Tiny Hands in the Kitchen

Toddlers are famous for their 'monkey see, monkey do,' behavior.  They love doing all the things they see mommy and daddy doing...whether we'd like them to or not!  My son watches me cook all the time and it's a struggle to keep him out of the kitchen.  So every once and a while, I bring him into the kitchen for an Ayden-friendly recipe.

When bringing a little one into the kitchen, preparation is key.  Pick a space and clear the area.  I have a small section of counter over the dishwasher that's next to the sink that I use for Ayden.  There are no rugs beneath and I keep everything on the counter off or out of reach.  I gather all that I need and have it ready to go before bringing him in. I also have a washcloth and a clean set of play clothes at the ready for when we're done!

This time, we made sugar free strawberry jello with real strawberries.  I handled the hot water and Ayden did all the stirring.  I thawed and chopped the strawberries ahead of time and he got to add them into the jello.  There was lots of sampling with the strawberries, so make sure you have extra!  Little ones are more likely to eat the finished product if they're familiar with all the ingredients, so it's good for them to taste the pieces as it's coming together.

Stirring like a pro!

I only used about half the bag of strawberries for this one.

As an added bonus, I made these in individual cups so it's quick and easy to pull out later!

There's no real recipe here...just follow the package instructions on the jello box and toss in your desired amount of fruit...you can't really  have too much fruit, in my opinion.  We just had so much fun with this, I thought I'd share!

If you enjoyed this post and want to see more ways to have fun with your little ones, check out this post.