Fireflies: A bird on the plate is worth two in the fridge....

Birds are a huge source of entertainment in this household. The boys and I recently added a large birdfeeder outside our dining room window so we could keep better tabs on the neighborhood bird drama. We live on the water and have feathered friends of all kind; from small sparrows to geese. We even have one "city pigeon" that comes in every afternoon for his regular fly-by snack. Our freezer always maintains extra bread for duck feedings and we have even had to start purchasing our bird seed from Sam's to keep up with the high demands of our beaked buddies.

To say that the boys were excited to do a bird themed snack would be an understatement. I knew we were going to have to provide some pretty incredible meals for my two bird-loving boys. Thankfully, there was no shortage of ideas out there. Since, we couldn't choose between a few of them, we planned a whole day of bird themed meals.

BIRD'S NEST BREAKFAST

I found the idea for this on Pinterest and its just incredibly easy for a fast but adorable birdie breakfast for your babies.

All you'll need is:

Bread (toasted according to your little one's preference)
Hard boiled egg (we made this really easy by buying them right from the store)
Teensy tiniest bit of a carrot
Edible marker (thought you could easily use a small piece of raisin for her little eyes)

Simply cut your toast into strips. Levi likes his with a little butter so we buttered it first. Arrange your bread pieces in a nest shape.

Cut a small triangle shape from the end of a carrot for the birds beak and position on the egg. With your edible marker, add two eyes. Levi decided our bird was a girl (or "grill" as he pronounces it) so we gave her pretty little eyelashes.

Nestle her into her little warm and "toast"-y nest and serve to your overly enthusiastic little one.

FOR SNACKTIME:

Another very easy idea for a quick snack.

What you'll need:

Pretzel sticks
Grapes
Carrot
Edible Marker

I snapped the pretzel sticks into smaller "twigs" and just tossed them into a small bowl. Dot little eyes on grapes and set them in their "nest". Cut small triangles from carrots and place on the birds and you're done!

FOR DINNER:

And finally for dinner, spaghetti noodles with bird meatballs on a celery branch.

What you'll need:

Center stalk of celery (with the leaves on the end to look branch-like)
Cooked spaghetti
Meatballs or like we used, mini-hamburgers
Mozarella Cheese
Carrot
Edible Marker

Place celery branch across plate, use a fork and twirl a large section of spaghetti into a nest shape. Place noodle nest on its side. Tuck in two meatballs or mini hamburgers into the nest. For the eyes, I cut slices of a cheese stick and used a piping tip to make a smaller circle cut out. You could most certainly use the entire slice though. Add a black dot in the center of the cheese slice with an edible marker or you could use a caper, piece of black olive or a piece of raisin. Whatever you happen to have laying around in the pantry. Position the eyes on the meatball/ hamburger. Cut a small triangle out of a carrot and place under eyes to form the beak.

The boys loved this idea so much that we had a version of it for dinner the next night as well. The second night, I made a nest of rice and tucked their meat into it. Just as easy and just as entertaining for the little ones in your life.