Hosting a Play Date Tasting Party
I love hosting parties and get togethers! In fact, I volunteer with my church and guess what I do?! I coordinate and plan their parties and activities for all the women of the church! I truly just love it! I love creating. I also love telling a story of creation, and helping others. So this post is especially fun for me.
I love parties so much that even though it’s absolutely crazy with 5 children that all have their birthday’s back-to-back from October through May (my husbands and mine are in January and February), we throw huge birthday bashes for each child every single year without fail! Yes, even with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter all jammed in there as well!
Food Allergy Families Like to Have Fun & Enjoy Food Too
Being a food allergy mom, I love hosting all the parties and play dates even more because then I can direct the food situation! The job of directing and organizing is such a relief compared to the stress of the unknown when it comes to food allergies.
Tasting Party Fun!
So, have you ever turned a plain ‘ol play date into a fun get together?! Get togethers & play dates with a star of the show like Beech-Nut® Naturals™ can prove that food can be fun!
If you’d like to know how to host your own sampling party with several sweet children and their mothers, or you just want to learn more about an allergy friendly baby food option, then come and follow along.
Allergy & Ingredient Information
Beech-Nut® Naturals™ is for the most part top 8 free y’all!!! They have a few varieties that contain wheat and/or milk. You can view all the allergen and ingredient details here: https://www.beechnut.com/allergens/. Once you’ve scouted out your allergy friendly choices, the rest is simple, quick, easy and fun! I love companies that have this information (allergen and ingredient information) available so readily for families like ours.
We only have peanut and shellfish that my children avoid, so I made my selections accordingly.
For this sampling I used:
- Beech-Nut® Naturals™ Just Pear & Blueberry
- Beech-Nut® Naturals™ Prunes
- Beech-Nut® Naturals™ Apple, Cinnamon & Granola
The Beech-Nut® Naturals™ Just Pear & Blueberry contain:
Ingredients: 80% pears, 20% blueberries.
The Beech-Nut® Naturals™ Prunes contain:
Ingredients: 70% water, 30% prunes.
The Beech-Nut® Naturals™ Apple, Cinnamon & Granola contain:
Ingredients: 74.4% apples, 20% water, 4% oats, 1% barley flakes, 0.5% amaranth flour, 0.1% cinnamon.Contains Wheat
The Beech-Nut® Naturals™ product line is inspired by homemade. Beech-Nut® is a small company in upstate New York with 300 employees who are passionate about making real food for babies. To create the Beech-Nut® Naturals™ line of jar purees they wanted input from moms and dads. So they went into homes and sat in the kitchens of families like mine and yours, and learned about how they feed their babies. That is how we now have Beech-Nut® Naturals™. real food for babies.™ on grocery store shelves! Pretty neat, huh?!
Food allergy families are known for their eye to detail in ingredients, so you will be pleased to know that Beech-Nut® Naturals™ are 100% natural, nothing artificial. Made with only ingredients a baby could pronounce, and made with real fruits and vegetables, just like you would use at home.
How to Plan a Play Date Tasting Party
So about that play date and get together! Invite all your mom friends, and their children. When inviting them ask if anyone has any allergies. Take note of those allergens, and plan accordingly. It’s always best to completely omit an allergen to avoid potential cross-contamination e.g. shared spoons in containers, etc. For example, if there is a gluten or wheat issue, stick with selections that are wheat/gluten free.
Grab your favorite flavors of Beech-Nut® Naturals™.
Gather enough small bowls and spoons for the number of children that you’re expecting.
You can additionally provide juice boxes, or other drinks for the small children that will be attending. You might even want to have a pitcher of ice water on-hand for filling sippy cups, as well as a pitcher of lemonade or juice for the moms.
For the moms, I wanted to keep with the theme from the baby food sampling, with only ingredients you can pronounce. So, I prepared Greek yogurt bowls with frozen blueberries. Just two ingredients, that’s all! You could also provide cinnamon and honey as condiments to add to the yogurt bowls. Seriously though, they are so yummy as is! Less is more if you know what I mean!
Have you ever tried frozen fruit as is?! I hadn’t until this past summer. It’s not frozen all the way through, and still has some soft texture that makes it easy to bite into and eat! Who’d have thought?! I haven’t tried all fruits this way, but mango and blueberry have been fun to eat frozen on top of my yogurt.
This is a simple fun snack for the moms to enjoy over good conversation with like-minded women, while little ones play at our feet. Some of my most cherished chats are with the women I surround myself with.
The little ones are happy because they get to try lots of foods, flavors, and get all tuckered out playing with peers.
Sterling, my 1-year-old, was drawn to the adorable honeypot shaped jars with beautiful green lids. He couldn’t wait to dig in! His favorite was the Beech-Nut® Naturals™ Just Pears & Blueberries.
Upcycled Baby Food Jar Snowman Christmas Ornaments
Now, once you’re done eating all the yummy food, rinse out those baby food jars and upcycle them into some super cute snowman ornaments!
If you have some prepped ahead of time, and remove the labels, you can add this as an activity to your next holiday play date and get together. Alternately, you can keep it simple and make two play dates and get togethers out of one. Save the jars from this time around, and invite everyone back for the craft!
Next, you’ll poke a hole in the lid with a nail or a phillips head screwdriver, and a hammer.
Remove the stickers. Any adhesive remover works great for loosening the stickers. Then some good ‘ol dish soap, warm water and elbow grease.
Paint the lid black and the jar white. I did two coats to really cover the jar well. It took about 20 minutes dry time between the first and second coat.
Now for the fun part! Use the children’s little fingers dipped in paint for the charcoal eyes, mouth, and carrot nose! To get the carrot nose, use the side edge of their pinky. For the eyes and mouth use the tip of a small finger.
You can write with a permanent marker on the bottom, the name and year of the child for a keepsake.
One more finishing touch and necessity, fold a ribbon in half, and stick it through the nail hole, tying it together under the lid.
There you go! A fun time with mom friends, their little ones, great food, wonderful conversation, and a keepsake to cherish always.
This post is sponsored by Beech-Nut® Naturals™. All opinions are my own.
