Meal-time is the most chaotic time in our household, especially during "Witching Hour". All of you parents know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. For my household, it's between 5:00-6:30pm. This is when I'm trying to cook dinner, only to hear fussing, fighting, and crying in every single room of the house. This is when homework is trying to be done, friends are knocking on the door, and every child wants to play on the ONE laptop we own. It's exhausting.

So, how can you turn a chaotic time into family meal time? Yesterday I brought you one of my favorite things to pack for school lunches to save time. All this week, I'll be bringing you tips on how to do just that, with recipes and ideas for busy Moms during mealtime. How can you best utilize, both, your time in the kitchen AND your time with your children? Well, my 3-yr-old son and I like to turn lunchtime, into play time with Tyson Fun Nuggets.


Dinosaurs In the Jungle:

I have two Elementary age children who are in school during the day. My 3-yr-old is at home with me and when lunch time comes around he's not only craving something filling for his timmy, but he's also craving fun time with Momma. How can parents make lunch time, fun time?

Well, we like to make our time together filling by playing Make-Believe. Thanks to Tyson Dinosaur shaped nuggets it's pretty easy. Simply bake or microwave the amount of nuggets of choosing and then create the scenery.

Just yesterday I made a "Jungle" with lettuce, green onions, and tri-colored bell peppers creating the perfect "Stomping Ground" for T-Rex. Check it out:


Theme the Day:

It's fun to play Dinosaurs during lunch, but we like to take it one step further and theme the whole day. After we had a "Roaring" good lunch. We sat to watch his favorite show Dinosaur Train on PBS Kids, then we printed out coloring pages to color from the website.


How Else Can You Make Food Fun?

Your options are quite endless, but here's a few things I like to do with food to turn it into fun time:

• Use cookie cutters to make sandwich shapes. You can usually buy these at Dollar Stores for next to nothing. 
• Carve designs into apples, peaches, or tomatoes. My favorite is, you guessed it, hearts. 
• Create different faces with an Open Face sandwich. Try new thinks like soy or almond butter on the bread, pretzels as the ears, raisins for the eyes, and an apple slice for the smile. 
• Try different dipping sauces for chicken nuggets. My son LOVES when I pull out different samplings of dipping sauces such as: Bar-B-Que, Ranch, Honey Mustard, Hummus, Polynesian, or French Onion dip. 

Buy It:

You can purchase Tyson Fun-Shaped Nuggets at most grocery stores nation wide in the frozen food section. Prices vary.

Stay tuned all week long for more meal-solutions, including easy recipes using Tyson Nuggets. So, Mommas, how do you play with YOUR food?



This post made possible by Tyson Foods Inc. who provided me with a gift card to purchase chicken nuggets in order to facilitate this review. Although opinions stated are, solely, my own I am, however, compensated for my time and effort.