Mr Pumpkin Cat

I had never tasted pumpkin before I came to Australia. Where I'm from, we don't really eat much pumpkin or sweet potatoes (at least in my family we never ate it)
Some call it cow food, but me, I love it!
Its the first meals my kids had, and I love creamy pumpkin soup!

I simply steam pumpkin (sliced up with skin on) and garlic till the pumpkin is soft and easy to peel.
(For one half butternut or kent pumpkin, I use 5 garlic cloves)
And then I put it all in a blender with salt and pepper (or just salt) and add 1/4 cup milk and whizz around.
Now thats a creamy pumpkin soup right there. Yum!

There is endless possibilities with pumpkin soup.
Add sweet potato and carrot!
Or/and some red onion!
Mmmm!
Replace the milk with some thick cream or creme fraise if your having guests over or just feel you deserve something extra...

Serve with salad on the side.
Or some bread.

Delicious!

Oh: and here are some more ideas on how to serve it up for the kiddoes :)

What I do :)

There is so many who make foodart now; a lot of very clever and creative cooks.
Some make bento boxes for their kids (lunchboxes), some make amazing food art, some make lunches and dinners.
There is a huge variety of foodart going on these days!

What I do is just very simple and edible to a child. And anyone with basic knife skills can make what I make without any special tools, in about 5-15minutes.
I use these items:

-1 knife,
-toothpicks,
-scissors,
-(at random and rarely) I use a decorating kit.
-Sometimes some round things for making round shaped eyes or something.
I use glasses or the backside of the nozzles for my food decorating bottles.
I'm sure you have all you need in your kitchen!

On occasion, I use sandwich cutters, and they will always be in the blog with a link to where you can buy them.
I love cutters and the possibilities and the simplicity they provide.
I use them over and over.
They are great for melons and fruits, cookies and sandwiches alike.:

I love this hobby :)

Pac-man grilled cheese sandwich

Super easy and cute breakfast for a little boy or a gamer-boyfriend/hubby :)

Took about 5 min to cut out the Clyde sandwich with mushroom/olive etes and the pac-man who is just a slice of cheese with olive for eyes.

Then in the grill for about 4 minutes till the cheese is melted!

The simple joys in life <3 

Lil miss Easter-bunny

She is made of quite sticky rice, tomatoe (nose and butterflies) cucumber (bow), olive (eyes), apple (teeth and butterfly bodies.

Just shape the cooled down rice and add the tiny details.

This is super easy and makes dinner so much more fun, although I generally do all the other meals 

Norwegian or English?! Or both?

Hi!
I was just wondering if it would be best for me to write in norwegian, english or both!?
It comes natural for me to think and breathe my second language (which is English) as it is the language that surrounds me on a daily basis...
But norwegian is the language I know the best. After all, I spent my first 26 years there.
I see a lot of norwegian bloggers writing double, which is fine for me too, but it is also double the work: so I wont switch to doing both unless I feel that there is a need for it.
So. Let me know!
Which language should I write in?
Id really love to know and Id appreciate if you took the time to comment below. Thank you xxx
Carrie

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Balloon girl

The other day I bought Calvin a big punching balloon. Their just extra big and strong balloons with a rubber band in one end. He loved it!

He ran around like a crazy lil monkey the whole evening! Jumped with it on the trampoline and had a good deal of fun. Then he fell asleep with it next to him.
So then i got to thinking of Banksy's girl with the balloon and decided to made my own version. But instead of one balloon, she has many.

Calvin loves balloons so eating this took forever, as everytime we handed him a 'balloon' (because he kept staring at it without eating it) he just put it back in its place. When he had stared at it long enough, he put (almost) all the ~balloons~ in his mouth in one go and ate them all.

Toddlers!

Whats your toddlers favorite toy?

Passion for passionfruit

These are made of passionfruit.

Its a very fun fruit to make dotted yellow animals with :)
I simply shape the animal with my finger or q-tip.
And wipe away excess moisture with a paper towel.
Simple as pie :)

Whats your favorite dotted animal?

Monkey Prince!

Babies are undoubtfully very monkey-like, with their reflexes like the arms that shoot up in the air with a loud noise, and the ability to make steps from early on and the sucking on the big toe... but some just hold on to their monkey-ness forever.
Calvin is definitely a monkey!
Here is the snack of today.

Its simply a little monkey prince made from ricecakes and garlic baguettinis, somecheese and some berries. pretty basic and very pleasing to little monkeys!

The reason for him getting a monkey today?

He has a little girlfriend next door and the other day, he actually jumped a 2,10metre high fence to get to hang out with her! He landed on his feet and was completely fine! *shivers* how scary is that? (He doesn't turn 3 till november!)
They have been talking through the fence for a really long time, but I never thought he would actually jump over.
Now he cant be out on the deck by himself anymore.

He amazes me!
Does all 2 year olds do these things? These incredibly bold acrobatics?
Im turning into a nervous wreck!!
(Not really, but I totally could!)

xxx

Bunny bunbun fail!

Did you see the picture of bunnies on facebook? It was bun-bunnies and they looked fab. Simple enough for me, I reckoned!
So, I put my baking gloves on (no, not really) and decided to try, but I was not impressed with my buns or my bunnies, so I won't post a recipe.
I need to try to make these again, preferably successfully and better looking.
However; i made them look cute on the plate and they are most definitely edible, so nothing goes to waste!
I bet'cha the next batch will be amazing, as I think I figured these bunnies out! Hang on for my amazing result later this week (so hopeful!)

And we all learn best through trial and error!
(Yes. Even grown ups)

What was your biggest baking blooper?
I have done quite a few as Im brave and bold in the kitchen: but terrible with recipes!!
Once I was going to make wonderful looking cupcakes with super amazing frosting: made the cupcakes, all good. Then i made the frosting.
With the same recipe I used for the muffins! Ha! Terrible!!

Have a lovely day.
xxx
Carrie

Somewhere over the rainbow, cake pops!

Hey all :)

Wow, what a month I've had!
1500+ followers on instagram in less than a month! 500 in less than a day! Incredibly humbled and happy and thankful and surprised!

Yesterday I decided to pop my cake pop virginity!
I am pretty strict with sugar and wheat intake for myself and sugar intake for my little dude, but with easter finally here, I decided to make an organic alternative to all the candy that comes along with Easter.

Intro: cake pops!

I have always liked the idea of rainbow colored cupcakes and cakes and all; we've all seen them on pintrest and instagram and they look divine. I can usually only think about all the food coloring and it is a major turn off to me. Cakes and sugar is aswell...
But I got lured into making some totally yummy and cute cake pops and put my foodie self to the side for a little. After all: sometimes we (I, atleast) should remember what childhood is all about: fun and trying new things! And also, sometimes, let go of the rules.
And what do you know? They are totally worth it! So yummy and cute.

I totally used this womans step-by-step but I used my own muffin recipe.
You should definitely check out her blogg as shes fantastic and I dont even hold a candle to her talent!

I made my normal vanilla cupcakes:
-2 cups 3 times sifted plain flour
-1tsp baking powder
-1tsp bi-carb (natron)
-2tbs butter (soft)
-1/2 cup sugar
-2 eggs
-Vanilla bean
-1 cup milk

I add the flour, bi-carb and baking powder finely sifted together, into a bowl with sugar and butter. Then i mix with my (super clean and dry) hands till its all crumbly.
(You can use machines for this, but it is, in all honesty, no need :)
Then i added the eggs and milk, vanilla and stirred with a silicone spoon.
Then i took out 6 bowls and divided the batter quite equally in the different bowls. Add the food colors of your choice (you can get gels, powder liquids, you can get natural and artificial colors... I always go for the natural organic of everything where available but thats a personal choice) I used:
red,
red+yellow=orange,
yellow+blue=green,
yellow,
blue,
blue+red=purple

I made mine very very pastelly, but could have added a little more. The colors fade a tiny bit in the baking process...

Then i put them in their cups, separately (just 2 cups of each color)

(I took the leftover batter and made mixed colored muffins of the rest :)

And put them in the oven on 180 degrees celcius (356 degrees farenheit)
Till they look done. Approx 10 min. But that depends on stoves so just keep an eye on them the first time.

Leave to cool!

Use your freshly cleaned bowls from earlier and crumble one color of cupcake in each bowl.
(Eg 6 bowls of 6 different colors of crumbeled cake)
And add a frosting mix to the bowls
(maybe a tbs pr bowl. You need to work your way to the best result here...)
Make little balls with the different colors and put on a tray that you stick in the fridge for 30 min or till they set.

Then you melt your white chocolate
(i used white chocolate melts as they dont get hard so quickly ~you need melted chocolate not used-to-be-melted-but-is-now-super-lumpy chocolate) in the microwave and add food coloring to it. I used blue for the sky.

Add the sticks to your cooled down cakepopsballs and dip/drown in chocolate. Let a bit drip of before you place them in an upright position. Here you can use a cake pop tray.

Into the fridge to set after their done dripping :)

Then you cut your mini marchmallows to clouds and color code your mini m's so you dont have to deal with it all at once.
Now its just a matter if decorating.
~Which is the fun and messy part!:

Use the left over chocolate as glue :)

And viola!

As a side note: I will try to make my own very healthy cake pop recipe, so hang tight if your not into sugar and wheat.
My next cake pop will be a raw chocolate one, with no food colors or artificial-ness :)

Have a wonderful day! xxx

Baby baby baby(chino)!

Little fox. Or dog. Or bear. Or cat.
Calvin guessed them all :)

Im gonna practise this skill ;)

Camilla Pihl and Rilakkuma

This morning when I woke up, I logged on my facebook and I had this link posted several times by friends of mine.
Camillas post about me
Turns out, the magnificent Camilla Pihl
shared my instagram with her readers! That was beyond cool! Made me humble and very grateful.
Thank you Camilla!

In turn, I made Calvin a breakfast sandwich inspired by Camillas iphone cover.

Here is the result :)

Its a almondbutter sandwich, with blueberries, apple, banana clouds and mango-sun. Butterflies of strawberry and apple. Yum :)

Plum Ponyo

We used the first 25 minutes of Ponyo as Calvins bedtimestory for about a year. It worked beautifully. The intro-song is so lovely and made him so sleepy. We have left movie-bedtimes behind and are now reading but he still loves Ponyo! Infact, he loves red heads! Ariel (Little mermaid), Ponyo and Merida (brave).

I think Ponyo is absolutely fantastic!
And this is my homage to the sweetest little girl!

She is made of peach (for face), red plum (for hair and dress), strawberry fins and the rest is sugar plum/plum jelly fish, pineapplesunrays, kiwi and sugarplum seaweeds and grapes as seafloor. Her eyes are almonds and offcuts of plumskin.
Everything is just cut to shape quite easily. The almond eyes took some time to get similar, but the rest was a breeze.

I hope you like her.

If you haven't seen Ponyo, you can see a little here: Ponyo On Youtube

Or buy the movie here.

Totoro!

My son loves Totoro, and has since he was really small!
The intro song makes him jump with joy and he shriek's along with Satski and Mei.
Our daughter Willow was named after Mei, only we chose to write it differently.

Totoro is made of Cinnamon ricepudding, which is why he is fittingly grey-ish <3 data-blogger-escaped-br=""> Made to shape. Cut the sultanas for the nose and eyes and whiskers
~ almond as the eyeballs.
Raining blueberries.
Standing on grape-grass.
Watermelon umbrella.

Ooooh how yummy this dessert was!

We LOVE Totoro!

The three little piggies

Built a house of sultanas, with kiwigrassroof and kiwigrass.
A banana sun with nectarine rays, and 3 hand cut pigs.
Very easily cut a deep chunk shaped like the head, and cut it in 3 pieces so it was 3 quite identical heads. Oval body shapes and grapepeel tails and snout holes. Eyes of sultana.

Im sure they were safe from the wolf, but not from Calvin who ate them up one after another ;)

I read on the picture my husband posted on reddit (the cute puppydog sandwich) that my son would become roothless since he could eat cute little puppies... Im pretty sure my son is bright enough to know the difference in cheese and real dogs... Don't ever underestimate 2,5 year olds! ;)

Peace.

1-2-3

Counting is a favourite past-time!
Calvin can now count to 10 but sometimes mixes the numbers a little.
He seems to always skip number 1 though. Goes straight to 2!

We found that Winnie the Pooh's 1-2-3 movie was fantastic to learn to count with

And you can get the movie here. 

Almond Bunny

Smelling a little flower.

A little Thumper inspired. Or little nutbrown hare. Or Peter Rabbit. 

All very beautiful bunnies, popular with the kiddoes :)
We read these as bedtime stories almost every night. 

  

I use organic raw almonds as they have the highest nutritional value. 

Like these

Worlds greatest animals

*trunksounds*

I used my lunch punch cutter on watermelon.
Then i made the palm with kiwi leaves, grape coconuts and mangotrunk.
Grape ground and strawberry butterflies. Everything is allowed in our little imaginary world <3
But in the real world, the elephants suffer.
They are used for circuses and they are being hunted for their ivory.

elephantconservation.org

Thank you <3

Almond Squirrel

As cute as can be!!

I love squirrels. Or chipmunks.

Do you know the difference between the two?

I used organic almonds. Like these ones.

Baa baa black sheep

Have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full..."
I sing the song and he learns. He points out what everything is.

C: "Sheep"
M: "What does the sheep say?"
C: "Baaa!"
M: "What's that?"
C: "Flower"
M: "And this?"
C: "Star"
(he calls the sun, "star" and since he is correct in doing so, i dont correct him <3 data-blogger-escaped-br="">

Grape wool, banana head, kiwi grass, strawberry flowers and Nectarine sun.

Calvin rearranged this whole picture before he ate it (and i think he liked his own version better!)
It was a good dessert before bedtime.

Healthy yummy treats are always appreciated with us :)

Sneaky fox!

Yummy sandwich!

I just put almondbutter on a sandwich and cut to shape. Blueberry eyes and grape nose and a bit of greek yoghurt to make the snout white.
Strawberry ears, kiwi grass and a little chia-strawberry ladybug :)

Enjoy :)) 

Have a lovely day, Deer.

Deer baby.

Made from almonds and sultanas.

I love making these so much!
I cut the almonds in half.
Thats pretty much it :)
Great snack and awesome way to get kids to eat the good stuff ;)

Does you kids like nuts and seeds?
Calvin likes seeds alot. And sultanas. And some nuts: pistacchio is a fav :)

I use organic yummy almonds, like these

VW

Volkswagen oldschool van.
Sandwich style!

I put cream cheese on a slice of bread and just cut it to shape (not too happy with this one, might try again!)
And then i cut the cheese to shape. The VW circle was tricky, and is not perfect. Need to practice this!
The bumper and windows are apples, the clouds are cheese and the surfboard is zuccini.

Yum yum in the tum!

All you need is love!

And a white peach and a sharp knife!

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Smily faces!

I love smiles!

And this is a great way to play with food and teach emotions at the same time!
All you need is an orange, some black grapes, a sugarsnappea and a strawberry.

Have fun (blowkiss)

0,5!

Our daughter Willow turned 6 months the other day and it was celebrated with a greek yoghurt sandwich shaped like a cupcake!

I am a bit strict with regards to sugar intake and try to keep it at a minimum. Calvin gets a tiny little bit of candy on saturdays, but during the rest of the week he is not getting much sugar at all. A lot of the reason is that he is very difficult with the toothbrushing. Another is that it is great to have some rules around sugar intake for kids.

Whay is your rules around sugar?
Do you have any rules that you just dont budge on that others might find strange or interesting?

Almond bird

I am now a big fan of almond/nut art!
Will definitely be doing more of these.

Do you like them?

Wishing you a lovely day or night.
xx

Im a big fan of organic Raw almonds. 

Yum!

Too much passion!

Blah!

This is a passionfruit that was just too full of himself!

I cut his face out as you would a pumkin. Very fun :) the boy loved it and is still playing with the head!

Be Brave!

Merida from Brave.

We don't let Calvin watch too full on movies (like cars 2 and brave for example!) but there are some parts in those movies that are really cute that he gets to see. Do you screen your kids movies too?

This is just a simple sandwich with grated carrot hair, zuccini cut eyes, cheese face, capsicum lips and lettuce and zuccini body. Cheese stars and zuccini bow and arrow.

It looks far more complicated than it is. I will put together a tutorial for cutting eyes eventually, but thats easy. :)

Sometimes when my son wakes up from his afternoon nap, he is super cranky. And sometimes i have lunch ready and he forgets his crankiness and sits down to eat instead.
Well, not THAT day! Merida ended up on the floor. Poor girl.

Atleast she was brave ;) 

   

Almond Apple tree

Almond snacking is so good for you and super yummy!
This art is truly making us eat more of these amazing goodies.

Birdie birdie (+4)

This is two birds on a stroll.

The big bird is made up of a banana sandwich and Mango beek and blueberry eye.
The smaller bird is made of pineapple with strawberry wings and blueberry eye.
Decorated with strawberry butterflies and kiwi flowers. The ground is sliced apple.

Bananasandwiches rock!
Go bananas!

A puuuuurfect morning

Good morning everyone.

This cute little kitty cat was inspired by www.instagram/pomverte 's beautiful and delicate kitten. She is truly inspirational.

Its pretty much just vanilla riceporridge in a cup.
Decorated with blueberries and apples for the cat, peach moon and stars and grass of grapes.
Will take you about 5 minutes to put together.
It inspired my son to make his very own picture.
I love how he can just rearrange the pictures i make for him and make his own. Very cute :)

Have a lovely day. Or night.

Rainbow xylophone

Calvin ate the whole plate all by himself! He left the watermelon and blueberries, which is his favorite fruit. Why? I have no idea? Maybe because he discovered some new fruit? He never liked rockmelon before I began using it with these meals, same with pineapple. And banana has always been a bit of a struggle too... It all went straight down!

Whats your childs favorite fruit?

Pink little dolphin

I made Calvin a pink dolphin as luch the other day. With the lunchpunch critters cutters. And I made a sun out of apple and placed on top of the rice pudding leftovers from the day before.
Blueberries for ocean and Strawberry butterflies with apple bodies.

He loved it but had no time to eat it.
An hour later it all went down within a few minutes.

Does your toddler do this to? Eat when they want! Do you let them?

This is the cutter set I used for my dolphin

 Xxx 

Pip pip said the baby birdie (2+)

This is a veggie platter.
Little birds in a nest.
Very easy to make.

I used alfalfa as the nest, cut carrots for the beeks, Capsicum for leaves (and inside the middle birds beek too), almonds as branch and a lemon as the sun. Capsicum birdies :)

My son does not love raw veg which is why we are working on it.
He did taste it all, but this was mainly the mommas food :)

I dont know what happened with my son and his eating habits: but all of a sudden he just stopped eating raw veg. A boy who loved avocado, stopped even trying it. Raw carrots used to be a snack, now he wont touch it unless grated or in a cooked meal. He still wolves down cucumbers! :) i hear that sone toddlers develope a sensitive taste to bitter foods... I am willing to bet that is whats up...
My husband posted the puppy photo on reddit and said it was how i got my son to eat veges (veggies) but its more an attempt to make him try it and get used to it. It created a massive discussion with regards to veggies and little kids... I guess we all do what we think will work for us. We can only do our best <3
http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/19mvl7/this_is_how_my_wife_is_getting_our_2_year_old_to/

My son made his own foodart on the table. A moon and birdies.
(i know it was the moon as he said "moon" repeatedly while placing it on the table)

-monkey see, monkey do! 

Happy face

Sometimes we share the breakfast!
Just because it is easier.
Ricepudding decorated with yummy fruit in a fred bowl with a fred spoon.

Cinnamon on top :)

This is my sons spilt milk cereal bowl