This & That & Same Love.

Well,

three weeks into the school year and we have all officially been sick.

I was the last to catch the darn bug and I'm still feeling plugged up and under the weather.

So not too much to report around here.

Here's a few pics of the recent bento boxes I've made for the girls lunches...

 homemade corn dog muffins and ketchup, kiwi, string cheese, yogurt, and some almonds and dark chocolate.

 Turkey sandwhiches, fruit, hard boiled egg, and plantain chips and a sticker.

 Claire's snack one day, waffle dippers from the Weelicious cookbook with bacon and cheese, syrup for dipping, string cheese and kiwi and blueberries.

Hannah's cocoa almond butter spread sandwhich with banana and rasberry jelly mashed in the waffle iron, fruit cup, bunny snacks, and greek yogurt with agave and granola.

A friend recently shared about this cool app.

It's a great way to store your kids artwork and important school papers or things you want to save.  You take a picture of it, then archive it and you can share it with family and friends via email, and then throw the paper copy away!  At the end of the year you can create a book with all the things you've archived.  How aweseome.  I can't wait to make the girls a book and see how it turns out.

 Two weekends ago we went to Chipotle for lunch, and then took our girls to the Corona Civic Center to go see the play Cheaper By The Dozen.

 This building is one of the oldest buildings in our town.  It used to be the original Corona High School in the 40's and 50's.  Hannah and I got  a great tour of the whole place when we came to see a play there with her Girl Scout Troop.

 Love this picture of my girl.  And I cannot believe how old she looks now.  First grade, long legs, I swear she's turning into a teenager already!

 Me and my sidekick picking up Hannah from school one day.

 Later that day after Mr. H got home I left for work.

 And another day before work, trying to drink my greens and fight this darn cold.

I came up with this greeny myself and it tasted WAY better than my Juice It Up version.

I just used a handful of kale ripped off the stem, half a cucumber, juice of one lemon, a frozen banana, handful of frozen purple grapes and about 1/4 cup frozen pineapple, 1 cup water and 1 Tbsp of Artisana coconut butter.

Oh my my, it was so tasty.

Speaking of Oh My My, makes me think of the Mackelmore song My Oh My.  Have you heard it?  It's good.

It reminds me of Mr. Hass, growing up as such a big Seattle Mariners fan.

But my favorite Mackelmore song is the one he performed during the VMA's.

Everybody is talking about how awful Miley Cyrus was (which she was), but I wish more people were talking about how BEAUTIFUL Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' performance of Same Love was.

If you haven't seen it or heard this song, watch this video.

It's so moving and it brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it.

"No freedom til we're equal.  Damn right I support it."

Mary Lambert and Jennifer Hudson's rendition at the end was so beautiful.
Well done.
Well said.
Damn right I support it.

(this second video is just the lyrics and sound.  not sure why the video won't play but you can hear the song better in this one with no video)

Bento Box Lunches

Well, after tomorrow we will be two weeks into the new school year already.

 Last Friday morning Mr. H's battery was dead.
The day before that he had to replace his own starter.
Luckily we have Triple AAA, and it was a pretty easy fix.
And we walk to school so the dead battery didn't affect the girls getting there on time.  

Just before summer started up my friend Crystal told me about bento boxes.
I had seen the concept around blogs and Pinterest, but didn't pay too much attention to it.
But now that I was going to have to be sending Hannah to school with lunch everyday, suddenly I couldn't get enough of these bento box ideas.

 This was my first bento attempt.
If you've never heard of this concept,
it's based after the Japanese style of a boxed lunch or bento box.
It's basically the whole lunch fitted into one container using different compartments and decorations to make it fun.
It's also very green and earth friendly since you are creating less waste by not using brown bags and ziplocs and such.
The boxed tupperware above I ordered in a 4 pack from easy lunchboxes on amazon.
I really like them, but Ziploc also makes practically the same thing and can be found at Target or amazon.

 Hannah's Daisy Scout leader told me about these boxes from laptop lunches.  I liked the fun colors, and different sizes, so I ordered this 4 piece set from amazon for $14.

And who would have thought, but I have actually been enjoying coming up with different lunch ideas for the girls each night.

 Of course I might be singing a different tune in about two weeks from now. ;)

 The little animal forks and people picks were an amazon order add on item that I bought when I purchased the bento boxes.
They have all sorts of different bento decor!
I just bought some hard boiled egg shape molds too.

 This was a bento style lunch for Mr. H after we had tacos and beans for dinner one night.

 I also bought the colorful silicone cupcake liners on amazon.
Those have been handy to seperate different foods and fruits in the boxes.
Claire just eats snack at school since she is out by 11:30am.  
So I have been packing her a smaller bento and then also another one with the rest of her lunch that I can just pull right out of the fridge as soon as we get home from school.  That is handy.

 And guess what?
Apparently if you make food fun,
and pack it in a cute pink box,
and add little animal forks and people toothpicks,
and cut turkey sandwhiches into the shape of a car...

 even your picky eater will come home with a completely empty bento box!!!!

 I thought the girls would like this one.
Blueberry muffins that I recently made and froze, and chicken nuggets that I also made a bunch of one day and froze, and sliced mango.  And for Hannah also prunes and a hard boiled egg.

 And as the end of the week nears I need to replenish my food supply.
So this one wasn't super exciting, but it's what I had on hand.
Sunflower seed butter and jelly sandwhich, string cheese, mango, and greek yogurt with homemade berry sauce and homemade granola to top it.

 I used to love the fun drawings and notes that my mom would put in my school lunches and now I love adding them to my girls as well.

I'm learning that bento box lunches are super easy as long as I have food in the house to use.
I've been trying to make time at least once a week to cook and freeze some things which will make it even easier to pack lunches.

Last weekend Mr. H had to work, and Sunday morning the girls and I jogged and scootered up to the school so they could ride around.

 Claire had all sorts of new tricks she was doing.

 She said she was ice skating.

 Hannah showed us which lunch table she eats at.

And we are sinking into a new routine around here.
After the bell rings the first grade teachers bring their class outside and line up and when the students spot their parents on the opposite side of the gate waiting to pick them up, they tell their teacher that their parent is here, and then they can walk out.

 I am always there before the bell rings and the first few days Hannah has just come outside in a tired daze and stood there.
And I'm trying to wave and yell and get her attention, and she just zones out into la la land.
But today and yesterday she remembered to come right out and look for me, so I think we are getting it figured out.
Hopefully next week Claire will be back to feeling 100%.
The poor girl has already missed two days because of a high fever.

She had a slight fever today and seemed better, so we will see how she sleeps tonight and feels in the morning.

Back to School.

Back in the swing of things.

And almost time for BSU football!