Recently I had my first real shopping experience at Trader Joe's. For those of you who don't know, Trader Joe's is a specialty grocery store. It's not as large as a traditional chain grocery store, but you could probably do most of your basic shopping there, and it contains many store brand, organic and vegan products. I fell in love! Not only are there tons of great things to eat, but the prices were really reasonable. If there was one closer to my house, I would be in BIG trouble!

Okay, so what does Trader Joe's have to do with ABCs or 123s? I'm getting there. While we were at Trader Joe's my husband, who has a knack for finding really cool things, found these alphabet shaped cookies. They are called "Cinnamon Schoolbook Cookies". I know cookies, not super healthy right, but hear me out. They don't contain any preservatives, artificial colors or flavors and they have whole wheat flour in them. They are essentially a healthier animal cracker, notice I said healthier. But aside from that they are just plain fun and of course, educational too.

My son had fun identifying the letters and number that the cookies were shaped like. We also made a little "game" out of our snack by putting a few letters out on the table. I said, "I spy with my little eye a J" and my son promptly pointed to the letter J. In addition, although he's not reading yet, I spelled some simple words that I knew he could recognize from the beginning letter, for example Mom. My daughter, who knows no letters of the alphabet, certainly found amusement in holding out cookies and parroting the letters her brother shouted out. Just a little afternoon snack-time fun!