Picture Pancakes

This morning was picture pancake day! It's something we do about once a month. For now it's random and a fun surprise for the kids when they arrive. 

We make oodles of fun pictures and shapes for breakfast and letters for everyone's name. Then the kids have to figure out whose name each letter goes to for a quick literacy lesson.

This is the bumblebee I made today, and I also made hearts, stars, squares, triangles, circles, happy faces, clouds, trees, flowers, sunshines, pac-man ghosts, snakes, worms, a Portuguese Man-of-War, fish, spirals, and more. Other months I've taken requests for spongebobs, princess crowns, people, cars, trains, Phineas & Ferb, Big Bird, spiders, and houses.

I make my own whole wheat batter and make it healthier by sprinkling freshly ground flax seed to the wet side right after I pour the batter onto the skillet. Adding the flax directly to the batter before it gets poured changes the consistency and makes it thicker, too thick to make proper shapes. Plus, when flipped, the pretty side is clean and the underside has the flax, something the kids don't even notice! We topped it today with homemade cranberry sauce that I made using honey and cranberries, plus a few extra dried ones for fun.