Day 380

Day 380 - Cream cheese, turkey and dried cherry wrap, red and orange grape tomatoes, cucumbers, an orange and some cherry/vanilla trail mix.

Day 379

Day 379 - Breakfast for lunch again today.  Stuffed blueberry french toast sticks, apples and a passion fruit Chobani yogurt.

Day 378

 Day 378 - Lunch today is a peanut butter & honey sandwich cut out with a Lunch Punch, homemade granola bar, grape tomatoes, homemade vanilla yogurt and a Hello Kitty marshmallow.

This is Earth Week at D's school.  One of the activities that they have to do is make a hat out of recyclable materials for their Recycled Hat Parade.

We started with a milk jug.  We cut it just under the handle and used the bottom as the hat base.  We put some felt around the edges in case they were sharp. 

We cut the tops off of plastic water bottles and made flowers out of them.  D painted them then we glued them to the top.

She used a rolled up paper bag as the brim and decorated it with newspaper/button flowers!

She is pretty proud of her beautiful Recycled Hat!!

Days 375, 376 and 377

Day 375 - This has been a crazy busy week!  We are all trying to get back into our routines.  Monday's lunch was pancakes, grapes, s/f syrup in the mini dipper, pineapples and Chobani pear yogurt.

 Day 376 - This is not the most visually appealing lunch.  Would have been perfect for "White" Day!  She has ham sandwiches cut with the CuteZCute and a bunny sandwich cutter, string cheese, orange grape tomatoes, grapes and a snack cake.

Day 377 - She has a ham wrap, apples, orange grape tomatoes, 1/4 of an orange, strawberry almonds and some Easter candy.

Boston Strong

 

I thought long and hard about weather or not to write this post.  I try to keep things light here and on topic.  However, the Boston Marathon bombing is a little too close to home for me.  Most of you already know that I live in Massachusetts, in a small town not far from Boston.  We have many family members and friends that live in and around the city.  We knew people that were running the Marathon, who's families were waiting for them at the finish line.  A friend from high school was sitting in the bleachers in the VIP section at the finish line directly across from where the first bomb exploded.   Everyone we know, miraculously escaped injury, physical injury. 

The morning started with me looking forward to celebrating my 18th wedding anniversary.  I was going to drop D off with my parents, it was school vacation week for her.  Patriot's Day for all of Massachusetts.  Then we were going to go out for the evening and celebrate our anniversary.  That plan quickly turned into not wanting to be apart, just really wanting to wrap our arms around our family and keep them close.  It brought a lot of the fear from 9/11 back to me.  I was stuck at work...I watched the second plane hit the second tower live on tv and all I wanted was to be home with my baby.  I felt the same way Monday night.  Suddenly even being at home no longer felt safe.  The next couple of days were a blur of frenzy and speculation.  We were together as much as we could be, either me at work and my husband home with the kids or he at work and me at home.  Then Thursday came, they released the pictures of the suspects.  It sickened me that they looked like every other person in the crowd.  How could monsters like them not stand out like a sore thumb?  We went to bed on Thursday night just mentally beat up.  The last 4 days had been so stressful...trying to answer the kids' questions and try to still give them a sense of safety and comfort when we weren't convinced of it ourselves.  We woke up Friday morning and all hell had broken loose!  Tamelan Tsarnaev was dead and there was a massive manhunt underway for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.  These two 'men', young men that have turned our lives, our city, upside down.  The entire city of Boston and several suburbs were on lock down...think about that for a minute, an entire city and a half a dozen suburbs where no one was able to come in or go out.  My husband's niece and my nephew both live within the lock down area.  Chris' niece was thankfully house sitting and was not home.  My nephew sheltered in place as ordered by the mayor.  After many, many hours of searching and chasing down leads our law enforcement officials had nothing and had no choice but to lift the shelter in place order.  We are so thankful they did.  Less than an hour after lifting the order they had Dzhokhar pinned down in a backyard just outside the search area.  Within a couple of hours they had him and we were elated.  Now, here we are, faced with moving on with our lives.  Just how do we do that?  I know we are not so far removed from Columbine, 9/11, The Virginia Tech shootings, Sandy Hook or the Boston Marathon Bombings.  How do we move on?  How do I convince my kids to go to school, that they are safe there when I don't 100% believe it myself?  I'll tell you how I manage to move on....I believe in the human spirit.  I really and truly believe that there is more good in us than bad.  In every one of the tragedies I listed above there are just as many if not more stories of people coming to the aide of their fellow man with little to  no regard to their own safety.  In every case there is video of people running TO the scene not away.  That is how I carry on.  I know that there is good in people.  For example, these two college students hit the streets of Boston on Tuesday.  The day after the bombings and just offered hugs to anyone who needed one.  I wonder how many people took them up on their offer?

photo credit: Matthew Cavanaugh/EPA

The world sure could use more people like them and I for one could have used one of those hugs!  They are strong.  We are strong.  We are BOSTON STRONG.

Day 374

Day 374 - Spirit Week comes to an end with Dress Up/Dress Down Day.  The students will all be dressed like Kings, Queens, Princes, Princesses or Jesters and the teacher will all be dressed as peasants.  So D has a princess (Lunch Punch)  pb & honey sandwich, a snack cake with a fairy wand on it, strawberries and some cashews with dried cherries.

Day 373

Day 373 - Today's lunch had to be quick...Today's Spirit Week theme was 80's Day!  I had to spend the better part of the morning crimping my daughter's hair....yes I said crimping!  I thought my crimping days were behind me!  D has a leftover bbq chicken sandwich, a blueberry Chobani Champions tube, grapes and strawberries.  Hello Kitty is hiding under the yogurt.

Day 372

Day 372 - Spirit Week continues with Pajama/Stuffed Animal Day!!  She has a pb & honey teddy bear sandwich with cheese and butterfly sprinkle pj's, cherry tomatoes, grapes and a snack cake decorated to match her pj's!

Day 371

Day 371 - It is Spirit Week at school.  Every day has a different theme.  Yesterday was Crazy Hair Day and today is Favorite Sports Team Day.  So I tried (didn't succeed) to make the Boston Bruin's Logo for D's lunch today.  She has a ham sandwich, cherry tomatoes, strawberries and a clementine.

Tomorrow is Pajama/Stuffed Animal Day....better start thinking on that one!

 

Day 370

Day 370 - We have been dying for some really nice weather.  The wind finally has slowed down enough to enjoy the warm temperatures!!  So she has a warm weather lunch!  Turkey/ham/salami roll ups with sunglass pics, cherry tomatoes, colby/jack cheese, strawberries and a few lemon cookies.

Day 369

Day 369 - Grilled cheese sticks!  I have made grilled cheese sticks before and D loved them!  I also included a mini dipper with pizza sauce for dipping, a clementine, some grapes, a few lemon cookies and a Hello Kitty marshmallow from Easter!

Day 368

Day 368 - Turkey/Sun dried tomato wrap.  It's turkey, cream cheese and sun dried tomatoes wrapped in a Joseph's Flax/Oat Bran/Whole Wheat Lavash.  She also has a clementine, colby/jack cheese, pickles and some almonds.

 

Day 367

Day 367 - I am a day late for World Autism Awareness Day, but April is Autism Awareness month so I wanted to be sure to get this lunch out. 

What is Autism?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autism are both general terms for a group of complex disorders of brain development. These disorders are characterized, in varying degrees, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors. They include autistic disorder, Rett syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) and Asperger syndrome. With the May 2013 publication of the new DSM-5 diagnostic manual, these autism subtypes will be merged into one umbrella diagnosis of ASD.

Some of my Bento Blogger Friends also posted Autism Awareness lunches, be sure to click through and read their stories!

Bent On Better Lunches
Bento For Kidlet
Robot Squirrel and The Monkeys

Inside D's Autism Awareness lunch is a pb & j sandwich colored with food coloring, string cheese, pistachios, some chocolate and grapes.

Days 365 & 366

Day 365 - Easter leftovers!!  There wasn't much left over from Easter but we did have some ham!  For today D has ham, yellow bell peppers, strawberries, under the strawberries is some cheese, a clementine and some pistachios.

Day 366 - Breakfast Sliders.  I was in the grocery store yesterday and saw that they had breakfast chicken sausage patties.  D likes the Al Fresco brand chicken sausages so I thought I'd give them a try.  She has mini pancakes, topped with the chicken sausage and American cheese.  I cut out the cheese and sausage with a flower cutter then colored the cheese with food coloring.  She also has a clementine, strawberries and a piece of cake.  I had seen this recipe all over Pinterest and decided to give it a try for Easter.  It is one box of angel food cake mix and 1 can of crushed pineapple.  Once it was baked and cooled I topped it with lite Cool Whip.  The pink flower on the cake is Wilton decorator icing.