Catching Up

So much for being on task and organized in 2013. Barely a week in to the year and I'm already more than a week behind! Call this one a catch up blog post - a couple of days of lunches all in one!

One of Bean's lunches:

It's a lunch of leftovers from our New Year's Eve Junk Food and Video Game Fest. She has spinach dip in the upper corner, with a decorative snowflake pick, to celebrate the first snow of the season (just a few snowflakes on NYE, barely enough to dust the ground, but in this land of endless rain, it counts). Next she has three mini Chips Ahoy cookies, a piece of peppermint fudge, and a few graham crackers. In the big section she has some summer sausage, colby jack and mozzarella cheese squares, snowflake Ritz, Triscuits, and celery. Perfect snacky lunch!

Princess had a similar lunch, in her Hello Kitty hinged bento box. Peppermint fudge and Chips Ahoy, colby jack and mozzarella with summer sausage, spinach dip, snowflake Ritz and Triscuits, and celery.

A pair of crowns for the little Princess:

Another day both girls took hot spaghetti with meatballs in Thermoses with small containers of snacks on the side. Bean has mandarin oranges, turkey slices, pickle chips, and a couple of chocolate truffle balls.

Pretty colors!

For her in-class snack she took French onion dip with mini Triscuits.

Princess took truffle balls, turkey slices, grape tomatoes, mini Triscuits, and mandarin oranges.

For another lunch, Bean had leftovers, decorated with music notes because it was her first day of recorder lessons in music class. Now she can play Hot Cross Buns and Three Blind Mice, backwards and forwards!

For the whole lunch, she had leftover grilled bratwurst from dinner the night before, with cucumber slices and applesauce, pretzels and mini Oreos, and tangelo segments.

Random Vacation Lunches

During Winter Break we mostly cooked hot lunches at home, but there were a few days when lunches were packed.

This was a lunch for Princess... Cucumber slices, radish pieces, grape tomatoes, and broccoli florets; peeled clementine, dried kiwi and salted fudge; ranch for dipping (under the grape tomato pseudo-face), mini Club crackers, and half a sun-dried tomato turkey sandwich on multigrain bread with grape tomatoes on top.

Princess loves grape tomatoes. Especially when they look pretty!

Lunch for Bean: cucumber slices, radish pieces, broccoli, peeled clementine, dried kiwi, salted fudge, ranch, mini Club crackers, and half of a turkey sandwich with snowflake picks to hold it together.

Our picky eater - a lunch for G-man: Ham and cheese sandwich with half a banana, a peeled clementine and dried kiwi with salted fudge, mini Club crackers and Craisins.

Random lunch for the Dude to take to work: The small container holds salsa for the black bean and chicken quesadillas (great use of leftovers from chicken tacos!), with shredded cabbage and olives to scoop on top. He also has some Wheat Thins and a piece of salted fudge.

Another random lunch for... the Dude. No reason a grown up can't enjoy a smiling sandwich! The sandwiches are made with leftover pancakes, fried duck eggs, spicy pepperjack cheese, and breakfast sausage. I also tucked in a peeled clementine in that section of the Sistema Cube.

In the other half of the box, he has cucumber slices, marinated mushrooms, Wheat Thins, and Triple Decker Oreos.

Is it me, or is Pancake Man a little... sinister-looking?

Another lunch for the Dude, packed into a Sistema Cube. This one has a peeled clementine, tiny piece of salted fudge, grape tomatoes, and mini Club crackers in one section, with Caesar dressing, cucumber slices, radishes, and broccoli in the other.

The whole lunch included a roast beef and provolone sandwich, tucked neatly into the biggest section of the box.

A rare lunch for me! Sun-dried tomato turkey on multigrain bread with a peeled clementine, salted fudge, mini Club crackers, ranch dressing, cucumber slices, and broccoli. More like a lunch plus two snacks. Delicious! I like the Sistema Cube, but it holds a LOT of food. Too much even for an adult, a lot of the time. 

This was a lunch for Brick. Peeled clementine, salted fudge, and dried kiwi in the smallest section of the Easy Lunchbox. Sliced cucumber, cut radish, and broccoli in the second, and a roast beef on sourdough sandwich with ranch for the veggies and mini Club crackers in the biggest section.

Lunch for the little Beaker is half a turkey sandwich on multigrain bread, with two dinosaur picks guarding from above. He also has mini Club crackers and ranch for dipping his broccoli, radishes, and cucumbers. In the small section, he has dried kiwi, salted fudge, and a peeled clementine.

Bean's favorite picks right now are the blue snowflakes. I bought them from BentoUSA for a great low price. Perfect for the recent frosty weather!

Winter Break

Dear Readers,

I hope you have had a great Winter break! I know we did. Quiet and cozy, just the right amount of time to relax and rejuvenate. We spent one day taking the kids to OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, and if you've never been and you're ever in the area, definitely make the time to go!), and spent some time in the kitchen baking cookies and making fudge, and a lot of time cuddled up on the couch reading good books and sipping hot cocoa. 

I'll get back into the swing of blogging lunches most days soon, but for today enjoy a random glimpse into How We Spent Our Winter Vacation!

Our favorite cold weather drink - hot cocoa with marshmallows! For kicks, I added a face using decorating gel for the kids.

For Mom and Dad, the perfect hot cocoa includes Peppermint Schnapps and chocolate whipped cream on top. The only Ski Lift I need!

Christmas tree decorating (and redecorating, and redecorating, and redecorating...) is a favorite December activity in our house. The kids look forward to the day when the Dude and I finally buckle under their pressure, pop up a tree (fake this year and last, and so much easier), and let them loose. They then spend the next two weeks rearranging the ornaments within their reach over and over and over. Normally we don't put the glass ornaments on the tree  - only the non-breakables, due to little fingers - but this year the Dude thought we could risk it. No such luck; we lost a dozen or more glass balls, including several I handpainted the first year we were together. Sad. But I can't be too mad... Beaker had SO much fun moving the ornaments around, telling made up stories about each one as he swapped their spots.

Christmas Eve we began a new family tradition, by letting the youngest three kids camp out in the family room. They loved sleeping next to the shiny bright tree. I did not love them being awake until well after 2 a.m., too excited to sleep.

On New Year's Eve we had friends over for a night of junk food and video games. It was a blast, and the kids did great together! Right up until the last few seconds before midnight, when the late hour started to get to the preschoolers. They did really great with the long night, all things considered, and Beaker is already asking when his friend can come back to play all night again.

One of our NYE activities was crafting "gingerbread" houses with graham crackers, icing, and a variety of candies. Easy Luncboxes were a great way to keep everything together and organized! The largest section was a good small space for building, and the smaller sections held the icing 'mortar' and the candy decorations.

I will spare you the morbid tale my sweet little darling 7 year old told about her Haunted Christmas Cracker House. She used an entire tube of red decorating gel. 

NYE morning we had our first snowfall of the season. And hopefully only. Mama don't like snow. However, the ducks seemed to love the stuff. I was worried that they would be cold and made sure they have plenty of places in the yard to keep themselves warm and protected from the wind and cold, but when the snow was coming down they were out romping in it, nibbling at the little bit on the ground and trying to catch snowflakes from the sky. The chickens seemed pretty much neutral on the subject.

Tomorrow I will share a few of our lunches from vacation. 

Affiliate link to product used:

Holly Jolly Ho-Ho-Holiday Hop!

The fantastic group at Bento Bloggers & Friends are at it again, with another fun blog hop! The Ho-Ho-Holiday Blog Hop is in week two, and this time C&C is joining in on the fun. Be sure to click through the button at the bottom of this post to continue with the hop.

For Princess and Bean, it's a Snowman Snowball Fight!

Jolly and Jingle, the Snow sisters, have stockpiled a good bin of snowballs and have taken their corners to launch their attacks.

Who will make the first move? Will Jolly pitch out the first snowball, or will Jingle? These snowy sisters are ready to rumble!

The snowman sisters are ham and cheese sandwiches on whole wheat white bread, cut with two sizes of circle cookie cutters. The eyes, mouth, and buttons are drawn on with decorating gel and the noses are carrots. Their pretzel stick arms are poised to snag a mini marshmallow snowball to lob across the table. The cute hat picks I bought from BentoUSA.

Included in the lunches are peeled clementines, kiwi chunks, star crackers with baby carrot sticks, and holiday colored chocolate pretzels. Both lunches are packed in Easy Lunchboxes.

Now, hop on over to Healthy Eating Starts At Home (an excellent blog!) to see what Marie has going on!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like...

Winter! Well, Winter for the PNW, anyway. Rain, rain, and more rain. Glad it isn't snow!

Princess and Bean are of a different opinion. Every morning they wake up and immediately look out their bedroom window, hoping to see the ground covered in a blanket of white. Instead, they see our soggy boggy backyard. Generally our area only gets an inch or two of snow each year, if that much, so they aren't likely to see their wish come true anytime soon. But it doesn't hurt to hope, right?

Since the sky isn't providing the kind of snow they can walk in and toss around, I've been trying to provide a little bit of that wintery spirit in their lunchboxes. 

Today Princess has snowflakes in her lunch. A snowflake turkey sandwich, snowflake pretzels, snowflake yogurt, and snowflake Ritz. Think that will hold over her wish for snow for a little bit longer?

We love the snowflake Ritz. They're so pretty! I also cut some cheddar stars, and tucked in a few grape tomatoes, a Princess favorite.

The pretzels are white chocolate covered with a sprinkle of crushed peppermint. They're delicious! Definitely going to have to try making some myself soon.

For Bean, I packed a fun bunch of Christmas trees. She has a tree sandwich, yogurt with sprinkles (trees, snowflakes, and candy canes), apple pieces, star shaped crackers, and some star pretzels with tree gummi candies.

The sandwich is made with whole wheat white bread and turkey, cut with a tree shaped cookie cutter. It's topped with a cheddar star and decorated with sprinkles and decorating gel.

Both lunches are packed in Easy Luncboxes.

My lunch today was too pretty not to snap a pic of. Greek yogurt over banana slices, topped with berry granola. So very delicious! The Greek yogurt brings a nice tang, the granola a bit of crunch, and the bananas round it all out by lending sweetness. My favorite lunch!

In other random news, our ducks are laying! I was starting to think they were going to hold off until Spring, but then the Dude went out to add bedding to their duck house and found a whole cache of eggs hidden there. Ducks roll their eggs in mud and hide them under grasses to keep them safe from predators. Their eggs are huge next to chicken eggs, and packed full of protein. They taste just a tiny bit more rich than a chicken egg.

In this picture, the big semi-white eggs are from our ducks, and the smaller darker eggs are from our chickens.

To give a better idea of size... the egg on the far left is from Chick, our "mystery hen", or might be from Buffy the brahma. The one in the middle is either from Princess, Lady, or Peach  (the buff orpingtons), or Hawk-Stripe or Rosebud, the Americaunas. And the egg on the far right, and the three behind, are all from Olivia and Nut, our duck hens. Nut is a Pekin (she looks just like the Aflack duck), and Olivia (and her mate, Annie) is a mystery breed.

The story of how we came to have ducks, and our 'mystery hen', is actually kind of interesting. The short story is that a friend of mine posted to Facebook that a friend of hers had found a pair of ducklings and a chick abandoned in her yard. She couldn't keep them, so they were trying to find someone who could take the trio. I lived just a few blocks away and had just recently moved my hens from their brooder pen in the garage out to the chicken run in the backyard. I still had the brooder pen set up, and the Dude and I had been talking about getting a few ducks eventually. I picked them up the next day! 

We named the ducklings Annie and Oliver, and the chick... Chick. A few days later we picked up Cutie and Buffy, our brahma chickens, and added a Pekin (Nut) and an Indian Runner duckling (India). They all grew up together in the brooder pen and moved to the yard together. 

Raising ducks and chickens in the suburbs has been interesting. They're loud, but luckily none of our neighbors has complained (yet). We keep them from smelling by keeping the coop and duck house clean and well stocked with pine shavings and straw. Occasionally I take eggs to the neighbors, to help keep the peace. Shortly after we got our ducks, the couple next door started raising a pair of ducks, too, so definitely no complaints there! It's fun to go hang out in the backyard on warm days - our ducks and the neighbor ducks "talk" to each other through the fence. We can hear them quacking and gabbing back and forth.

Chickens are very easy to care for. Ducks are more work, and they're louder and smellier than chickens. But they're also adorable and a lot of fun to watch. Worth raising, if you're able!

Affiliate links to products used:

Cold Weather Friends

I am having a lot of fun with the winter themes right now. Up here in the PNW, we don't get much snow. The temp is still frequently in the 50s here, and all of those jokes about constant rain are pretty accurate. We haven't had so much as a snowflake here yet this year, not a single morning when an ice scraper was needed, and only a couple of days when there was even frost on the ground.

Now, I'm not complaining. I am not a fan of cold, wet, slippery snow. It's pretty to look at for a few minutes, but then it's just cold and wet and slippery. However, I do enjoy winter stuff.  All of the glittery and shiny, the happy and joy, the snuggly and cuddly. All of the accessories of winter make me smile, even if cold isn't high on my list of Things I Enjoy. Winter theme lunches mean I get to play with all of the stuff I love most about winter, without the stuff that I don't. Win-win for me!

If I had to choose one animal which represents Winter for me, it would be the penguin. I love penguins. They're so adorable, with their sweet little faces and the way they waddle across the ice. And baby penguins? Squee to the Nth degree.

For lunch today, Bean has a penguin lunch. Her little penguin sandwich has black olives and carrot bits to snack on, with sprinkle-topped yogurt, clementine segments, and Goldfish crackers, too.

Little fishies - perfect lunch for a penguin!

The little penguin sandwich is made with whole wheat bread and smoked turkey, topped with nori (seaweed) and provolone cheese. The eyes are Wilton's candy and the beak and feet are made with bits of carrot, held on with decorating gel. The little bow tie makes him extra fancy - he's all dressed up for dancing!

Today Princess is watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in class as part of a unit studying habits for success. I'm not really sure how they're going to work those two together, but it will be interesting to hear from her what she learned.

For her lunch, I packed... Rudolph, of course!

She has a Rudolph sandwich, with black olive "black noses", like the fake nose Rudolph wears over his real nose to hide the shine when he is trying to fit in with the rest of the reindeer. Rudolph also has a small bucket of carrot bits to nibble on, some snowy yogurt, and a clementine-and-grape-tomato ornament to hang on his antlers.

The snowy yogurt is just regular yogurt with a candy snowflake and snowflake/blue sprinkles for decoration. Looks and tastes like dessert, but it packs in a bit of protein and calcium for a nice bonus.

Rudolph is made with whole wheat white bread and smoked turkey, with Wilton's candy eyes, an M&M nose, and pretzel antlers.

Hope your December is going beautifully so far!

Affiliate links to products used: