kids in the kitchen - mini pizzas

Recently I have been reliving the days of when the kids were pre-schoolers and I remember all those fun times in the kitchen, making snacks or lunch or whatever! (I have been going through some "my babies are not babies anymore" moments lately!!)

I have a lot of documented time in the kitchen with Mikayla (her little brother wasn't quite the age to be in the kitchen as a helper!) like when we made Homemade Waffles, Banana Muffins, or Cool Whip Sandwiches. Seriously...click on some of those links and your heart will melt with that sweet little baby face who is now almost 7 years old!!

Well, I thought today it would be little brother's turn to be my kitchen helper. We've done plenty of this over the last couple of years (and especially recently), but today I picked up the camera to document him making one of his favorite lunches. Right now Austin goes to preschool (Jr. Kindergarten) 4 mornings a week, but he is home in time for lunch, so we get to enjoy the afternoon together. We try to do some fun things together just him and I right when he gets home and cooking in the kitchen usually happens once a week!

Mini Pizzas

• English muffins
• pizza squeeze (we love the Contadina pizza squeeze)
• shredded cheese
• toppings ~ our favorites are turkey pepperoni and olives

Step One:

Squeeze the pizza sauce onto the English muffins.

Step Two:

Using the back of a spoon, spread the pizza sauce over the English muffins.

Step Three:

Sprinkle on the cheese.

Step Four:

Add your toppings. And, in true Austin-fashion he decided to make pizza faces.

Pizza faces ready for the toaster oven.

Step 5:

Carefully walk them to the toaster oven (yes, I did say to him carefully)...

...and then this happened!

{Let me just pause for a moment to say that had this been 2 or 3 years ago, I may have just freaked out a little and thought this was a major catastrophe. But, guess what? Not anymore! I've learned that life's too short to cry over spilt milk...or in this case pizza on the floor. We just scooped it up, turned it over, added a little more cheese, put the face back together, and into the toaster oven it went.}

Step 6:
Let the cheese melt in the toaster oven until nice and crisp.

Step 7:
Put a smile on  your face and enjoy!

And before I could get the apples cut and on the plate, Austin had already snatched the olives and gobbled them up!

{And, in browsing my blog to reminisce of the days when my kids were little, I found THIS POST where the kids made muffin pizza faces back in 2009. So precious!!}

I am joining in the link up for Kids in the Kitchen...a new weekly series I just found at the blog Sensibly Sara. Come join in the fun (click on the picture below).