I wish I had a superman costume...

Today we randomly came across a old school telephone booth with an actual working pay phone. I had little S stand inside then incredibly started wishing I had a superman costume to change him into to compelte the scene  This way at least he'll have proof of payphones and phone booths existing in his lifetime.

Lilttle S goes shopping

It has been increasingly difficult keeping little S in a cart now that he is getting closer to two. He wants to run and explore and I can't blame him. Today at trader Joe's I handed the child a kid cart and let him help. This was so much fun for both of us. Sure it meant I needed to make a big waving motion to the other adults who may have gotten in the way to let them know my little S was coming fast with a cart, and of course I had to take things out of the cart that we really didn't need, and I even had to stop a melt down when the cashier wanted to check us out and little S didn't want her to take his things but I highly recomend this method of shopping any chance you get.

It makes him a big helper, teaches him what things are ok to have in your cart, teaches the process of grocery shopping and you'll both get plenty of exerscise.

Alphabet Inspired Lunches - Week L

This week we are celebrating the letter L and Earth Day falls during the week so there will be a Earth Day lunch as well.




Day 1 week L:  L = Ladybug

The ladybugs are jumbo strawberries cut in half with blueberry dots and heads, Steak fries, and steak bites with ranch for dipping.




Earth Day 2014

The Earth is a waffle water color painted with food coloring to show continents in normal waffle color and water in Blue. M&M's from Easter are the eyes, and a strawberry piece for the mouth.  EARTH is spelled in organic veggie cookies (from the random letters that come in the boxes). There is a salad of pear and strawberries, carrots, and the Earth's animals are represented with animal crackers.




Day 2 Week L: L= Lion Love

Today little S has a cheese and tortilla lion - I used a circle cutter to cut the tortilla into a round for his face, and used a glass that was slightly larger to cut the circle out of cheese for his mane. I then used a knife to cutt he notches to represent fur and added a few of the pieces I removed from the edges for his bangs. I drew the face on with food coloring using a toothpick that I dipped into the color. He also has large strawberries that were decorated with a pink heart pick, and steak bites decorated with a red heart pick, and a few baby carrots.



Day 3 Week L: L = Light bulb

Today's lunch is a tortilla with cheese (it was a hit the day before) cut into the shape of a light bulb with the screw in part cut from a piece of salami and painted with food color marker to show the curves. The bulb is lit because of an additional piece of cheese that was cut to the size and decorated with the GE logo using food color and a Q-Tip. Also for lunch is corn chips and strawberries.



Day 4 Week L  L= Leis, lollipop and the letter for the refrigerator.

The Leis is mango and apple flowers alternating with the wooden letter L for the refrigerator for completing week L. He also has cheeseballs, carrots, a lollipop from Easter, and Ham rolls.

Easter 2014

This is little S's second Easter and the first time he really has gotten to participate in a egg hunt although his first Easter the bunny did leave some really large eggs and he got to take a bath with them; this year the bunny hid eggs all over the backyard!



Little S's Easter Basket - the basket is a Dragon Pail and could be used as a room trashcan it's that big at any rate we'll use it for tons of things I'm sure. He also received Cotton Tails (white cheese balls),  Orange M&M's, lollipops, a ruber ducky wearing bunny ears, two puzzles, a kite and several books.

M's Easter basket - Jelly beans, Peeps, snicker eggs and chocolate egg candies

My Easter gift - It's complicated for holidays sometimes because I'm Paleo and do not consume sugar or grain... I received a pink bunny from the Easter Bunny and a very nice card from M and little S.

Egg Hunt!

ready to take your calls

I loaned M my old headset from when I was working on the phones in a call center and Little S confiscated it for a trial run. The funnies thing about it was that he put it on.. grabbed the mute button and looked at us like well send the calls I'm ready. When M and I started laughing.. he grabbed his ear the one with the speaker and said.. "Hi Hi ya doing?" like he was really getting a call and having trouble hearing because of noisy cube neighbors.


we both looked at each other and cracked up.

no bake energy bites for a quick project

Little S and I today took a few minutes and made some no bake energy bites as a quick hands on project in the kitchen.


These little babies are packed with fiber and sticky goodness and as a bonus little S loved them.

In a medium bowl mix together all ingredients then chill 30 minutes.

1 cup oatmeal
2/3 cup coconut
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup flaxseed
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla

Using a small scoop, scoop and roll into balls. Store in the refrigerator in a sealed container up to one week.
 Makes 20-25

Easter Lunches

In a count down to Easter we had a week of spring/Easter themed lunches.


Day 1 - Little S has the stomach flu so he's on a brat diet (Banana, Rice, Applesauce and Toast) so this lunch is pretty plain to not upset his tummy

The bunnies are rice balls with plain Matzoh ears- They are nibbling on dried apples. He also had teething biscuits and fruit and veggie drops. The side dishes are both early eater munchies so they have added nutrients and are easy to break down and digest.




Day 2 - Little S is a little better - Spring Flower

Waffle flower with sugar free strawberry jam in the center, Strawberry applesauce squeezie, and :Super Why" Alphabits cereal. Super Why is his favorite show and this was the first time he had character recognition on packaging.



Day 3 - Little S is doing loads better back to normal foods Tulips

Mango tulips with Kiwi steams and leaves, diced chicken with ranch for dipping and a few more teething crackers to help settle his tummy some.




Good Friday breakfast we had dinosaur eggs - hard boiled eggs that have cracked shells and the food coloring is added to the cracked hard boiled egg directly before letting it dry and peeling.

Day 4: Bunnies every where lunch

Strawberry bunnies - strawberries cut in half with the other half cut to make the ears (attached with toothpicks) food coloring dotted for the eyes. A hard boiled molded bunny egg, carrot sticks for the bunnies to eat, a 18 rabbit Jr. cranberry and apricot granola bar, diced mango and pear.

Four Leaf Clover Inspired Lunch

St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner. Although admittedly a holiday I have protested in my adult years due to my personal beliefs; I now have a child who I do not want to be pinched and whom I want to grow up to make his own decisions about what holidays to celebrate and which to pass on. We have decorated around the house, and today have our first St Patrick's Day inspired lunch.

Main: Taco cheese quesadilla cut into a four leaf clover. I used two mini flour tortillas which I cooked with Colby jack cheese (M's favorite) and a sprinkle of taco seasoning until melted and glued together. I then used a heart cookie cutter to cut four crinkle edge hearts and trimmed a scrap edge to form the steam of our four heart leaf clover. Sides: diced summer sausage, baby carrots, and diced green apple. I refrained from coloring anything artificially in this lunch because of all the food coloring he has already had this week with the Dr. Suess and Marti Gras lunches.

Finger food inspired lunch

This week for some reason I am just short on ideas and creativity for his lunches. Normally I have 19 ideas and I am ready to go, or I've done the research and sometimes I have drawn what I want the lunch to look like so I can lay a my drawing down to help me free hand cut something. This week I don't know if it is because of M's schedule change and now we're a hour earlier than we have been for more than a month or just wishing it would finally stop snowing that's got my creativity in a funk.

Finger Food Inspired Lunch:

Main: two dino nuggets served at lunch time with Ranch dressing on the side Little S has learned he loves ranch dressing and dipping. (Usually its best with his fingers but he enjoyed it with nuggets) he also has a kale and green apple rice bar - made with organic brown rice, kale and apple pieces. Sides: a box of yogurt covered raisins, organic plantain chips, organic carrot apple bites, and BBQ potato chips (to balance out all the organic good for you food)

Fat Tuesday Marti Gras Inspired Lunch

Today is Fat Tuesday or Marti Gras in French. This refers to the practice of eating richer, fatty foods and partying before Ash Wednesday and Lent when many religions required fasting and a period of religious obligations associated with the penitential season of Lent. Popular practices on this day include wearing masks and costumes, overturning social conventions, dancing, sports competitions, parades and generally a party atmosphere. Today little S has a Marti Gras inspired lunch.

Main: Star shaped noodles colored during the cooking process into the three main Marti Gras colors, Purple, Gold and Green. The package of noodles was separated into three pots of boiling water each of which had 10 drops of food coloring added and cooked following the package directions. I then rinsed each batch of pasta and kept it separated in three bowls. I added a tbs of butter to each bowl of hot pasta and then spooned each color of butter noodles into the main compartment. I then added Parmesan cheese to the top of the noodles. Using a single slice of Colby Jack cheese I free hand cut a mask shape. I then used the left over pieces from the mask cut and made strips to form the mask fringe. The pasta had cooled enough not to instantly melt the cheese mask by the time I was ready to add the mask to the pasta. Sides: I made confetti from dried cranberries, sun flower seeds and a mini package of M&M's. I then made "beads" by dicing a red apple into chunky beads.

Dr Suess's Birthday inspired lunch

March 2 is Dr. Suess's birthday which this year fell on Sunday. I do not make inspired meals on the weekends for little S because we are usually out and about and trying not to be home. I decided to celebrate the birthday the next day. Although admittedly I was a bit unprepared and not as inspired as I could have been. I'll do better next time.


Dr Suess inspired lunch

Main: Taco cheese quesadillas cut using an egg shaped cookie cutter with green yolk colored on using food safe markers (to make green eggs that are not fried eggs which Little S doesn't like) and a slice of ham. I did not color the ham green as I have found Little S only allows so much food coloring before he doesn't eat items. It's better for him not to not like to eat green meat anyway. Sides: Whole wheat cheese crackers, with a cat in the hat inspired skewer of dehydrated strawberries and pressed flat mini marshmallows. I pressed the mini marshmallows flat to ensure that the stripes looked correct for the hat and the one i used for the brim of the hat is just flattened a bit more than the others. He also had a cat in the hat fruit salad, of dehydrated strawberries (the parts I sliced off when making the red hat stripes) freeze dried banana and mini marshmallows.


After stepping back and looking at this lunch I vowed to do much better next time.

Balloon fun

Little S and I both received mylar balloons from M for Valentine's Day. (I'm allergic to Latex so these are the only kind of balloons we can have in the house). Finally after nearly two weeks of trying the cats managed to chew through the ribbon holding one of my balloons to my chair in the kitchen.

This happy accident lead to a lot of learning and fun for little S. We had been holding him up and letting him push his balloon since he got it; however he had never been able to hold a balloon. I handed him the now freed balloon ribbon and he laughed and tried to jump high enough to put it back where it goes.

I would bring him the balloon in another room and he would run back with it to the kitchen and jump to put it back. The pictures below are a little blurry because he is doing the jumping thing to get the balloon back to where it was supposed to be.

This was one of those.. I love how the world works in your eyes little man, (and I adore you in overalls)  mommy moments.

Alphabet Inspired Lunch Week F

This week we are celebrating the letter F and all the fun things mommy can think of that start with F. Some of these weeks are more challenging than I imagined when I started this.


Monday little S had left overs. It doesn't start with F but maybe we could consider left over's Fun? no.. um environmentally friendly? well that sort of works so we'll go with that.



Left overs:

Main: Mongolian left overs topping white rice - this is chicken, cabbage, egg, broccoli, green beans, and onion in a pineapple soy sort of sauce. sides: A Godiva chocolate covered strawberry (also a left over from when mommy spoiled the men) and diced cucumber and apples.



F= Flamingo and Flowers

Main: Pink Flamingo is a open faced ham sandwich cut with a flamingo cookie cutter and decorated with a candy eye. Sides: apple flowers cut from thick slices of apple using a flower cookie cutter I found in the Easter section. Sliced cucumber and yogurt covered raisins finish out the lunch.



F= Feet

Main: Two taco cheese quesadillas cut with a foot cookie cutter (just flip the cut piece to make the other foot) I used a  food color marker for the toe nail polish. Sides: A mango and peach fruit and veggie squeezie and buttered popcorn topped with a letter F cookie cutter.



F= Fish

Main: Mr. Fish the fish is a three slices of ham cut all at the same time with a fish cookie cutter. To make the fishes stripes I used the same cookie cutter on a slice of american cheese and then cut that cheese fish into strips using the different curved sides of the cookie cutter so the lines on the stripes would not be the same or too straight. I placed the stripes on like puzzle pieces where they went onto the ham fish and added a size appropriate candy eye. The seaweed and moss grassy bottom of his environment are all cut slices from a mini cucumber. I intentionally took the picture with the lid of the container under to give Mr. Fish blue water. Sides:  Fruit salad of diced kiwi and apple to look like fish food, and pretzel and stick mix because these are the hooks and worms the fishermen might use to try to catch Mr. Fish.




F= Frog

Main: I was going to use a new frog cookie cutter I have but noticed the pear and thought.. I wonder if I could make that into a frog instead. I sliced the sides off of the pear to make the back legs, a large piece for his body and the fourth side I took off and turned into his head. The pear happened to have a triangle mark on it so I used that to make his mouth and added two carrot disks and sliced dehydrated strawberries for his eyes. The two pieces for each eye are held in place by two toothpicks that I skewered through the head into the body so that the frog would remain in place until lunch. Little S is too small to remove these himself so I took them out prior to serving his lunch. The back feet are flow shapes cut using a veggie punch from a slice f the inside of the pear, and the front feet were cut from another slice of pear using a mini foot cutter. The feet would have been better in carrot to complete the tree frog look I just didn't have a carrot large enough on hand and thought cheese feet would get too soggy from all the cut fruit.  Sides: Buttered popcorn with the letter F magnet he earned at the end of his F week and chopped pizza from his dad's impromptu stop on his way home from work the night before.

Little S's first ride

He's been in a car, and taken an airplane ride but before today he had never been on a amusement ride or any mechanical ride.


While leaving a store we just happened into we found a Dumbo Ride and M surprised me by putting little S onto it and having him ride it twice. I don't know why it surprised me so much; whether it was the frivolous use of money, whether it was the spur of the moment act or whether it was the selfless act of letting his son do something fun while he watched. I was whole heartedly taken aback by this sweet gesture.

So here is little S riding Dumbo (Twice!!!)

Alphabet Inspired Lunches - Week E

Now that Valentine's Day is over we are continuing our alphabet exploration (notice the e word there) with the letter E.

E= Ewe

Main: A taco cheese quesadilla cut with a sheep cookie cutter into a ewe. Summer sausage slices with the letters E and W punched out to spell ewe. Sides: baby carrots, a mini silicone cup of M&M's, dried pea pods, and berry beet rice cakes.

E= Egg Head


Main: three egg shaped salami slices stacked together, mini egg shaped cheese forming the sun rays, and eyes of our happy egg head sun along with a piece of cheese for his smiley mouth. The sun is out today and it's going to be 43F (which after more than four weeks of sub freezing temps and over eight weeks since we have seen 40F is a very welcome thaw). Sides: Slices of Kiwi, baby carrots, blueberry filled cereal, and super thing ginger cookies.

E=Elmo

Main: Elmo is a open faced strawberry jam sandwich cut with a Elmo cookie cutter. I used the same cookie cutter to cut the eyes and nose area out of a tortilla and a piece of cheese for his nose. Once I had the toritlla in place I added chocolate chips for his eyes and the cheese nose and Elmo was looking good. Sides: A mini silicone cup of M&M's (the last of his from Valentine's day) dried pea pods, dehydrated strawberries and fresh banana slices.

E= Elephant

Main: Both the mommy and the baby elephant were cut from a single slice of bread with two strategically places cookie cutters, then covered with Biscoff spread and given candy eyes. Sides: Lays stack chips, and a dried strawberry, dried banana and yogurt covered raisin mix.

E=Elf

Main: A taco cheese tortilla cut with an Elf cookie cutter and decorated with food color markers, the rest of the quesadilla was turned into the ski slope he is standing on. The E is his latest refrigerator magnet letter since this is the last lunch of E week. Sides: (same as yesterday since they were a huge hit) Lays stack chips, and a dried strawberry, dried banana and yogurt covered raisin mix.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's day for me is another time to help little S learn that he is loved and cherished; while carrying on a piece of my mom. Growing up we would come downstairs the morning of Valentine's day to find a package waiting on a decorated table with a red outfit or shirt something we could wear to school for valentine's day. This is now little S's second Valentine's day and the second time he has come downstairs to find presents and a new red shirt.


This is what the table looked like:

This is a close up of his 14th heart message of love:

Each of the first 14 days in February I leave a heart message and a heart chocolate on the table for him. Either his dad or I read to him what is written on the heart - each heart has a different thing I love about him written on it. Then I take the hearts and tape them to one of the two mirrors in the hallway so when he is lifted up to see himself his image is covered by all the things I love about him. I am trying to ensure that on some level when he sees himself in the mirror he sees how much he is loved, subconsciously if you are being held by someone who loves you and your image is covered in loving messages you have to know you are valued and supported. I want to subtly increase his self worth and teach him how much he means to me and the world. This is now the second time I have given him the fourteen hearts of love and the second time I have collected and saved the hearts so that they can be added to a scrap book. I want to be prepared if there is ever a time when he feels unloved or unwanted or under valued to be able to share the book of fourteen things I have loved about him since he has been born. If I do a good job and that time never comes then I will wait to give him the book at a different time, maybe at his wedding, the birth of his child, or should I die I want it there for him so he can always know how much his mommy loved him.

Because I want "bath" time to be fun he also had a Valentine's Day bath. This is red tinted water, white bubbles, and candy heart like containers. He loved playing with the containers washing the bubbles off them.

February 14th also happens to be International Give a Child a book day - So instead of a card I gave him this book about how a mommy loves her son. Little S was also given several books by from his god mother which you can see him reading below wearing his new red sweater,