5 Answers to 5 Reasons Why You Have Not Joined Muffin Tin Monday

Muffin Tin Monday is a weekly blog link up (here at Muffin Tin Mom and previously at Sycamore Stirrings) of mommies (are there any daddy MTM's out there?) who serve one meal a week (or more:) ) in a muffin tin! We post submissions every Monday and enjoy sharing and encouraging each other as parents. You can be as basic or as detailed as you want!

1. "I don't have a blog." Did you know that there is a Flickr group dedicated to Muffin Tin Meals? and a now a facebook page? This is a way that non-bloggers can participate. It is free to join Flickr (a web based image hosting site) and free to join FB too. Sign up for an account, join the muffin tin meals group, post your photo to your flickr photostream and to the group or to the MTM facebook page and either leave a comment or email me with the URL/link location. That's it! So, all of you non-bloggers out there...come join us! I promise you will have fun making lunch in a muffin tin and your kids will love you for it!

2. "I've tried it once before and my kids did not enjoy it." This is a tough one. I stand by the phrase "If at first you don't succeed, the try, try again." Try serving foods your kids are familiar with, or are their favorites....warm them up to the idea and then try introducing themes and new foods as they get more excited about. Also, are you having fun? Typically, when Mom has fun, kids have fun too!

3. "Have you seen my muffin tins? They look terrible! I am not posting a picture of them!" First off, let me answer this one by saying "Who cares what they look like! Not me!" Having a little (or a lot) of wear and tear only means the tin is well loved and well used-both good things. Secondly, give it a good scrub. I found a great tip for cleaning those tins here. And if that fails, consider investing in a new tin (they run around 5.99 at Wal-mart) or try the local thrift store for a gently used one.

4. "Mondays are really busy for us, I don't have the time." Shhhh....I'll let you in on a little secret. I often don't do my muffin tin on Monday, but a few days ahead of time. I find it is less stressful that way and I don't have to worry about making the tin, taking the photos, and posting all in one day (or in some cases morning!) What also works- Doing a muffin tin meal the week before on Monday, and posting it the following week's MTM. And of course, as always, I accept submissions all week long for that week's MTM.

5. If I participate in one more meme/blog carnival/whatever I think my head will explode!" There are a ton of memes/blog link ups out there in the blogosphere. And many on Mondays (Menu Plan Monday with Organizing Junkie, "Not Me!" Monday with McMamma). I believe there is room out there for all of us! So maybe you do it some weeks and not others....please don't feel pressured to post every week- that's the beauty of MTM- make it as basic or as detailed as you want. In all honesty, I get detailed simply because it is more fun for me that way than it is for the kids (see #2). My kids love Muffin Tin Mondays regardless of the theme or how detailed I get.

So there you have it, no more excuses! Come and join us every Monday for some Muffin Tin fun!