A Happy Snack! ;)

Okay, so this was actually part of lunch one day for the kids, but it would also make a great snack! All of the parts are pretty obvious here: tomato ears, black olive eyes, carrot mouth... Veggies to dip: carrots, celery, broccoli... with fat free ranch dressing.

I stuck these in my kids' sandwich boxes. We don't have sandwiches all that often. ;) Anyway, the cool part is the little sauce cup! I found these at the grocery store. They were sold in a pack of 2 for $2 as a food prep item. The best part is that these are soft squeezy silicone, so they can easily fit into any container and fit around the other items. Mostly, their just fun! ;)

The kids love this one! What are your thoughts?

More Bentos! Lunch or Snack

You all might be getting sick of these, but I am having a blast. ha! This one was really easy and the kids' favorite so far. The bottom layer contains rice and cucumber shapes with veggie-bobs. I made these rice shapes with cookie cutters by pressing sticky rice into the cutters while on a flat surface. You want to squish it as much as you can and I got pretty sticky myself. Rice molds are a much better idea, but I just don't have any yet! ;)

The veggies are tomato, avacado, and black olives. Yum!

The top layer was for fruit... Green grapes, mango, fugi apples, and bing cherries. Oh so good! ;)

Once again, I used parchment paper to divide the layers. I'll have to do a post that is just about my materials some time. And perhaps some of you can give me some ideas! ;)

I haven't really ever taken pics of food before and I have to admit it is pretty fun! ;) So, what do you think of my artistic photos?

Dress Up Your Dip!

Okay, I know I'm a nerd, but I'm still laughing about my name for this post. ;) This is just some ranch dressing with grated carrots and grape tomato garnishes. I also cracked some peppercorn medly on the top.

This took just seconds to do and the kids thought it was AH-some! Miss Sass was particularly excited to start eating her veggies. Definitely good news, since she is so set on just carrots and spinach, all other veggies be darned! ;)

On another note entirely... I've been yelling at the kids all week because they got water guns as a special prize at the dentist. Naturally, they keep trying to fill them up and shoot them in the house! Really, they have been in time out more times than I can count and I took the guns away for two days.

So the hubster was home today and they were all running around screaming, slamming doors, and being their typical crazy! Miss Sass runs into my office with soaking wet hair. Oh no, they didn't! Just then, the entire crowd falls into the room in one big heap with Daddy on top, holding two water pistols and shooting at everyone. Yep, he did! Geesh, a girl just can't win around here!

Bento Success! ;)

I have made a few lunches since my last post that the kids were pretty with, but this was the first that I actually liked the looks of. So, I took some pictures! ;)

We have celery sticks with peanut butter, craisans, & All Bran Cereal. (These were a huge hit with all three of the kids, and Miss Sass doesn't even like celery! ha) We also had 1/4 of a nectarine and a frozen strawberry.

I made a top layer in their box by cutting a piece of parchment paper (not too precisely, I might add) into a rectangle a little bigger than the box. Then you cut slits in the corners, going in an inch or so toward the middle. This allows it to fit quite nicely. ;) Right, so we have some avacado slices sprinkled with "Musical Jumping Beans" which are actually peppercorn medly, freshly cracked. If your kids watch Little Einstein, you'll know about the "beans"... I added a sweet butter pickle and a fun pick with a grape tomato and two green olives. I don't have any kid picks yet, so I used these footballs we had left over from our Super Bowl party that didn't happen last year. heh.

This definitely would not be enough food for Mr. Cool, so I gave each of them a second box with rice and left over chicken and veggies from last night's dinner. Over all the meal was a super success! The kids loved it and ate almost everything! Miss Sass has even started trying some of the things she wouldn't try before. Yay! ;)

Time flies...

Been ages (okay a few weeks) since my last post and I felt like I was being neglectful. So, here you go:)
These pics are both from Father's Day. I wish I had taken another pic after the first, but didn't think about it at the time...

So, we went to this steakhouse with the inlaws for lunch. We were heading out to my dad's that afternoon for an early dinner, so I didn't order much. I got a sirloin and lobster meal to share with the kids. This...............

is what they brought out to us! Now, without another picture to compare, you may not see the problem, or maybe you do! I'm telling you that when they brought this thing out, everyone at the table could smell it! And it wasn't a good smell:( It was somewhat like an ashtray, or well, it was gross. The smell went away mostly after the nice girl put it on the table, but there was just no hope. I honestly think my lobster tail caught fire! It was horrible. I tried to at least taste it, but couldn't get the bite to my mouth without smelling it... YUCK!

The next time I saw our server, I called him over. "My lobster is a little ... dark." As he looked down his eyes flew open and nearly popped out of his head and his jaw dropped to his chest: "Oh my!" Then he literally RAN back to the kitchen! About 7 minutes later, he brought out a much more lobster-looking lobster tail and it was delicious:) A few minutes after that the manager came by to say he had taken it off my bill and to apologize in person. We also got a discount on our next visit. They handled it perfectly, but I still can't believe the girl(maybe a hostess?) brought it out to me and that the cook actually handed it to her! But, hey, how cool is that?! Someone else burns things too:)

After we left, I opened the doors in the Jeep to cool it off and Alex found this patch of perfectly soft and green grass to rest on... She was too cute:)

So, Happy Father's Day! (a week late)

Snow, hail, sleet, and ribs

Okay, so I sit down to write a new post and what is it about? ... Dinner, again. I promise this isn't intended to be a meal planning blog or something. It would have to be a what-not-to-do manual anyway. So, I made pork ribs. I didn't burn them, but my planning was off, so the sides were ready 30 minutes later... oops. DK(Drama King) is eating his ribs and licking them clean. I thought, "wow, he really likes it" So I told him he could flip it over and find more meat on the other side. He says he doesn't want to eat the bread (they weren't breaded). When I said that was meat too, he asked why it was so hard. To which the rest of the family replied, "because mommy cooked it" I tell you, they are just so darn loving and supportive!
It snowed today, and sleeted, and snowed, and hailed, and rumbled, and flashed, and then snowed some more. The kids thought it was fantastic, me... not so much. I was really excited for the warm weather. Well, it gave me the chance to put Miss Sass in one of her cute winter sets one last time(I hope the last time!) The unfortunate thing is that Mr. Cool is growing so fast, he's run out of long pants...

Well, I know I have you all on the edge of your seats with my crazy-exciting life, but I must go! Miss Sass is trying to attack Daddy with her new molars and it is 20 min. past bedtime...

Funny story... to everyone else.

I guess I can see the humor in it, but I wish there were nothing to laugh at. Last night when I started dinner, Dan yelled from the other room, "is somebody burning something?" Sadly, this is a true story. Even more pathetic, I didn't have to answer. Joshua pops up, "No Daddy, Mommy's just cooking!" So embarassing... My four year old son has to eat what I burn everyday, poor kid. But, today was better. I made lunch, completely on my own. There was no burning, not even a burning-type smell. AND, my family all liked it! It was amazing! Typically the only time I don't burn or otherwise destroy our meals is when I make sandwiches, and that isn't a joke. I keep thinking I'll get better at this whole wife, mother, patron saint of cleaning thing, but it doesn't seem to hold... On a higher note, our dishwasher is functioning again. For a while Dan refused to fix it, claiming that the one we were currently using was in perfect working order. For those who are not used to Dan, or maybe are not as quick with the inappropriate female bashing, he was referring to me as the dishwasher. I know, men are, well, you know.