Arlender Nelson has served plenty of snacks in her years as a licensed child care provider. She makes little salads out of raisins, carrots and tiny marshmallows. She also sautes apples sprinkled with cinnamon and Splenda in a pan with a little bit of butter.

Here are some other crowd pleasers from her house: bananas, apples and oranges in little paper cups with a few raisins on top; celery spread with peanut butter with raisins on top; watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew slices cut into shapes with cookie cutters; and fruit smoothies.

She also gets creative with peanut butter, spreading it on vanilla wafers and then using raisins to make eyes or pretzels for bug legs. She lets children 3 and older spread the peanut butter themselves with a plastic knife and make their own faces with raisins.