When he was small, my youngest son had a habit of filling his pockets with treasures he encountered in his daily adventures. I didn't always understand the value he saw in his chosen objects -- really, how many rocks and sticks could one boy keep? In his eyes, though, each one was beautiful and important. Life is just like that on a larger scale, isn't it? We gather up the precious bits of our experiences and save them all to learn from and enjoy later. Perhaps you'll find a little something here that you'd like to keep in your own pockets. Thanks for visiting.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Creativity... with a crunch!

One of the (many) things I love about summer holidays is the long stretches of time the boys and I have to do whatever we feel like doing. We've had some desperately needed rain off and on yesterday and today, and after having been away from home for ten days, Noah and Will have been very content busying themselves with creative projects inside. They've built an impressive joint Lego project to enter into a contest from the Lego magazine; Noah has been rigging up an automatic door opening system for his bedroom, and Will has been constructing model cars out of toothpaste boxes and plastic straws. Apparently, even Maggie the cat was feeling creatively inspired this morning:


Today I thought I'd add in some imaginative fun with food, too. I made some toast, spread it with nut butter, and let the boys go wild piling it high with healthy "toppings" from little bowls in the centre of the kitchen table. It's a craft... it's lunch... it's toast pizza! I did this little project with them once before and it was a huge hit, despite the fact that it was ridiculously simple. Funny how sometimes you don't even have to try very hard to win your children's admiration!

To make your own toast pizzas, you will need:

1 or 2 slices of toast per child (I use Silver Hills Sprouted Bakery Squirrelly Bread for Noah and Organic Works Brown Rice Bread for Will -- it's gluten-free bread that actually tastes and feels like bread!)

peanut butter or almond butter (I use natural nut butters with no added sugar or salt)

thinly sliced apples, banana slices, fresh blueberries, raspberries and/or strawberries, raisins or fruit-juice sweetened dried cranberries, unsweetened shredded coconut, rice crisps or oat circle cereal, mini dark chocolate chips, or other healthy small-sized foods to use for toppings

Provide your children with their own plate of toast each (with a side of fresh raw veggies) and watch them build (and then devour!) their masterpieces.





Noah and Will said this was definitely "the best lunch ever!". I hope your kids think so too!

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