LoveFeast Table

My daughter, Teapot and her bff, Anni, wanted desperately to celebrate their birthdays at the American Girl Place in New York City.  We decided to do the day up!  So, bff’s mom, made reservations to the American Girl Cafe and we invited the grandmoms!

We arrived at seating time and waited behind the ropes with a couple dozen giddy and excited girls!  The tension was rising!  As we were escorted into the American Girl Cafe, it was like walking into a life size doll house restaurant.  There were American Girl Dolls lined up with different outfits on, in case a little girl forgot her doll…she could borrow one for lunch!

We slid into our booths.

Teapot and Anni tucked their dolls into the doll chairs and ordered their Shirley Temples.

The room was girl glam with black and white stripes splashed with accessories in hot pink.  Our girls thought they had “arrived”!

The server delivered warm cinnamon buns to start!  Dessert first, my kind of place!  The second course came out on cake stands with nibbles of fruit, pretzel bites and vegetables.

The girls both ordered the Tic Tac Toe pizza, while the moms and grandmoms ordered salads and sandwiches!  (The sweet potato fries did not last long!)

The meal is finished off with little flower pots filled with chocolate mousse and a flower sugar cookie!

Lifetime memories were in the making, for all of us!  I can’t tell you how special that day was to me, to be able to spend time with my daughter, share a meal with her at her “Top of the Dream List” spot and follow behind her as she explored all the dolls and their accessories!

Teapot’s birthday was full of exploring a life size doll house full of imagination and inspiration!

This post was recently featured on Classic Play.  Editor, Jen Cooper is one of the founders and designers of Ellie Bellie Kids! Take a moment to stop at her table and see the amazing kids products! We especially love the crown that tells your kid’s story!

Often I get asked the question, “How do you get your kids to eat so well?”  It could be that they’ve been raised with good food and a variety of foods since they were young.  They were exposed early on to different flavors.  At the age of two it was pretty normal for our kids to be eating avocados and hummus.  They would quickly move onto finger foods such as baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and red peppers.  I found that if it was colorful and small and came with a dip of some sort, it would get eaten!  Little ramekins are a mom’s best friend.  It makes the food more manageable and not so overwhelming as a plate piled with food.  I’d slice grilled chicken and offer it with a dip of yogurt.  Or a favorite around here is the “snackable lunch” which is a healthier version of a pre packaged snackable.  I pull out a large platter (I have five kids) and I slice up salami or some kind of hard smoked sausage.  I also slice up hard cheddar, put out a whole grain cracker, veggies and a choice of honey mustard or peanut butter.  I pile on some grapes and strawberries or apple slices.  They each get a small plate and spend time creating their own lunches.

Another thing that I think helps children eat healthy is to give them choices.  They love to feel in control. Now, by choices I don’t mean you let them stand in front of the refrigerator at dinner and choose what you are going to make for them! I am no short order cook!  But, I do mean, when you set out a tray loaded with healthy choices, they feel in control, they don’t realize that any choice they make is a good one and they have fun eating!

I think another thing that helps my kids make good choices with their eating is I don’t have “no zones”.  So many moms I meet, that want their kids to eat healthy, don’t have a single crumb of sugar in the house.  You may think you’re controlling their world and you may very well be!  You may have compliant kids who all through their lives will take your word for it…never try the sugar and be amazingly, well balanced eaters.  Or you may have the kind of kids that the moment they hit the school cafeteria, they buddy up with the tasty cake, ho ho, Twinkie packed lunch box kid and enjoy some bad for your body stuff while you’tr not looking.  Chances are if you have multiple kids, like I do, you’ll have a mix!  So, our solution is to offer up lots of choices in the way of candy, but in small portions.

I have come up with the candy drawer, healthy snack drawer solution in my house.  The healthy snack drawer is loaded with granola bars, dried fruits, nuts, multi grain cereal bars, etc…

The candy drawer looks like this.

The drawer is kept stocked with individual size pieces of candy.  Both drawers are easy to reach.  If they are hungry they know at any time they can get a piece of fruit or vegetable without asking.  But, if they want a “snack” they ask.  I say, ‘Yes, you can have something out of the healthy drawer.”  Or if it’s after lunch, I may surprise them and say, “You can pick two things out of the candy drawer.”  And, again, they have choices without realizing I have helped them to make good ones.

When Chris Ann was in town, we decided to take the National Aquarium of Baltimore up on it’s offer to come for a visit.  Lil’ Man has been in love with fish as early as I can remember.  Finding Nemo was his favorite movies and we watched it over and over again.  So, as we headed to the Baltimore Inner Harbor, we knew we were on the hunt to find Nemo!

This summer, if you are planning a visit to Baltimore, this stop is a must!! The National Aquarium of Baltimore sits right on the water.  It is flanked by an old power plant that is now home to restaurants like Hard Rock Cafe and ESPN Zone.  There is also a submarine you can explore and water taxis that will take you all around the Baltimore Inner Harbor!

Lil’ Man waited patiently until the doors opened.

One of the first things you see when you arrive at the Baltimore National Aquarium is a large tank full of sting rays, sword fish and other large, beautiful fish.

Being so close to creatures that are foreign to our regular routine, was absolutely mesmerizing.

Lil’ Man loved the sharks!  We stood there for a while and fielded his many questions!

We ventured on to see the other sights the Baltimore Aquarium had to offer, still in search of Nemo!

Wandering from tank to tank, a certain cadence and calm set in.  The underwater world is amazing! At one point, we pulled aside one of the workers to ask if what we were seeing was real.  He laughed!
“Everything you see is real and living!”  Some of the colors are so bright and vivid, one would think they were spray painted or embellished!

Lil’ Man began to ask about the dolphins, because he knew we were going to see the dolphin show!  We headed down the long breezeway that gives you an amazing view of the Inner Harbor.  We settled into our seats, a number of rows back…because if you sit too close, your sure to get wet!

Chris Ann and I weren’t the only ones mesmerized!

There were a few people I overheard, saying they thought the show was too short.  I disagree.  As a mom of a toddler, I thought the length of the show was just right.  He was riveted the entire time and never lost interest.  He wanted to know how the dolphins jump, where they live, if we could touch them and many more questions!

The final exhibit, I had heard so much about, was the Jellyfish Exhibit.  The National Aquarium, in my opinion, saved the best for last!  These little beauties were exotic and really reminded me of a living painting!  They were fluid and soft.  Their colors in contrast to their surroundings were breathtaking!  I don’t think our photos do them justice!  So, if you are in Baltimore, you have to take our word for it, and go see this exhibit!

Before we knew it, we had spent hours at the Aquarium!  We didn’t even get to see it all!  They also have a new 4D Immersion Theater where you are brought closer to sights, sounds and smells!  You will even experience wind and mist.  I’d like to plan another trip with all my kids!  I think even my teenagers would enjoy this!

We stopped by the gift shop and in true Chris Ann and Kristin fashion, we hunted for anything fancy!  Of course we found a few items worthy!  What a great way to bring the ocean to your Table!

Oh! I almost forgot, we did find Nemo, so our trip was a complete success!

Yeah, so we’ve decided there needs to be a new genre for bloggers…The FooMama Style!  You see, LoveFeast Table is a food blog.  We talk about food, the conversations that happen at the table, food memories, the people who join us at the table and food toys!  But, we also happen to be Mamas!  There are 9 kids between us, so we are definitely qualified to be “Mommy Bloggers”.  At the same time, we are both artists and we love anything that sparks our imaginations or strikes our fancies.  So, we think, if you want to throw us in a category…a genre…we would fall in the “FooMamas Style” blogging category.

Being a FooMama, I just wanted to share a little snapshot of my Lil’ Man.  I asked him the other day what he wanted for breakfast.  He answered, “Pickles and olives.”

That’s what I gave him…in FooMama Fashion!

What other new blogging genres do you think we need?