Fun with Finger Food

This morning has been a kitchen morning. These have to be some of my most favourite mornings!
After yet another lie in until 6:45am, I have been on the go non stop.
I am trying to come up with new foods for the twins to try. In particular new finger foods.
Last week I let them go mad with a yogurt each. I put on their coveralls, gave them a spoon each and waited to see what they did. Taylor sat squeezing the tub and watching as it oozed out. Isabella placed the spoon in the tub, pulled it out and sat examining the yogurt on her spoon. I soon realised that it would be easier for them if I transferred the yogurt into a bowl.
This resulted in so much food fun!
They both enjoyed not just eating the yogurt but also the sensory experience! They were putting their hands in the bowl and squeezing yogurt through their fingers and using the yogurt to make patterns on the table. Isabella even decided that it would be fun to put yogurt on her face as if she was putting cream on. Yogurt was everywhere. It was all over the table, their chairs, their coveralls, faces and even in their hair! But they had so much fun and at the end of the day it is how they learn learn and it is easy to wash off.
Needless to say, once they had eventually finished, the only way to get them clean was to bath them!

Messy play is certainly going to be a lot of fun in the future!!!

Seeing how much they enjoyed feeding themselves got me thinking of ways to give them healthy, more independent foods at meal times, particularly lunch time.

Today I have made some homemade chicken nuggets by mincing up a chicken breast, adding a little paprika, making finger style shapes, rolling in egg and covering with breadcrumbs. I chose to mince the chicken instead of using chicken pieces as Taylor still has not got any molar teeth and I find that if their food takes a lot of chewing they immediately loose interest. So using mince has kept them quite moist and will be easy to hold and chew.

Lunch time savoury pancakes filled with a vegetable mash went down well. At first Taylor wasn't sure but after a few pieces he was wanting more and more! 

We just need to wait until tea time to see how my homemade chicken nuggets go down!

I feel a huge sense of pride watching how they are developing and growing but I also feel some sadness. My babies are growing too quick!