June 29, 2010

Forget the wine! A Mouse Picnic


Why give a mouse a cookie when you can give him a wide range of fine cheeses and dark chocolate? Wanting to do a cheese-tasting with the girls, I headed to Trader Joe's to pick up a variety of gourmet cheeses (could I help it if the dark chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds jumped into my cart too?). When we got home, I set up our own mouse picnic! (Yes, indoors. 98 degrees is not ideal for cheese tasting.)


I cubed and labeled each cheese for the girls to try. At first they were a little unsure.


E  disliked the smoked gouda announcing it tasted like beef, and the mozzarella was too "watery-tasting" for her. A unfortunately tried the English cheddar and smoked gouda first, which I'm afraid will turn her off from cheese for life. At last, however, the girls found items more to their liking.


E loved the Panquehue and the Havarti, while A discovered the joy of chocolate-covered pretzel chips.


And they both loved doing something special with each other!



Mouse Mess by Linnea Asplind Riley

Mouse MessA enjoyed this book about a messy little mouse who feasts while the family is asleep. The illustrations are bold and bright with dark, contrasting backgrounds. In the story, the mouse moves through the kitchen devouring a wide array of delectables. As morning approaches, he cleans himself up in a tea cup and heads to his cozy bed, leaving a huge mess for the family to discover upon waking. It's simple. It's cute. And your toddler or preschooler will probably love it.


I'm linking up to:
- ABC and 123's Show and Tell

18 comments:

  1. Your girls are just TOO CUTE!!!!!!!!! We haven't read that book, so I'll be looking for it! I love your idea for the mouse picnic too - very unique and a great experience for the girls.

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  2. Yum, a cheese picnic would be wildly popular in our family.

    One of our favorites is manchego.

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  3. My youngest loves cheese. What a great idea to bring this book to life and try some new cheese out! LOVE IT!

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  4. It just wouldn't have been the same without the mouse noses painted on - very cute idea!

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  5. Que princesas, ratinhas lindas!! Adorei o pic-nick de queijo!!

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  6. Awesome ideas, just found your blog :)
    Thought you'd like to know they're talking about you over at
    http://fromthetortoiseandthehare.blogspot.com/2009/08/childrens-reading-blog.html

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  7. So outrageously fun and fantastic!!!!!!

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  8. B would love a cheese-tasting picnic! We enjoyed the Mouse Mess book from our library - it's fun!

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  9. What a lovely activity! That's a great idea!

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  10. This is so sweet!! I love it!!

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  11. I absolutely love your blog! My kids and I adore children's books and I LOVE how you come up with such fun activities to go along with the theme. Thank you for sharing your ideas and your darling family!

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  12. This is so cute. Kiddo loves to do taste tests, he even makes charts to track his opinions.

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  13. I love Mouse Mess and really you could've done any activity at all. Your little mouses are so cute, it was hard to read any of your post!

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  14. What a great idea to expose our little ones to different types of cheeses. My daughter loves to do picnics and I think it would go perfectly with the classic Anatole by Eve Titus, which we have at our small little library here in Costa Rica. We're gonna have to try this!

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  15. Oh, I bet they loved this activity. You are so creative to think this up! I'm going to have to spend some more time around your blog checking out past posts! Thanks for the inspiration!

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  16. I'm the Editorial Assistant for Fun Family Crafts and I wanted to let you know that we have featured your cute picnic! You can see it here:

    http://funfamilycrafts.com/mouse-picnic/

    If you have other kid-friendly crafts, we'd love it if you would submit them. If you would like to display a featured button on your site, you can grab one from the right side bar of your post above. Thanks for a fun idea!

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