Thursday, August 30, 2012

Days 258 and 259

Day 258 - We were hanging around the house today and the kids were picking at the fruit bowl all morning so they weren't super hungry for lunch.  I made them "sushi" it is turkey, ham, lettuce, string cheese and carrots, there are a few whole grain crackers in there and some homemade yogurt with strawberries.

Day 259 - We are headed off to Great Nana's today.  Not really sure what the day will consist of so I'm packing the kid's lunches just in case!  We have heart shaped ham sandwiches, tomatoes with fresh mozzarella pearls, homemade yogurt with strawberries and a container of granola for the yogurt.




Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Off To The Beach

First I have to say that I have always HATED the beach!  I hate getting covered in sand.  I hate how HOT it is.  I live in New England so the water never gets warm.  I am a fair skinned red head.  I have never had a tan in my life.  I just had my first and hopefully last run in with melanoma.  The thought of the beach makes me miserable!  So of course it is only natural that my kids would LOVE the beach! LOL  My BFF talked me into going with her last week.  I am glad I went.  Ok, I said it.   It wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.  Yes it was hot and yes I was covered in sand, but I really had a good time!  I borrowed a nice beach umbrella and a nice beach chair so I was comfortable and well shaded.  The kids had a great time, I had a great time, maybe I'll try it again next year! 

So for our beach day I packed D some sea life ham sandwiches, grapes and chocolate/caramel covered pretzels.

For the pretzels I lined a baking sheet with non stick foil then put an even layer of pretzels down.  I used the square ones but any pretzels will do.  Next I took some caramel bits and melted them according to the package instructions.  I poured that over the pretzels.  I then melted 6oz semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1 oz unsweetend bakers chocolate together and spread that in a thin layer over the caramel.  I put it all in the fridge over night then cut it into small squares.  It was delicious!  It was a bit sticky and hard to remove from the pan so I think next time I make it I will put a thin layer of chocolate on the bottom of the pan then the pretzels and so on.  Maybe if the caramel is contained a bit it won't be so hard to remove from the foil.

Here is D chilling on the beach.  She had a great time collecting fish, hermit crabs, seaweed and shrimp!  She had quite the menagerie in her bucket!

Here is our ELB on Onset Beach!  It was a bit hazy that day but it is a beautiful beach!


Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Off To Grammy and Grandpa's

D is off to my parents' house.  They have a couple days of adventure planned.  I needed to drop her off around dinner time (our dinner time which is much later than my parents' dinner time LOL) so I made her a quick little dinner to eat on the way.  She has a bologna sandwich cut with the dolphin sandwich cutter, I also cut out a fruit roll up with it just to give the ELB some color! Then she has some chopped cucumbers with greek dressing and a couple pieces of candy.


Friday, August 17, 2012

International Geocaching Day

Tomorrow is International Geocaching Day!  As I have mentioned before, my family and I enjoy geocaching.  It is a fun way to stay active!  The best place to get information on geocaching is Geocaching.com.  Here I will show you some of the gear that my family uses when we head out on our adventures.  We usually like to make a day of it but it is possible to do them in a short amount of time.  We first decide on where we want to go.  We find that State Parks are a great place to start, there are usually a few hidden in the park so you can extend your stay.  So once we have decided where we are going to go we head over to Geocaching.com and enter the zipcode of where we are headed.  Sometimes the park websites will have thier GPS coordinates which is even better!  Then we look through the caches that are available and decide which ones we want to look for.  We make our decisions based on cache size, the amount of bushwacking involved and if there are any "warnings" like if it is a really buggy area or not.  Also we read the comments to see when it was last found and how difficult it was.  Remember we are going with a 7 year old, getting to the end of a treasure hunt and not finding treasure is devastating!  I have a hand held gps that enables us to go paperless.  I can download the caches right to it and be on our way.  We use a Garmin Etrex Venture

Now I need to think about what we are going to need.  If we are going for the day we will need lunch.

I made these lunches especially for today!  I did not do Geocaching.com's logos justice but I sure tried!


    "The Groundspeak Geocaching Logo is a registered trademark of Groundspeak, Inc. Used with permission."

A Geocacher's motto should always be Cache In Trash Out.  Included in our gear is always a bag for trash that we pick up along the way.

Easy Lunchboxes are perfect for geocaching. I can fit 4 of them in my backpack cooler.  I also love that the top is available to carry other things that I need like sunscreen, bugspray, small first aid kit, dry snacks, our stash of goodies to put into the caches we find.  We also bring lots of water and keep extra water in the car.





These are some cellphone pictures from our last geocaching adventure.  Dad is manning the GPS, the Littles are following and I'm bringing up the rear to make sure we don't loose any stragglers!



Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Day 257

Day 257 - Sorry for the horrible photograph today!  Lunch is scoop your own chicken tacos.  Top left is corn chips, then shredded chicken mixed with salsa and topped with cheese, black grapes and D's favorite orange bell peppers.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Day 256

Day 256 - Today M has to work at the Boy's and Girl's Club in the city.  As part of her internship her class is going there to instruct the kids on proper tooth brushing.  The program is only a couple hours long and is a bit of a drive for us.  So Hubby and I are going to take the two little ones with us and find something to do during those 2 hours.  However the program runs into lunch time so our ELB's are hitting the road today!  The girls both have a chicken BLT.  It is your basic BLT (turkey bacon) with some sliced deli chicken to bump up the protein.  They also have cucumbers and black grapes.  I used a cookie cutter to cut out the dolphin and then used my food safe markers to color them.


Monday, August 13, 2012

Day 255

Day 255 - Dancing Princess pb & j with sprinkles, homemade greek yogurt blended with sour cherries and some grapes!


Friday, August 10, 2012

Day 254

Day 254 - Lunch meat sushi!  I stacked ham and turkey and put julienned carrots and a piece of lettuce on top then rolled it up tight and cut it into coins.  The girls also have mini multi grain crackers, homemade greek yogurt with chia seeds and cherries.


Thursday, August 9, 2012

Days 252 & 253

Day 252 - Is Hello Kitty day at our house!  D loves Hello Kitty.  This is just a simple pb & j sandwich cut out with a Hello Kitty cookie cutter.  Decorated with candy eyes, chocolate covered sunflower seed nose and fruit leather whiskers and bow.  Then the sandwich scraps are in there, some gapes, grape tomatoes and lettuce.

Day 253 - Breakfast for lunch!  The girls have mini pancakes, chicken/apple sausage, syrup with candy stars.  Breakfast for lunch is always a big hit around here!



Monday, August 6, 2012

Day 251

I am trying really hard to get back into the swing of things.  I can't believe that in just 30 short days my kids will be back in school. 

Day 251 - Today the girls have meatballs, carrots, crackers, milk and some red grapes.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Day 250

Day 250 - I am feeling really, really stressed today.  My go to stress reliever is exercise and fresh air.  Today we are off on a Geocaching adventure.  It combines my love of hiking with my daughters sense of adventure.  What kid doesn't love treasure hunting??  We have ham/cheese sandwiches, baby carrots, cherries and apple cubes.  Lots of water for our trek.  International Geocaching Day is coming up pretty soon.  I am planning to do a post about Geocaching and the things that we use when planning our trips.