Latest Bentos - "Fall" Edition

My goodness, it's been a while since my last post.

I think I'm in some kind of why does it still feel like summer, but it's supposed to be fall funk.

The days are shorter and the sunlight is a little softer, but it's still hot as blazes and I'm just ready to step outside and not sweat.

But we've been plugging along at school.

I joined the ECPTA!  Andrew gets to pick out his own clothes every morning. Caroline LOVES her class so much she cries on Tuesdays when Andrew goes and she comes back home with me.

September has been good to us. :)

So here are a few of the lunches I've sent with the kids the last two weeks.

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Monday, Sept. 9

Andrew's lunch was packed in the Lego Box. We love this box, and now that he's even more obsessed with Legos it's even better. I used these stampers for the ham sandwiches with a rainbow cup full of ketchup, (I know - it's so gross.) watermelon and graham sticks in a star cup.

What a cute way to start off the week!

Tuesday, Sept. 10

Andrew had turkey roll-ups, yogurt, strawberries, bunny grahams with a leftover pita triangle (there were two and he ATE one while I was packing his lunch - ha!) and mini chocolate chips. This lunch was packed in the Planet Box. I tossed a few picks in for fun.

Thursday, Sept. 12

Caroline's lunch was packed the Yumbox. She had turkey roll-ups, cheddar cheese strips, pretzels, grapes, raspberries and yogurt covered raisins. I included the Hello Kitty picks and she was so excited! She kept waving - "hi lunch!" while I was packing. She's a hoot!

Andrew's lunch was packed in the Laptop Lunchbox. This box has been much more popular in our house this year. I'd bought it last year and he couldn't open it without help which was a big no-no for my independent three year old. But at four and a half he can rock it - we've practiced at home.

He had a really simple lunch of strawberries, pretzels and peanut butter celery. I tried to make him a star shaped ham sandwich, but it was too big so I cut the tips off and stuck a circle sandwich on top of it. Sometimes I mess up! :) And there's ketchup in the dipping cup.

Monday, Sept. 16

I sent Andrew with a Planet Box full of pretzels, shelled pistachios, apples and superhero sandwiches, with a few mini marshmallows for a treat. He picked the sandwich stamps he wanted to use. I love how interested he is in his lunches this year! The superman shield is a little cupcake topper ring.

Tuesday, Sept. 17

Gah! This was a cute lunch packed in our frog box. Andrew had a cold turkey dog, cucumber slices, a cutie packed in an orange cup with a leaf pick, berry mix and star shaped pumpkin spice bread cut to fit in the star cup. This lunch was a little nod to fall I think.

Here's to cooler weather, y'all!

Caroline Turns TWO!

This sweet girl celebrated her second birthday last week! She's so funny and full of life and spunk and love.

We woke up and sang Happy Birthday dear Caroline then ran downstairs to open her presents in our jammies and bedhead.

If there's anything Caroline wanted for her birthday it was food - ha! She loves all kinds of food - whether you can eat it or not.

Loving on her adorable baby doll from Cleo & Poppy on Etsy. She was a big fan.

She also opened two Mo Willems books and a few darling little outfits. They were the perfect gifts for her! And lucky girl, Andrew was right there to help her open it all. :)

We had cupcakes with our breakfast because you only turn two once!

We spent the morning at the new neighborhood park.  It was a beautiful day with a cool breeze and clouds. What a gift on an August day in Dallas!

We're not throwing a birthday party this year. I'm a little sad considering how beautiful her party was last year, but with the move and family vacations it would have been really tough to get something planned and put together.

So I wanted to make sure her day was extra special, and I think it was.

But I couldn't resist making these little cupcake toppers.

It felt so good to break out the Silhouette and make something crafty again! :)

Brian made it home from work early enough for us to have dinner together and we played outside before bedtime.

It was a great way to celebrate an amazing little girl!

Greenling Saves the Day

Our house is on the market right now which means it has to be clean and tidy and ready for serious company at any moment.

So I'm spending lots of time cleaning and driving around with the kids and the dog for showings and very little time going to the grocery store and cooking dinner for the family.

Which has been driving me crazy. I want to give the kids healthy, well-rounded meals while balancing our currently limited time for summer fun.

Enter Greenling DFW.

They are my new favorite local company.

They sent us one of their famous Local Boxes to try out and we loved all of it!

All our food arrived on our doorstep in this bright green box. I didn't have to drive anywhere or strap the kids into the giant car cart or anything. :)

We ordered the local box, a meal kit, and a few grab-and-go snacks.

The fresh veggies and white bean dip were amazing! I ate all the veggies and then broke out some crackers to finish off the dip. So good. And super convenient too. Which I certainly need more of these days.

I didn't know that they offered meal kits and these are what made me such a happy customer.

You can order a fully prepared meal and all you have to do is cook it. That's it - no seasoning, no measuring no chopping and shopping for random ingredients.

I loved every bit of it.

We had spaghetti bolognese with fresh vegetables because I knew my kids would be all over the pasta. It came completely measured and ready to cook. All we had to do was heat the water, brown the organic meat and saute the veggies. Super doable, even in a time crunch.

It was all so fresh and delicious. And we all loved it.

In the local box we received giant green onions, spinach, strawberries, Texas limes and oranges, cremini mushrooms, romaine lettuce and parsley. And they included recipes and meal ideas for all the fruits and veggies.

We had cheesy scrambled eggs with chives for breakfast Saturday morning and they were fabulous.

We made our favorite spinach, feta, pecans and red onion salad too.

I'm not an overly adventurous cook, but we were able to make some really great meals without stretching my creativity too much.

The local box was perfect for us. The strawberries and oranges were gone in about 5 minutes because my kids are crazy fruit eaters and Brian made tasty fresh-squeezed lime margaritas for us too! :)

So to recap: local, fresh, organic food delivered right to my doorstep with recipes and instructions on how to use it all. I'm a big, big fan and I think you will be too!

Dallas friends you can use this code to receive 10% off your first Greenling.com order: http://buzzwat.ch/meaga81

You will love it!

Disclaimer: Greenling.com provided me with a credit for their local box produce. All opinions stated here are mine and I loved them so much that I've placed two other orders as well. :)

Sunscreen and Pool Water

It's summertime and the living is supposed to be easy, but these last few weeks have been so crazy!

But crazy in a good way.

Last month I told y'all that we found a new house in a new neighborhood and that we'll be moving soon.

Well, it's coming along - we're making decisions and watching it all come together.

Here's a preview of our very dirty new kitchen. This was a week or two ago. It looks a little cleaner than this now, I promise. :)

Yep, we painted the island blue. I'm a little nervous about it, but so far I'm happy with it. The rest of the cabinets are white and the counters are light so the pop of color is a nice contrast.

(The island paint is blue danube by Benjamin Moore and the rest of the cabinets and all the trim are painted in BM's white dove. The wall color is BM revere pewter which Pinterest claims is the best wall color ever - I guess we'll find out!)

I feel like every time we talk about paint or furniture or rugs I say, "well, I want it to be really light and bright." Our current house isn't exactly dark, but it's decorated in golds and browns and creams and I'm moving away from that look here with the new house.

So I hope we like it!

And this house is on the market now so we're running around keeping everything picked up and super clean which is super fun when you have two little people living in your house.

We're in a pretty hot housing market right now so I'm hopeful it won't take too long to sell, but again, we'll just have to see.

Lots of hurry up and wait these days.

But lots of fun too!

I taught Andrew's VBS class last week. We had 22 three and four year olds! I'm convinced that all preschool teachers are saints. :) Andrew loved it so much though that it was totally worth all the early mornings and trips to the potty.

Um, Caroline clearly felt the same way. Ha!

There's been lots of swimming already this summer. Andrew completely wore himself out with all the pool time this weekend. He fell asleep in the car on the way home from my parents' today and didn't wake up again so he's been in bed since 6PM.

I'm hoping his crazy early bedtime doesn't lead to a 5AM wake-up.

The kids are both so dirty right now. They still have sunscreen in their hair and smell like pool water, but I figure that's what summer is for, right?

They'll get a bath tomorrow. :)

A Random Weekend Recap

My friend Elaine used to host a Miscellaneous Monday link-up, and let's just say that today's post would totally fit in over there.

Except that at this point it's barely still Monday. Oops.

We had a beautiful weekend here in Dallas and we spent about 85% of it outside. Poor Caroline had a fever most of the weekend and didn't feel well, but she wanted to "go, go" so we kept buckling her into her stroller for a "ride".

It's her favorite thing these days.

Whatever you say, pretty lady.

Our first delivery from Greenling came last Thursday night, and I was so excited about all those fruits and veggies! I wanted to cook Friday night, but our kitchen faucet leaked AGAIN, so we had I don't even remember Friday night.

But also included in our delivery were sweet little limes from McAllen, Texas and we had tequila in the pantry so Brian made margaritas. They kind of helped me get past the leaky faucet. :)

But by Saturday our kitchen was fixed (kind of), and I cooked. I can't wait to tell y'all more about Greenling later this week. I'm a new fan for sure!

I like to have slow, laundry doing, closet cleaning, music listening, water playing (in the summer), list making Sundays. But this Sunday was packed, and I had so much fun I didn't mind it a bit.

Andrew and I went to church while Brian stayed home with feverish Caroline. Then we stopped by Whole Foods, had a quick lunch at home and headed to a friend's birthday party at Pump It Up.

It was our 4th party there this spring. Andrew loves it so much. He's a pro at this point! We had to stop at Kroger on our way home because we were out of paper towels - I know. Mom fail.

So together we survived our second grocery store trip of the day.

And then I cooked again!

After our terrible dinnertimes last week I told Brian I was going to spend my cooking energy on the weekends when he's around and just kind of throw stuff together during the week when we're all so busy and he's not really here anyway.

I think this is the best plan for my sanity in this season.

And that gets us caught up to today, when I went to work and the Container Store. I'm going to organize all my bento lunch supplies this week. I need some serious help there. Like stuff sometimes falls out of the cabinet when I open the doors.

So happy totally random Monday, y'all. I hope it was a good one. :)

All Dressed Up

Brian and I got all dressed up in our snazzy best Saturday night and headed downtown with Kelsey and Matt and my parents to live it up at the Rockwall Women's League Charity Ball.

This was our second year to attend. Last year the ball was held in a huge barn in a pretty spot out in the country. And it was fun, but it was hot and humid and we all had fuzzy hair.

Last night's fancy ballroom party was much more comfortable.

Except for the shoes.

I wore these. Not only did I wear them all night, but I danced in them all night. My feet may never forgive me, but it was worth it. The band was fabulous. They were a bit like a toned town version of the Spazmatics - awesome.

The Reid girls all dressed up.

I was super happy with my dress and I'm bummed I didn't get a picture of the whole thing. It has a full ruffled skirt. I'm hoping I have a reason to wear it again soon. Kelsey was glowing in her coral dress and mom was just beautiful in her regal purple gown.

So fun to see Dad in his tux. As a member of the the Women's League, Mom worked hard to help set up and prepare for the party. It was so nice to see all their hard work pay off.

They had pretty flowers on the tables and they were up high so we could see around them. It's my favorite way to do centerpieces.

And maybe my favorite part of the party was the little flipbook we had made of us in silly costumes.

So much fun! (PicFlips had a little booth set up and they did a great job! I think this would be the BEST wedding party activity.) We'll treasure our little flip book for a long time. And Brian may grow a big mustache. :)

It's so fun to get dressed up and go to a party! I'm looking forward to next year's ball already!

Spring Break Fun

Well Spring Break 2013 is all wrapped up and Andrew heads back to preschool on Tuesday. And I'm heading to my first blogging conference, Blissdom at the Gaylord here in town, later this week.

So I guess we'll get back into our regular routine next week. :)

Andrew had the greatest week ever.

It all started with his Superhero birthday party. Then we took a trip to Target dressed at Captain America, had a playdate at the park with school friends, went to the Perot (or the dinosaur museum, as he calls it), got to stay up late and meet our friends at a dinner party at my parents', visited my dad's ranch where we played on the giant tractors, and then he swam in the "hot pool" all day long on his real birthday.

Whew....I'm tired just thinking about it.

Here are a few photos from our week 'o fun.

At the Perot:






Part of our skyline.



She tried so hard to be a big kid in the play area. I wanted her to stay on the floor and play with me, but she was not having any of that. :)






At the Ranch:








Seriously. He's barely four. Not ten! How does he look so grown up in these photos? It must be the silly glasses.



Today I'm trying to catch up on that stuff I didn't do last week. Like laundry and groceries and house cleaning and blogging. I'm sure the kids will think that's just as much fun as hanging out with dinosaurs and tractors and their grandparents.

On a Weekend...

The kids are in swimming on Saturday mornings this spring. It makes for kind of crazy Saturdays, but while Caroline and Brian swim, Andrew and I have ended up with some one-on-one time.

This is a rare treat for us, and it's been so fun.

Last Saturday we went to Society Bakery to get cupcakes for Brian's birthday. Andrew was so sweet and we sat outside at a little bistro table while he finished his free sample - yes they had free cupcake samples!

Also? Ombré cake.

This Saturday we ran up to Pottery Barn Kids to buy a baby gift and just one thing for Andrew. He picked out an awesome Batman book.

While we were there Peter Rabbit showed up!

Andrew was so cute. He jumped right up there on his lap like he sat with a bunny everyday. He said, "Mom! He has a giant carrot!" I loved it, and was so glad we just happened to be there and that I had him dressed in a cute outfit. :) You just never know!

It felt like spring today with warm sunshine and a cool breeze. I went to a baby shower and then took Andrew to a birthday party this afternoon. After all that partying we decided we needed a dinner out and it needed to be on a patio. My Dallas friends can attest that the Gloria's patio and a margarita on a spring day really can't be beat.

It's a little different now, what with the constant requests for new tic-tack-toe games and the need to keep Caroline from drowning in the black bean dip, but still. It was awesome. And my kids were quiet and well behaved.

Is there much more you can ask for from a dinner out with two small children?

I hope your weekend was filled with the things you love the most!

xoxo