only natural to make his sandwiches into faces.

You often hear that getting your kids involved in making their meals will make it more likely that they'll eat them. I have found this to be true. You would not believe the fun they have eating a "picture" piece by piece. "I ate his eye ball, Mom!" "My guy has no nose!" They love it. I've gotten my kids to unwittingly eat some foods they were not so fond of this way.

Below is a slideshow of some examples of our adventures with food. As I went through my photos looking for these I realized it may appear that my kids eat only sandwiches, pretzels and grapes—not so.

A friend of mine showed me this blog. This mom really goes all out for her kids's lunches. I keep it pretty simple. She has a lot of good examples of healthy/organic foods to use.

Here's a few things to remember:

• Keep it simple. It's not like you have to get special foods, just use what you have in a creative way.

• Never underestimate the number of ways you can cut a sandwich or arrange it on a plate.

• Fruit can be cut so many different ways.

• Cookie cutters are not just for cookies.

• It doesn't have to be wasteful to cut sandwiches into shapes. I usually eat the remnants for my lunch or feed them to the baby who needs his cut up anyway.

• This is a great "cool mom" thing to do when you're babysitting or your kids have little friends over.

Check these pics out and get inspired to have fun with your food!

here's a link to the snow ice cream recipe.