Muffin Tin Monday - Ponies & A Nutcracker

Another catch-up post!  Firstly, last week's Muffin Tin Monday:  The Muffin has been really getting into her ballet lately.  Seems like every weekend is a full-scale production of The Nutcracker Suite in our lounge room (complete with costume changes).  Even Husband is roped into both performance and audience duties!  So anyway, last week The Muffin requested a Nutcracker themed tin...

Top Row:  Spinach leaf Christmas Tree with cheese & ham Baubles;  Smarties (representing The Kingdom Of Sweets).
Middle Row:  Two nut-free Sugarplums (recipe coming soon);  Ballet shoe sandwich with ham detail.
Bottom Row:  Pear Snowflakes;  Fresh Mango with a home-made Nutcracker pick.

I made the pick by cutting the little soldier out of a piece of scrapbooking paper and sticking it onto a toothpick.

The After Shot:

A very surprising result - usually she adores mango!  But this day she said she wasn't keen on it.  Quite strange, as it was a really nice mango.  Anyway, Husband was quite happy to polish off her leftovers.  :o)

Now, fast forward one week to today...

The Muffin has always loved My Little Pony, and yesterday she had her first taste of the new MLP show "Friendship is Magic".  I must say we have not been at all keen on the new style of My Little Ponies.  The toys actually look okay, but the pictures (on the boxes, plus other merchandise like clothing etc) look Weird.  Seriously, Pinkie Pie looks slightly insane.  Even my five-year-old tends to say "oh DEAR, they look WEIRD, Mummy."  Having said that, we must have warmed to them a little over time, because I must say we both really enjoyed the show.
**One little warning though if you're thinking of watching it with a Very young child:  we watched the first two episodes of the show, and some parts of it were really scary for my daughter.  She actually ended up curled up in a ball saying "I don't want to watch this!", so I had to skip part of one scene.  That's actually why we watched two episodes:  the two episodes spanned one story arc, and the first ended at a scary part, which was then resolved in the second.  I needed her to watch both, and see that it all turned out okay, because I really didn't want her having nightmares over it!**
Anyway, whilst she found parts of it scary, she did like it over all, and enjoyed the resolution.  I really liked the message behind it, too - it is all about learning the importance of friendship, and how friendship works.  It's also possible that future episodes may not be so scary (Twilight Sparkle having been given the mission to stay in Ponyville and "learn all about friendship"), but certainly what we saw was a very different My Little Pony than what we were used to from the days of Sweetie Belle, Starsong and Toola Roola!

Aaaaaanyway - didn't really mean to make this a movie review!  What this is all leading up to is:  today The Muffin suggested a My Little Pony theme, and as there are six core characters in this new series of Ponies, we decided to base our Muffin Tin on them:-

Top Row:   Cheese birds with a music note pick, representing Fluttershy (this pony represents Kindness, and likes to look after small animals.  At one stage she was conducting a choir of little birds);  Winged-pony-shaped fairy bread, representing Rainbow Dash (who is now a pegasus pony, and the fastest one in Ponyville!);  Chocolate heart (one of The Muffin's Easter chocolates - yes, they're still going!), representing Pinkie Pie, who loves parties and all things pink!

Bottom Row:  Yoghurt with purple sprinkles, representing Rarity (Rarity is white with a purple mane.  The Muffin did the sprinkles - she was going for a diamond shape in the middle, which is Rarity's cutie mark.  As Husband Very Helpfully said, "ooh, look, the Eye of Sauron!");  Apple-shaped pieces of apple, representing Applejack;  Bread and Vegemite book, with rice paper pages and a bit of edible glitter, representing Twilight Sparkle.  This pony loves to read, and she is the main character of the show (or at least of these first two episodes).

She ate it all.

And I can see that there will be more episodes of Friendship Is Magic in my future...

To check out what other lucky kids ate today, click on over to The Muffin Tin Mom's blog!