Lunch Dilemma

School lunches are here again. (Okay, so I started this post 2 months ago but I think it's still relevent). I'm trying to figure out my master plan for making it all work this year. I bought a ton of reusable gladware to pack their food in. Using 12 plastic baggies every day just feels wrong! But then I'm dealing with this every night!

Here are some alternatives I found online.

This one is called "Go Green Lunch Box." They run about $30 plus shipping.

I think this is my favorite one so far and of course it's the most expensive. It's called "Planet Box" and if you get the whole set it's -gasp- $60!

These are called "EasyLunchBoxes" and are definitely the most affordable at $14 for 4. It's definitely a better solution than my current ridiculous tupperware disaster but doesn't feel like a long term solution. Also, I'm not sure 3 bins is enough and I might end up needing more containers anyway.

Anyone tried any of these or found a better solution?

Halloween Extravaganza!

Yea! Halloween has passed. I won't lie- the whole costume, candy thing is always a little stressful. To make the week even more exciting, Curtis went into "Minnesota do-it-yourself" mode and started 2 fairly ambitious yard projects. We spent ALL day Friday digging holes, pouring cememt and carting large wheelbarrels full of mud and cement around. Fun for the whole family. At the end of the day as we dragged our weary bodies into bed we talked about whether it was worth it. We saved a few hundred dollars in DIY mode but we both feel like the main advantage of doing work ourselves is that our family gets to work together. (Curt's shoulders beg to differ but I think he's still on board. :) We also score a basketball hoop and cememt slab for our grill out of the deal.

Anyway... I really hadn't done anything for costumes by Friday night and our church was having a trunk or treat on Saturday afternoon. Dan and Isaac had their playoff football games all morning on Saturday, so.... the costumes weren't going to get much attention. The good news is that the boys have grown up so much and they were actually really excited to make/refashion costumes of Halloween past. We spend a good part of Saturday afternoon working out in the front yard on costumes. Oh, and I stayed up late on Friday night sewing Lucy's "chicken costume."

Here's what we came up with:

2 Feather boas, some yellow fabric and a piece of red felt. I cannot believe this one came together. I looked at a few ideas online but really... pure luck, especially on the cap. She looked adorable for the 5 seconds that she kept it on and managed to win a prize at the church party and charm the neighbors. :)

For Daniel, it's all about the food anyway so he just wasn't that concerned about his costume. But he decided to be a Lego Knight. Costume from last year and lego head and arms (which were turfed early on) made out of yellow poster board.

This picture is titled "Cute Cannibal." Isaac wanted to be a pizza from day 1. This costume cost nothing and was really simple. We all worked together to paint, cut and tape the toppings on.

Jonah used the same Ninja costume he has for the last 3 years. This year he is Ninja grapes. He really wanted to be a Rubicks Cube but decided that costume would not be conducive to the kind of trick or treating he wanted. ie: too bulky for running from house to house!! Maybe next year.

Now, just tell me what to do with all of this candy. We have buckets of it and I will seriously eat it all day long unless something is done!!!! Help....

Chair remake

I was looking for sturdy Lucy sized furniture and found this at IKEA:

n I really like the style but decided the fabric could use a little help. Then I remembered some Amy Butler midest modern fabric that I had on hand. About 30 minutes later I had this:

The good news: It matches Lucy's new room perfectly. I love "almost" instant gratification.

Eye Candy

I am having a lot of fun decorating the kids rooms right now. I kept thinking we were temporary here in TX but who knows- maybe this will just be our home. Anyhoo... here are some of the pics that have inspired me lately. Enjoy!

Found this clock here on Ohdeedoh. (I LOVE this site. It's linked on my sidebar. Men- how do you always find the best sites?!?) I'm gonna try to make my own paper version-stay tuned.


You can find this at clothesline.



alphabet




birds mobile

This one can be found on etsy here.

And I can't seem to upload the pic but I love this "Be" sign found here. I wanna make one!

Books

I read the first "Fablehaven" last year and didn't love it. It was okay- it got better toward the end but I wasn't too excited to read anymore of them. But Jonah got bored last month and raced through the first 2 books in the series. I decided I would read them along with him. No small feat since he has all the time in the world and I have to forgo sleep in order to catch up. :) Anyway, we both really enjoyed them but I think that reading them together (for me at least) made it WAY more fun. The rest of the family would get annoyed as we joked about the satyrs and compared notes on Graulas and the Sphinx.

I have happy memories of my mom reading many of the books I enjoyed (Anne of Green Gables, A Wrinkle in Time, Stone Tables...) and it was fun to discuss them together. Curtis and I raced through Harry Potter together, cried about Dumbledore (well I did) and debated about Snape's allegiance. I plan to read many more with the kiddos but I'm thinking Curt and I need another series to read together. Unfortunately he's into this viking history series (violent and a bit of a downer IMO) and I prefer light fantasy or historical fiction (preferrably with a kick butt heroine). LOVED the first two "Hunger Games" books- hated the third. If anyone wants to talk I'm still mad about it.

I'm happy that the boys are picking up on our love for reading and since it's so dang hot in Texas we spent a lot of time this summer doing this...

FYI: Isaac's reading "The Boxcar Children" and Jonah is into the "Redwall" series

So my thesis statement is that reading is great but it's even better to read with family. Any suggestions?

Because Life is Funny

I'm in a good mood today. It's so simple really- why am I always falling off the bandwagon?! Be productive and do what you're supposed to do!

For starters I've been good about studying the scriptures this week- that always helps my days go better.

And then I've been getting up with Curtis in the morning. (I usually sleep until the kids wake me and then I am a complete disaster rushing them out the door.) This week I've been up well before them so that breakfast and lunches are mostly ready and I even got some laundry done!

The weather is sort cooling down a bit and we've walked to school for the past couple of days. In the past we biked to school but Daniel and a neighbor who carpools with us both need a little more practice before they're ready for that. But then I read

this post and decided to forget about the bikes and start walking asap. It's a mile walk and takes us about 15 minutes to get there.They complain a bit but I know it's a great way for them to start their day. Then I jog home. The whole exercise thing has been on my mind b/c I keep thinking that exercise needs to fit into my life and not be this two hour event sucking up every morning! I know I need more than just a morning walk to school but if I were doing that 4 or 5 times a week I think it would be a great foundation for health (I'm writing this as I eat Molasses cookies and milk btw).

I've decided that after living here for almost 4 years it's finally time to decorate the kid's rooms. I've been a painting machine for past couple of weeks and the end is in sight! Our whole house is a tan color and it's fine for the main areas but borrrring for kids rooms. The colors I picked... are not boring. :)

And last but not least I happened on this just a few minutes ago- someone forwarded it to me a couple of years ago and I had saved it in a word doc. It's called "They didn't study" and you can enlarge the pics to see them up close. The paper on "El Nino" is priceless. You will pee your pants.

And now for a Deep Thought:

If you're robbing a bank and you're pants fall down, I think it's okay to laugh and to let the hostages laugh too, because, come on, life is funny.

Jam in sunlight

The other day I got up early and was working in the kitchen when I noticed the way the sunlight was hitting a couple of jars of jam that I had sitting out on the counter. Just when you thought there couldn't possibly be another reason to love homemade jam.

I have a memory of sitting on the kitchen table, dipping strawberries in sugar and eating them. I was probably about 5 and my whole family had been strawberry picking that morning. My mom was making jam in the kitchen and I was "helping." I LOVED my mom's jam.

And then when I got a little older, she started buying Smuckers instead of making it homemade. I went on a jam boycott for years. (Which means I was bringing tuna fish to school instead of a PBJ-that's how much I hate Smuckers!) I finally gave in and started to accept store bought jam... until a few years after being married. I wanted to try making my own and see how hard it was. Turns out it is SO easy. For about $4-$10 and an hour of my time I can have 4 pints of the best jam on the planet. SO worth it!

P.S. I'm not a freezer jam person b/c I usually don't have the space for it and I actually really like the cooked jam taste. The End

Kids...

Sometimes my kids make me crazy. Like when Lucy broke the computer or locked Curt's iphone, or the time I realized there was no room in the freezer because the boys had a bunch of "experiments" in there (bowls with Legos & dinosaurs frozen in water). But sometimes their little sticky footprints all over everything just make me smile.

Trees

We drove up to St. Louis and then on to Michigan. It was a LONG trip but the kids actually were terrific. I packed all sorts of activities for the boys (printouts here), several great movies and a book on CD, "James and the Giant Peach." We sang nursery rhymes to Lucy and searched for license plates from the 50 states. Curtis and I had lots of good talks and I brought along my favorite singing CD's to help keep me awake when driving (Corinne Bailey Rae, Sarah Mclaughlin, Stephanie Smith & John Mayer).

We drove for a day and then stopped in St. Louis for 2 nights. It was so nice to just relax with my family there (and I had them all to myself). My sister made us so comfortable and she and my mom fed us well. Real cooked meals are such a gift when you're traveling. Em I still need that stroganoff recipe! We just relaxed at Emily's house, played Phase 10 and Quiddler and croquet and made a visit to Grant's Farm- I like feeding the goats the best! Anyway, after our little stop there, we jumped in the car for another 8 or 9 hours and made it to Michigan.

When planning the visit to Michigan, we had our kids in mind the whole time. We didn't want to be trapped in a hotel or dragging them on long excursions everyday. We ended up renting a house on a lake in western Michigan. It's always a gamble when you find a place online but we got lucky. The place turned out to be perfect. A cute 70's house with everything we needed plus a hammock, some kayaks, a rowboat and peddle boat... There was also a dock about 50 yards from our beach that had a couple of diving boards. The kids had a blast taking boats out to the dock and hanging out for hours. The weather was fantastic, low 80's and we just kept drinking in the crisp air with low humidity. I had forgotten how much I missed trees. I mean Maple and Oak, Cottonwood, and the most perfect spruce trees you have ever seen! We layed on the hammock and on the grass (no fire ants!) for hours just looking at the leaves in the breeze.

We were orignally planning to head over to Detroit for a day or two but we just weren't up for more driving and so we spent the whole week on the west side of the state. We kept our activities simple: ie we layed around, fished off the dock, spent an afternoon at Lake Michigan, let the boys tend a fire for hours (they LOVED this), played board games, watched "The Princess Bride," and on the last day we rented a jet ski with a tube and spent the whole day playing on the lake. I had never ridden a jet ski before and Curtis threw me the keys and told me to take off for a bit. It was awesome and I felt like I was flying (even though I was only going 48mph!). My sister's family met us for a few days and it was so fun to see all the cousins playing together. They built dams on the beach, played pirates on the dock and never got tired of tubing! Of course Lisa and I squeezed in a couple of midnight trips to Meijer and had plenty of girl talking time- just what I needed.

We cooked most of our meals but did manage to eat at one of the restaurants featured on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives." A little place called "Rosies" with an amazing Mushroom Swiss Burger and Onion Rings. Oh and did I mention the Banana Cream Pie... and the Blueberry Pie? I love pie. BTW... "If you get a chance between Pie Heaven and regular Heaven, pick Pie heaven. It might be a trick but if it's not, hmmm boy!" (maybe my all time fav Deep Thought). We also found a great rib place called "Sammy's Joint." The perfect ending to our day at the beach on Lake Michigan. Oh and maybe my favorite part of visiting beautiful Lake Michigan was observing how different my boys are. Isaac was obsessed with keeping the sand off him and out of his shorts. Daniel was rolling it and had what can only be described as a "sand goatee."



After a week in Michigan we caravanned with my sister's famiy down to Missouri for a Family Reunion. Five of the eight kids in my family were there with their families and several of my cousins. It was so great to see many people we haven't seen in years. And I loved seeing the cousins play together. Unfortunately I always seem to get a little overwhelmed at reunions. There is just never enough time and so many people I want to connect with. On top of that my kids were all totally sleep deprived and eating out for most meals. Oh and then add to that some PMS and I found myself a bit crabby toward the end. Dang!



But we had some great times, visiting the beautiful botanical gardens, swimming at the hotel, enjoying church and a yummy brunch together, to name a few. I think my favorite part was on Saturday afternoon. We had a water balloon toss and played frisbee, kickball and Red Rover. My boys just loved it. Oh and then Jonah started talking trash and saying that he could outrun me. So..I school him. But seriously it was a close race and it won't be long before he pones me! That will be epic. (I'm channeling some Jonah slang here.)

This trip was great but as always it was nice to come home and sleep in our own beds and eat our own food and just get back into our schedule. Curtis and I have lots of places we want to visit and western Michigan was one of them, so we've checked one off the list-still so many more: Yosemite, Yellowstone, Palmyra, Mexico, Vermont...

I love Little Folks

I kept reading blog posts about Anna Maria Horner's Little Folks Voile. Everyone talked about how buttery soft it was and how versatile. So I finally bought a bundle of it off etsy... and I am totally in love! It is maybe my favorite fabric ever. I have made a few skirts and a baby blanket so far. It is just as soft as everyone said and makes beautiful clothing. I would love to make some dresses or blouses but I'm not sure I could cut into in a way that created tiny scrapes I might have to throw away. Seriously! Everything I've made so far has been a straight cut with absolutely no waste.... I would have been such a good pioneer. :O

Anyway, here's the blanket. I want to make more. Check out this link if you want to see some of the work that inspired me. I almost always buy my fabric on etsy. I like supporting stay at home moms and love the bundles you can find here. FYI, this fabric is 54 inches wide, which explains why it seems a bit more expensive. This blanket was so simple to make and it is absolutely my favorite.