First inspired lunch of 2014

Well sadly the holidays are over and even more sad the big kids have been taken home and we need to get  back to our everyday routine. Today I made little S a New Year's inspired lunch

Main Compartment:

Confetti  Ham and Turkey - take two slices each of your chosen thinly sliced lunch meat and pull them into small chunks with two forks - to make edible confetti.

Colby Jack 2014 - I thinly sliced four pieces of Colby Jack from the block and then free hand cut out the 2,1, and 4. the 0 I used a veggie punch for to give it some flare with scalloped edges. The rest of the slices of cheese (scraps around the numbers) went into out scrambled eggs for breakfast the next day.


Top Right Compartment:

Fruit and Veggie Blueberry Squeezie - Dole makes two flavors that are both fruit and vegetables mixed together so that each squeezie has 1 and a half servings of fruit and vegetables. This one happens to be blueberry which is little S's favorite fruit.



Bottom Right Compartment:

White cheddar popcorn - M received one of those tins of popcorn so we opened it without him and shared his popcorn.

One nice day! Car Wash Bathtime

During the entire two weeks around the holidays we had a lot of snowy days and ones there the cold goes through all the layers of clothes you have on; but we did get one nice day. It was sunny, clear and 40F!!! That's practically T-shirt weather in southern Wisconsin, so I set little S up with a Car wash themed bath.

His sister H was looking at me strangely while I gathered up all the plastic toy cars from the toy bin and hauled them to the bathtub. Little S has figured out now that if mommy takes toys and things to the bathroom its time to get naked and so he started stripping down while I decorated and since he is pretty fast he beat me. I can't help but laugh because when he decides he wants to be naked he strips everything off (diapers slow him down but not long enough) and he RUNS.. I mean RUNS through the house completely naked and I have Calvin and Hobbs flashbacks from comic strips when I was growing up. All you see is naked boy butt run bye.


I did a quick mix of red and blue food coloring with shaving cream to give me some bathtub paint and made a quick sign since I was on borrowed time (no diaper = bound to have at least one puddle)

This was so quick and easy a less than 5 minute assembly.

Car wash 5 cents - written with shaving cream paint
Cars - from the toy bin all in need of a good bubble bath
Bubbles - can't have a car wash without bubbles

Inspired Lunch Witrhdrawls

During the holidays while the big kids were here I took a break from making little S inspired lunches. Part of the reason behind the break was that I now had three hungry kids who would breathe down my neck starting at 10:45 am looking for lunch; and while being the only one present at work between all the vacations I couldn't always pull myself away from my desk quick enough.

I did start to miss it though and one quieter morning assembled little S's breakfast into a quick flower bouquet.

He had orange slices, and halved red grapes, and two slices of salami that I cut to form into the stems and not pictured is the yogurt squeezie that rounded out his meal.

Christmas Memories

This is the first Christmas that we have had all three kids together. The last time we had the big kids near this holiday little S was still incubating and although provided presents he wasn't a huge presence yet. I wanted to make sure it was as memorable as possible for all of us.

Dad and daughter sprinkled Reindeer food all over the snow out front. H had made a bag of reindeer food in school to help guide the reindeer. It was oats and red glitter in a bag that H decorated to look like a reindeer.

I and H made some almond joy cookie bars so we could put them out on a plate that night for Santa along with a glass of milk.

We all staked out a place in the living room and because we were switching cars around little S had his car seat inside and chose that as his chair.

Some of little S's gifts included a new 4 in 1 tricycle from his Omi and Opa, a talking bear from his godmother, and a shopping cart from Neil and Nash.

Santa came and left little S a desk/art easel and a discovery kid laptop so that he has a desk right next to mommy's and his very own computer.

I was actually a little surprised that little S wasn't into presents as much as I thought he would be; he really lost interest after the second one. After talking my disappointment over with my wonderful sister it seems that really he just isn't big enough yet to get that presents are things that are for him. He's still happy with knowing Mommy will make sure he has fun and everything he needs.

The BEST part of a snow day!!!

The BEST part of a snow day is when it stops snowing and you can go outside to play!

The big kids spoiled little S while mommy shoveled the sidewalk and the driveway.

Snowing outside Play a game inside

Since it is still snowing I decided we needed a game to keep the kids moving. I layed down an outline of painters tape on the floor and broke out the container of pompoms. I gathered several lengths of cardboard tubes - and got the game going.


You could chose you pompom and your tube.

Items needed:

long tubes - gift wrapping insides
medium tubes - paper towel rolls
short tubes - toilet paper rolls
tiny tubes- Cut one paper towel roll into pieces about half the size of a toilet paper roll.
pompoms - I added a handful of different sizes and colors to a small container


The Game-

Get your pompom down the track, around the u-turn and back over the finish/start line first without touching your pompom with any part of your body or a tube. If your pompom went off the coubirse you needed to get it back to the course where it went out you couldn't move it ahead.

We did this several times while H (age 8) tried to determine which length of tube worked best. Although there was some cheating (blowing your pompom ahead when it went out) and some blocking (so sorry your pompom can't pass me because my body is taking up the whole course) it was a lot of inexpensive fun.

If you didn't have pompoms you could do the same with a piece of paper, wadded up clean toilet paper, or foil.

Snow Day Bath Time

Keeping with the snow day theme I enlisted the help of the big kids A and H to help me set up a snow day bath for little S. A kept an eye on the stripping S while H and I decorated. I pulled out the shaving cream, food coloring and some craft brushes and we made snowflakes.

I use sensitive skin shaving cream but any kind of "foam" cream will have the same effect. Just add a few drops of food coloring and mix to get a paint that washes right off. (Note RED lingers- it takes a little scrubbing to get the red paint off all the way)

We made blue, purple and white snowflakes all over the shower/bath stall.

 I then grabbed a package of blue necklace length glow sticks and once glowing added them to his bath. The final addition was the while bubbles to give him a blue and white winter wonderland and glowing bath for our Snow Day Theme.

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