Category Archives: Kids

My love letter to my daughter’s lunchbox.

Posted on by

3

So. I am an Environmental Management major with a minor in Natural Science. I have really been inspired to try and eliminate as much trash as possible in our household.  As of right now we throw away one bag of trash about every 7-10 days for our family of four.  It’s not bad (at least compared to the average American) but I know we can do better.

This year when I was shopping for lunchboxes for my daughter I wanted to try to have her have as little trash as possible at school.  After searching for ages I finally found THE ONE.

The Goodbyn.

I love this lunchbox so very much.  It has 5 different compartments separated from each other and there is no need to have anything packed in plastic bags.

Here are some of her recent lunches:

Hawaii rolls and meat and cheese... and a dang granola bar, gotta get on making some of those!

This one is not the best example, I have a granola bar and a piece of leftover valentine candy in there.  Homemade granola bars are on my to do list! Fruit leather too, fruit snacks are the other thing killing me! Those plastic film packages aren’t recyclable!

Better… I did wrap the sandwich in a piece of parchment this day.

The square compartment fits a regular sandwich cut into halves perfectly. My daughter just prefers the hard Spanish bread for her sandwich.  It’s also nice that she packs a LOT more fruit and vegetables.

The middle spot holds a drink container but she prefers to just drink water at lunch.

Her favorite part is the stickers that it comes with to customize your lunch box….

The only downside is the fact that the original size (which this one is) is pretty big and does take up a lot of space in her backpack.  Also its up to me to remember to wash  it or at least wipe it out every day!

So while it isn’t necessary for you to go out and buy THIS lunchbox, try NOT using plastic bags for your lunch! There are SO many cute reusable products out there, get to it!

It’s the little things {lilies & long weekends}

Posted on by

3

My beautiful Valentine’s Day flowers are opening up and look (and smell) FANTASTIC. Seriously our WHOLE house smells like flowers. Why is it that every time I have fresh flowers in the house I always vow to make more of an effort to buy them more often and I never do!Image

We are also looking forward to this nice long three day weekend.

Monday we are scheduled to have a power outage for almost the entire day.  They need to do some repair work on a utility pole and it will leaving the housing section of the base with no power. Seriously what the heck would I do all day? Clean? Yuck! So I am taking the kids on a field trip to Vejer de la Frontera. Should be a fun quick trip!

 

Linking up with Lindsey from Hello Hue!

 
Hello Hue Little Things

Valentine’s Day Recap

Posted on by

0

Totally phoned it in this Valentine’s Day.

I was planning on getting up early and making the kids a cutesy breakfast of pink heart pancakes… well, I overslept a bit.  Rushing around getting everyone and everything ready for the day and M asks me if I am making a special breakfast. Sorry honey, no!  So she makes a couple of poptarts and right before she eats them I pop over and use a heart cookie cutter on them.

There, there is your super special Valentine’s breakfast.

Then my husband calls me at work to ask me to run home and let the dog out on my lunch break because he wasn’t able to… I run home and see the dog sitting outside the patio door.  I call my husband and ask what the heck is he talking about, the dog is already outside.  He asks where I am and I say right by the door looking at the dog.

Let the dog inside then a few minutes later walk back outside with him with his lunch and see a huge bouquet of flowers laying on the table. Duh. So I called my husband and said oh yeah, saw the flowers. Sorry I am oblivious! He also gave me a new watch which was greatly appreciated because I just busted the crystal out of my watch the day before. Yay!

Was going to make a nice steak dinner for the family but didn’t feel like stopping at the commissary to pick up steak after work. So somehow we had a very polish Valentine dinner. Kielbasa, sauteed cabbage and pierogis.  I don’t even know.  But it was yummy.  We’re planning on going out this weekend for dinner, weekdays are too crazy.

Hope everyone had a lovely day with plenty of chocolate involved!

Plaza de Espana, Sevilla, Spain

Posted on by

4

When my mom came for a visit in September one of our day trips was to Seville or Sevilla (seh-vee-ya).  Sevilla is only about an hour or so from Rota and makes for a great day trip.  I had been wanted to go to the Plaza de Espana for ages and we finally got the chance to go! I tell you, nothing gets you out and about like having people visit you!

Oh this is one of my favorite places… I had no idea how beautiful this building was going to be or how HUGE it was!

Here is some background information on the plaza in case you were interested.

We're here!

 

We happened to go at a perfect time, there weren’t many people there and we had the chance to take one million pictures!

Even the light posts are beautiful!

There is a little moat/river/waterway between the plaza and the building and you can rent a rowboat for a few Euro… I highly recommend this, it is a LOT of fun… 

We're on a boat!

Oh this girl... she kills me.

 

Photobomb! He did this about 20 times... I forgive him because he is adorable.

 

I liked hanging out in the shade under the bridges. It was REALLY hot...

 

The bridges all had different tile work. So pretty!

 

Not pictured on our boat ride… constant fighting about WHO got to hold the oars and help row… also complaining about how hot it was and were we done yet…

Time to cool off with some ice cream...

One of the things I love about Spain and Europe in general is how they assume you are not an idiot.  See the railing above? A child could easily fall into the water. But guess what, they assume you will be watching your children! 

(See also: German Zoo missing fences with only plastic strung from post to post, hotel in the Canaries with open window on the fourth floor with no screen or bars, alligator farm with minimal safety measures. Gotta love it)

Happy girl, Mimi let her pick out a fan!

All around the plaza are sections dedicated to each province in Spain.  Of course we had to take pictures in each area that we love!

Cadiz! Home sweet home!

Barcelona, we've been a couple times, I love it there!

Canary Ilands, aka Las Canarias! Go there if you can, we LOVED Tenerife!

 

A big door mommy, take a picture!

 

M hanging on one of the bridges...

 

Fab floors

 

Mom posing on the steps

 

I love this type of stone floors... simple idea but lots of hard work!

 

 

 

 Now off to search for something to eat!

Rainbow Birthday Party!

Posted on by

6

Friday night was M’s 10th birthday party/slumber party.  She hadn’t requested a theme but that dang Pinterest kept popping up with all these super cute rainbow decorations and crafts! So I informed her that I would be doing a rainbow party and she was super excited!

Garland and tissue paper pom poms!

Tissue paper pom pom tutorial can be found here!

Entry way table...

I just used some 6×6 rainbow paper I had and laid that on the table and found that super cute birthday printable online!

Birthday Banner!

This was a midnight craft where I wanted one more thing to hang up! I had the paper, stickers and cardboard garland base sitting in my massive pile of scrapbook supplies! I like how it turned out and I’ll be able to pull it out for future birthdays!

M&M’s and sour patch kids used for rainbow decoration!

Rainbow fruit kebabs, super easy to make and the kiddos LOVED eating them!

Rainbow cake tutorial can be found here! 

Rainbow ice cubes, just used food coloring to dye some lemonade… Put in glasses of Sprite!

Birthday breakfast! The rainbow waffles would have been cute with a circle waffle iron, then cut in half with whipped cream on either side… but they were a hit regardless.  I used the same idea as the rainbow cake. Some of the colors did look a little brownish after cooking but the inside was pretty!

Rainbow Waffles!

This dishware from Ikea is something everyone should have.  I’ve had it for years and love it!

Happy Birthday M!

Rainbow Tissue Paper Pom Poms Tutorial

Posted on by

4

I think these are originally a Martha creation but they are everywhere right now and super simple to make.

Here’s how.

Open up your tissue paper and lay them in piles of 8-10 pieces.  You can use single colors, rainbow or any combination of colors to match a party theme.

 

Fold them up like a fan (accordian fold, whatever)  Then tie the center.  Wire was recommended but I didn’t have any. I did have some of those paper ties that are used in kids toys to attach them to the cardboard so I used those. Then round the ends using some scissors.

Then start separating the layers and fluffing them up.

 

Fluffing, fluffing, fluffing!

And of course covering yourself with pom poms is an essential part of the process.

 Rainbow!

Hang from ceiling… I just used some kite string and packing tape. Try to ignore the packing tape! For the smaller one I just cut the layer of tissue paper in half first then used the same process.