First Day of School!!!!

So Today was my kinder-minions 1st day of school and I am soo happy it was a success! He loved it and it was super nice spending a half day with my pre mini minion. Last night we did some prep work in the kitchen for lunches with proteins and some precooking and leftovers for this weeks lunches. we made his favorite pasta in bulk and i portioned it all out to fit inside his thermos so that he has a total of 6 meals ready to go in the freezer. Then we made a batch of corn dogs in a cake pop maker. We mixed a batch of corn bread up and then separated enough batter for 2 "cakes" of batter and then added a chopped up cooked hot dog and a half. It made 3 cakes. it also made a total of 6 servings of said cakes, Awesome.

     So after filling out our weekly menu I needed to figure out what lunch box i planned to use and since the one I originally wanted to use had not come in yet I decided that the plane box would work fine since it is all dry foods in the box anyway. Here is what the weekly menu looks like.

     Now obviously all of this is likely to change. But this helps me dramatically when budgeting and grocery shopping. Today's menu was corndog balls, carrots and broccoli, cheese sticks, strawberries and grapes, pickles and olives and date balls were snack. Which laid out nicely in his planet box. I even added a small squeezy pouch of ketchup. Which my non sauce or dressing child had very recently now accepted as an ok thing to have as long as it is a small amount and he can do it himself. WINNING!

     now of course after seeing all of this mind you I started thinking maybe I packed too much food and began to wonder how much of this was he going to be bringing back home with him. I was very very upset to find out he would be bringing home ALL of it.  SO, first day of school we received a notice saying that lunch would be offered free for the first day as it was being catered from chic-fila. Now while this is exciting for some people and back in the day i would have been excited too, however. I am proud of the fact that our kids at the age of 4 and 5 have never eaten at a fast food restaurant before. We have never taken them. We do not feed them processed junk, we try not to even buy it. I normally make for my kids and they enjoy eating TONS of fruit and veggies because that is all they have ever had as options. Sure i make special treats for them, I am not a monster, But i enjoy cooking and making things from scratch and knowing what goes in it. They do not melt down for wanting to live off fries or chicken nuggets because those have never been an option to them. So when I heard that it was fast food take out (i was really excited to finally get to make my son his lunch and get to use all the boxes i have been collecting for this very day) i gladly still packed his lunch. When picking him up, honestly i was looking forward to finding out how i had done for him and what he had left. so when he ran and jumped into my arms and I asked him how his day was, he immediately asked me. "mommy, can I please eat my lunch?" I asked him if he had any left and he told me he was not allowed to eat his lunch because they gave him chicken nuggets, chips and a juice box. Livid was an understatement. I felt so bad and also so angry that the 1st time my kids were exposed to this was at school. i am not naive that my kids will eventually trade food with other kids, or that there will be parties and i cant control what they eat. But I packed him food. Just cus it is free doesn't mean that it is ok if i still pack him his lunch. What was very eye opening is he had eaten only 2 hours prior and within 10 minutes in the car, this was his full container of lunch.

He ate like he had never been fed. He drank so much water from all the fast food salt. and then told me he loved me and he LOVED LOVE LOVED his lunch. Today as we were getting ready for song before bed I asked him what we would like me to put in his lunch and told him his options i had written down for the week,. He crawled into my lap and hugged me and whispered in my ear "Surprise me." Seriously. I love my lil minion. He made my heart melt. I planned on sending a note to school with him to his teacher. I obviously don't know if he was told he could not have his lunch, or if he didn't tell the teachers he had brought his lunch or if he just followed and never said anything since he can be very shy. But since I can still walk him to his classroom till labor day. I plan to just let her know, if i send him with food. please feed it to him. Please don't give him unapproved crap without permission from either my husband or I. Am I wrong for feeling this bent out of shape over this? 

Great Cakes Soapworks Soap Challenge Club.

One of my great joys is making soap. I love to craft with all sorts of mediums but none bring me this imense satisfaction of making soap. I have entered quite a few times and even been successful in placing a couple times., Though I will stand by beginers luck. This challenge was the Dancing funnel pour and I attempted this design 6 different times, only one had come close by my 5th time and I was going to attempt to enter my only successful one that was still not what it was supposed to be as shown here:

But at the last possible moment I thought I would try one more time. Every previous batch got so thick that it was impossible to do what I needed it to. It was like scooping shortening. I even had one harden up so bad in my squeeze bottles that I ended up throwing them away because they hardened so badly I had to go out and buy new bottles.  This final batch used 6 colors (because i am a glutton for punishment) I used activated charcoal for the black and Nurtures soap Neons. I scented in Avobath since I am down to my last bar and went to work. I was soo happy I tried one more time. It stayed super smooth and fluid, smelled fantastic and most importantly let me do the layers I needed to have done for the design. I have no idea why it worked this time and not the others. Possibly my lard was too cold at room temperture, but regardless, this batch came out beautiful. Now I am praying that letting it rest in the dehydrator will let it harden it up fast enough to let me cut into it and get photos before the deadline. I am writing this in advance so that if i am able to cut in time I wont have to write out a blog post and then end up cutting through the skin of my teeth to make it in. I figured if I can have everything ready until the cut then I might have a fighting chance. I look forward to seeing the cut, I love the colors and am just thrillled that it actually turned out. I really got lucky on this one.

sorry for the bad lighting on this one. It was well after midnight and we have pour lighting.

So hooray I got my entry in with literally 2 minutes to spare. It was so soft to cut that I was tearing my soap and I had to wash it to get it to not looked ripped for photos. So unfortunately I think it came off as slimy and I had no time to dry them off or even take a new set of photos. With my computer running slow motion unfortunately that is the way the cookie, or soap in this matter crumbles. I am super pleased with how it came out though and having the house smell like AvoBath is an added bonus. I cant wait to look at everyones entry and good luck to everyone!

Hubby and the kids dubbed this soap Dance of the FireFlies.

I am happy to be back home. Now that we have visited most of my family and hubbys, I can get back on track. I have not made anything special for lunches but I have been doing quite the overhall on getting everything organized and still waiting on an item or 2 to come in the mail I believe on the 2nd day of school. Looking through old photos I have also found that i have lunch boxes and supplies that I dont even remember getting but sure enough i have photos of them with meals i made for my minions so I have been questing questing questing, looking for that box. I was happy to have found 2 of them so I am excited to get to use some of them now that school is underway. 

Before I left my parents house in WV I did find a few new gadgets in the reduced rack at a kitchen store so that was exciting and I cant wait to use them as well. Here is one of them.

 Bananas, homemade yogurt, grapes, cherry tomatoes and peanut butter jelly in a push pop mold.

ice sphere mold made with mexican rompope gelatin. (visual fail)

SO i got 4 push pop molds for $1 and i found a sphere mold to make giant ice cubes, or raindrop cakes. you should totally google that if you don't know what it is though i do plan to make them since i found said molds. The first thing i did was try to make jello to see how easy it is to release. It releases very well. However at the top of the mold are little holes so that you can use the funnel to insert to fill the spheres when the case closes. Note: avoid using flesh colored jello. We could not stop laughing. They are oh so jiggly...

i don't have a photo of the snack cases but I will once i make something for them. I cant believe just 2 more days till the 1st day of school!

Starting Fresh

     Today is a new Day. It has been a very long time since I have sat in front of the computer to blog. I do find that I have missed it. My little minions were possible only new arrivals and now my oldest will be starting kinder in a few weeks and I am overjoyed with the extra time I will not only have for myself but also for also to spend with my daughter.

my Pre mini-minion

   
     With the buzz and excitement going around my son getting ready to start school, this has presented all sorts of "challenges". The biggest one being I am not a morning person. I have been spoiled in the fact that my son is also not really a morning person and that he would happily stay up till 9 and wake up at 10 in the morning each day. I was all to eager to let him. So trying to get him to bed earlier and all of us waking up early has been, well...lets just say, we are still trying. I am determined to have all of us in a routine, a healthy one. So i sadly wave goodbye to my late mornings and my 3 am bedtimes for myself. Moving onward.

my kinder-minion

     For the fun part now. For those who know me know I am a foodie and my husband is a converted foodie. I love to cook, I love to eat, I love love love to travel and taste food and eat and learn to make even more delights. I think while this blog will likely cover everything from daily life so that I can have something to look back on, to my love and joy of crafting. I have a feeling when all is said and done this will be mostly a blog on food and our travels for it. While searching for ideas for school lunches for my son and starting school. I was reminded of my love of collecting lunch boxes and set,  about to researching the boxes I already own (some since I was little) and new ones. I found I had trouble finding alot of inspiration. Yes I was able to find some pretty amazing blogs that helped greatly, but not for specific boxes. This clicked the light bulb in my head that I used to do fancy fun lunches for a long time and I really enjoyed doing it. Why not kill some birds and do some reviews on boxes I already have. And post photos of lovely ideas for them.

     If it can help one person make a decision then I am ok with that. If anyone wants to leave tips or ideas I am definitely ok with that. And I can save one person from "wasting" their money on something that simply does not do what they want it to do Then HOORAY for saving money. Here are some photos I had taken 3 years ago when I was taking pics for my then almost 2 year old and lunches for me. I will also include some photos of things i use that are not a lunch box and food ideas i used for myself that may be helpful. especially for varying appetites and how long lunch or food needs to last. I am interested in how I will vary and make alterations since my son is my picky eater while my daughter is my garbage disposal and I cant thing of anything at the moment that she wont eat. My son does not like sauces or dips or dressings. It has only been very recent we have gotten him to taste and eat ketchup. Sometimes we forget and that makes it hard when we have some things like casseroles or slaws or dressed pastas and salads. Though I am grateful he does spaghetti ok. Things have changed a bit since he was two.

These are a few of his old lunches:

This is not even a lunch box, this I found in tackle fishing section at Walmart for about $4, You could also use a bead sorter container as long as it has movable slots to make it the size you want. This was spiced apple slices with stevia, the middle was the snack section with a chocolate truffle, almonds and a couple orange esscence prunes. Peanut butter jelly sandwhich slices, cucumber and radish salad, cheese chunk, snow peas.

boiled egg and cheese, watermelon grapes, rolled peanut butter jelly, "baby cabbage" or brussels sprouts, carrot stars. Plates from Target.

Planet Box lunch box, Fish cakes with sour cream and guac for dip, mixed fruit with cream cheese. boiled eggs, steamed broccoli and purple cabbage, roasted radish and purple potato carrot, asparagus and corn on the cob. 

segmented oranges, grapes (uvas) feremented carrots and steamed sesame snow peas,

lemon orzo with roasted veggies and tomato and seaweed rolls. this whole meal was to use up leftovers in the fridge. Plate is Mothers Corn baby made from recycled corn.

Kangovou plate with grilled cheese and roasted red pepper hummus hearts,

grapes and strawberries, veggie chips and homemade coconut dates

Tovolo extra large ice cube tray, serving cheese sticks, snap pea chips, turkey and Roni roll ups, strawberry and orange with olives

     These are just a few that I have found I saved photos from. I will be doing reviews of all the ones I have posted as well as the ones I have not yet posted. Stay tuned and I hope to here from you all soon :)