Willow's Lunch(es)

Been quiet around here! 

I see I still have my lovely loyal readers and have gained a few new friends since my last post :D *Waves*

I am touched by the concern I have received in email and wanted to just come on here and say that there's nothing to worry about. I haven't fallen off the earth, I've just been busy - creatively at least, with my new adventures in cake land! 

I'm trying hard to better my decorating skills and having a great time doing it. It's just, kinda, taking all I've got right now. 

I'll be back eventually ... when time allows! 

I'll leave you with these two photos I had on my computer of Willow's lunches.

And a link to my cake blog!

Kelly's Cakes 

Willow's Lunch

Just a simple cheese teddy bear lunch today, on a round turkey sandwich. With some halved grapes, baby carrots and cucumber. She actually ate it all, including the carrots. 

Ryder has, what I think is, his 25th cold of this year. I'm exaggerating of course but it sure feels like it. He is constantly a wet, sloppy mess. His nose running and his mouth drooling everywhere he goes. I hope once it gets warmer he will get over these colds and be less cranky. Then again, it could be due to a shot he had last week at the doctors. 

Despite that though, we did have a good morning. He slept most of it but when he was awake, he was pretty cheerful. Here's a pic of him waking up after his nap and his big sis playing peekaboo with him in his crib. He loves it when she comes into his room (or our room!)

Smudgy mirrors make great backgrounds! 

Willow has been so looking forward to go to the duck pond when the warmer weather comes so she was very excited today when I told her we were going to go. I was hoping there'd be ducks so she wouldn't be disappointed. 

On the way there, we stopped at Macdonald's driveway which had a huge line of cars infront of us. So I told Willow to make some faces and took pics while we waited.

Here's her 'normal' face.

Here's her 'silly' face.

Here's her 'mad' face, which I said wasn't mad-looking enough.

So here's her 'even-madder' face lol.

Here's her 'sleepy' face.

And here's her laughing-at-Mommy's-silly-faces face :)

The things you do!

We were both very happy to see the geese in the pond as we drove up to it. There were so many in fact. All over the grassy area where she could be near them and feed them.

And they were quite friendly as you can see.

Well, except for this one! He was bossing all the others around.

She had a nice time running around 

and getting grass stains on her pants lol.

I got Ryder out of his stroller for a bit and he waddled around with the geese.

And played with Willow.

But he really wasn't feeling up to it so we didn't stay as long as I would have liked. 

When it was time to go there was lots of whining. 'I'm going to miss the geesies!' ... 'I'm hungry!' .... 'Mommy, I NEED a cuddle!' ... 'I want to go somewhere else!' Oh man. I couldn't get her into the car quick enough. And then she cried in her car seat all the way home. As did Ryder. But then they both took a two hour nap and I got a nice break. Phew.

Willow's Lunch

Bento lunches on a Sunday :)

Today was bring a lunch to church day to eat there between services. I made two identical bunny lunches. One for Willow and one for her friend Ava. Although neither of them were really much interested in eating. They just wanted to run around a play.

They both contain a turkey sandwich with yellow and white American cheese features plus a little more turkey on the ears, some candy eyes and a little piece of carrot for the nose. 

On the right side is a hard-boiled bunny egg which I sliced in half, carrots (a bunny's favorite snack!), some red grapes on a heart pick and little fruit gels.

Willow's Lunch

Don't you think owls are just everywhere on the internet these days? Maybe it's just me.

I thought I would make cute little owl turkey sandwiches for Willow. With cucumber and white/yellow American cheese features. To me they seem to be missing something to look more like owls. Maybe ears?  They made her giggle though :) She also had grapies grapes, cantaloupe and pretzels. She left the grapes and one sandwich after picking off the cheese.

Willow's Lunch(es)

I'm going to have to play catch up a bit here since I haven't been posting on a regular basis. Sometimes it's just easier to do it this way.

For those wondering, I promise I do actually give my daughter a break from sandwiches once in a while but usually those are the lunches I don't take photos of. Such as rice and meatballs, or pancakes, or chicken nuggets, etc. I think sandwiches make prettier bentos than these things. I'm not creative enough to know how to make mac and cheese look cute! The above was a non-sandwich lunch - or non-bread sandwich anyway, of turkey/bologna and cheese roll-ups. With a little banana bread (which she proudly made all by herself) on the right and some chopped up diced peaches. She really enjoyed it and ate every bite :D

Not sure what day she had this lunch but I remember it just being a simple liverwurst (liver sausage if you're from where I'm from) sandwich and grapes because she'd had a lot to eat that morning. She didn't like the liverwurst despite the cute bunny decoration so she just ate the bread and grapes.

Back to turkey sandwiches, this time decorated like a flower with heart-shaped cheese cutouts and some cucumber/carrots and pretzels with ranch dip in the little bucket container. Not sure what was left of this one. Most likely the carrots!

Willow's Lunch

I know I may have mentioned it once or twice before but I just love Spring. So I'll say it again: I LOVE SPRING! It's always been my favorite season but it is now especially after a looong, hard Winter. It was so nice to be able to sit in the back yard with my babies playing and actually feeling the hot sun on our faces. It just ... lifts the spirits and makes everything look pretty, everything even smells pretty!

I was so happy to see a little sun today I, like a true Brit, was tempted to eat lunch outside but I didn't want any weird looks from the neighbors :b  I know the ticks would have had a field day too. Just from playing around the steps to the porch, they dived all over us. I'm going to have to spray my yard with something ... seriously.

Here is what my little princess had for lunch today. 

PB&J sandwiches (she ate the other two squares while I was making this) with a little cheese bunny. Some veggie chips and some carrots. As hopeful as I was about the carrots when she asked me this morning to put them in her lunch with promises of eating them, unfortunately they are not making a come back.

She is going for another trial day tomorrow at a different school. Number 2 of the two good schools. So we'll see how that goes. I just hope I can get up in the morning. Since the clocks went back I have been all over the place. Ryder too, which has made me worse. He has been waking up (and insisting on getting up) at 6am these past few days. Right when I was planning on starting to get up an hour or so ahead of the kids to get more things done. Not sure I could do 5am!

Willow's Lunch

Ahh Mondays.

Even though I don't work - at least outside of being a homemaker ;) I still dislike them.  At the weekend I do not keep to the same standards of housecleaning, I'm a bit more relaxed. I'll keep the dishes done (for the most part) and the house generally tidy but I rarely do the laundry or pay the floor much attention and I'm OK with toys being around. At the weekend, I like to enjoy spending time with my hubby and that is usually when we'll get to go out together or with the family. I also concentrate on long put-off projects (such as cleaning underneath Willow's bed or my kitchen junk draw). And then, on Sunday, we have church. So Monday, for me, is back to work on the chores and back to being hubby-less during the day :(

I think I did a pretty decent job this weekend though with keeping things spic and span so I had extra time to play with Willow today. We pretended she was a baby bunny and I was a daddy fox. She had me chasing her in and out of the tent we built with some blankets hanging over the coffee table. She also painted a little wooden box from the craft store to put her jewelry in and enjoyed having me watch her.

I'm going to make more of an effort to have the house tidy in the evenings before bed so that I can relax and spend more time enjoying my babies. Time is flying by quickly, I know it.

Here's the lunch I made for her today. A bologna monkey sandwich which I cut out with kitchen scissors. And some cucumbers and chopped canned peaches. She left the cucumbers and also decided she's done with bologna!

Willow's Lunch

My little girl started a 'trial day' at her new school last Wednesday. Or what we are considering for a new school anyway. It's a choice between two very good ones. She absolutely loved it, as I knew she would, and she asked immediately if she could go back the next day. But unfortunately she has to wait until August. 

Not much bento-making around here lately. Here's what she had the other day. Not sure which day exactly. Just one I happened to snap a pic of.

 A bologna sandwich thin with some dried apples and melon/strawberries. She ate it all :)

Today I am concentrating on cleaning my kitchen. Which entails the counters, floors, cupboards, walls, drawers ... everything. Yes, I made another cake lol. It was a very simply frosted (vanilla) cake (with banana cream filling) so I have no excuse really except that I only had an hour to decorate. It was for my lovely, but sometimes trying to say the least, brother-in-law and I had to make a mad dash out of the door with the kids after it was done to take it to his (un)party.

"I'm in charge" is Mike's favorite thing to say. Or yell!, whatever.

Willow's Lunch

Little PB&J giraffes with some carrots on the top right and delicious Bakewell tart on the top left that Willow and I made the other day. I used a flower cutter to cut out a piece. Once again she left the carrots, saying 'yuk'. So, to save on waste, I think i'll give them a break for now. Maybe she'll forget she doesn't like them!

Bento

I actually sent my child outside to play on her slide today while Ryder and I sat on the steps to watch. Oh I miss the sun!! And it was hardly play-outside-for-a-long-time kind of weather but you gotta take what little sun you can get where we live!

A simple but colorful lunch today consisting of a ham and cheese sandwich with a little penguin on top (I was going to try to make him cuter with white wings etc but Ryder was hanging on my ankle and having none of it!). Also carrots, snow peas and grapes - which she hardly touched any of *sigh* gotta get this kid eating her fruit and veggies again!

I'm making a new recipe for dinner tonight; Caribbean Jerk chicken with rice. Let you know how it turns out!

Willow's Lunch

Since it was a really wet and gloomy day outside and the kids and I were stuck indoors all day, I decided it would be the perfect time to try my hand at bread-making - something I've been wanting to do for a while but was never making the right meal that day or had enough time on another. 

To me, making bread usually means, mashing a couple of bananas and mixing it with Bisquick before putting in the oven and baking. But today this meant tackling dinner rolls! With yeast! So intimidating! lol. I did feel rather like a pro though, as I punched and kneaded, rolled and shaped. Even if this was the ending result!

I wish I could blame it on the poor picture but they really weren't magazine-worthy appearance-wise. But they did taste better than they looked. At least according to my husband who said that he was very impressed with them and thanked me numerous times for making them. Bless his lil' cottons.

In other news, I missed Muffin Tin Monday again this week. Although this time it was on purpose. I just found it easier to throw a turkey sandwich together with some pineapple and carrots for Willow with all the other things I had to do today.

It was rather blah and uncolorful (if thats a word) but she ate almost all of it, my good girl. Even the carrots this time. Note: I tried teeny tiny carrots!

Willow's Lunch

Blub blub blub ....

Pretty sure I've done a fish-shaped lunch for Willow before but, afer seeing Jill's adorable fishies today I felt inspired to make another. I was going to make turkey sandwiches but she insisted on PB&J complaining that she hasn't had that in a long time. I told her we were out of jelly but I could do just PB so she had that. Afterward however, I got complaints that she didn't have the turkey she wanted and that she always has PB. *Sigh* Are they ever satisfied? She did eat it all though and her mandarin oranges/goldfish crackers.

Willow's Lunch

A simple peanut butter half bagel for Willow's lunch today with cheese flowers and red grapes.She ate all but the grapes.

Willow's Lunch

Willow had a ham and cheese flower sandwich today which she helped make with the letters of her name on top. I got this idea from one of Susan Yuen's bento books where she did something similar (although much neater than the one above). We added some little icing sugar eyes (which I think can make anything look cute) and a nori mouth. She also had some grape jello and carrots.  As before though, she left the carrots and doesn't seem to be liking them much anymore. Maybe I need to try a new dip besides ranch. Or maybe it's just because they're such huge baby carrots. I prefer the teeny tiny ones myself.

Hubby is sick right now so he took the day off. That doesn't stop him working though. Right now he is helping his lil' bro install some kitchen cabinets in his new home. I have been looking at interior decorating tips and tricks online a lot lately in anticipation of our next home which will hopefully be within the next year or two. I know it's a ways off still but I'm so excited to move into our 'forever home' as I call it, I just have to do something besides wait. So I'm getting some ideas rolling. I was up until 2am saving web sites etc. 

Today, I'm trying to get some organizing done around this home. Ryder's going to help, he has plans for my Tupperware cupboard! I have four or five huge piles of laundry to fold and put away so I better get cracking!

Willow's Lunch

Happy Monday people!

I completely forgot today was Monday and instead of making Willow her lunch in a muffin tin, she had it in a lunch box as usual. She had a ham and mayo sandwich which I cut out with a circle sandwich cutter and made a little girl out of sandwich meat and cheese to go on top. Above that are some pretzels, julienned carrots and grapes. She ate everything but the carrots. Not bad considering she's sick right now.

Things have been busy around here with church conferences, going out to dinner with family a couple times, shopping and making Ryder a cake for his birthday party. I've not been home much to clean up and then when you add a cake to the mix, can we say disaster zone? hehe. As it always is after I make one.

I decided to go with this cute Betty Crocker dino cake which I made with a butter pecan cake for the body and vanilla for the head and tail. Frosted with lime green butter cream and easily decorated with assorted chocolates of different sizes. It was a lot of fun.

And here's my little newly one year old tucking into it. Mmmm.

2 minutes later: As you can see, he liked it so much he didn't stop at the cake! lol

Willow's Lunch

A busy day of cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping ahead of me. My husband has to work till late so I'll be all alone :( It does make me feel happy that the sun is shining outside though. Just .... lifts the spirits!

Willow had a little chickie lunch today. I saw some fun tutorials on the mothering corner blog for sandwich rolls and decided to give them a try. They were really easy. I spread some bread with peanut butter (after cutting off the crusts), rolled them up and used picks for the head and all sprinkles for the features. To the right she had a chickie egg (picks and nori), some red grapes and a small peppermint patty-type chocolate candy. She left some of the egg and the grapes. 

What a nice morning! I took Willow to gymnastics and then, after that, drove to my Pastor's wife's house with a couple other friend's from church and had a really nice time together. I was so nervous that Ryder was going to tear  up their house ... or drool all over it but, aside from spilling the dog's bowl of water and dipping his hands in the toilet bowl, he was very well behaved. Especially considering he was missing a much-needed nap. Thank you God! I made Willow this lunch before we left this morning. Just a simple peanut butter sandwich with a fruit leather face and fruit roll-up bows (unlike my last face sandwich, this one does not look like a lion lol), some natural applesauce with sprinkles and a few butterfly crackers. She also had a banana. I guess she had a big appetite after her gymnastic workout 'cause she ate it all :)

This week is a busy one. Tonight I'm going, with the kiddos, to take some pictures for a friend.  My baby boy turns one tomorrow but we are celebrating on Sunday with family and friends. Can't believe how fast a year goes by with kids. Where does the time go? Feels like just yesterday he was placed in my arms and snuggled up to me. He is such a wonderfully happy baby, I am truly truly blessed :) Friday and Saturday there's a couple's conference at church with a guest speaker that I'm looking forward to attending with my hubabubs - who took me out to a nice meal (kid-free!) yesterday btw!). I'll be making quite a lot of food for that on Thursday. Plus Ryder's cake at some point during the weekend. So i guess Wednesday will be grocery shopping and Spring cleaning day at our home. Hate it when it gets away from me!

If anyone has any nice cute, but simple cake ideas for a first birthday feel free to share!

Willow's Lunch

Finally, we are seeing land and grass again amidst all the thick snow that is covering our yard. And even though it's still frigidly cold outside, the sun is actually shining through our windows.

Spring=getting out of the house more. Whoopie!

Willow had a round peanut butter and jelly sandwich today ('remember, peanut butter and jelly Mom. Got it?') with a little cheese giraffe on top. To the right of that is some chopped cantaloupe, grapes and veggie straw chips. She left the grapes and ate everything else.

Willow's Lunch

Willow had her second gymnastics class this morning and really enjoyed it. Her coach said she is good on the pole thingy you hang on and swing around (not sure the name?) and that she is 'so strong' :) I'm so glad she got to go this time. The past three classes have been cancelled due to all the snow we have been having. Hopefully we've seen the last of it, I can't wait for the Spring to come! And this Spring will be extra special because my Dad is coming to visit from England!

Willow had a change from the usual sandwich today and instead had pasta and peas. And since it was a rainy, gloomy kinda morning, I cut little umbrellas out of cheese to go on top. She also had carrots, grapes and some pretty chocolate-covered sesame seeds. She left the grapes and some of the carrots and ate the rest. I think she's all fruited out because I've been trying to make a point of not giving her crackers too much for snacks etc. So instead she's been having apples and peanut butter, or bananas and grapes. Today she was whining for cheddar bunnies but I didn't give in! I don't mind a few times a week but I don't want her to have crackers and salty snacks everyday.

In other news, my little boy has his first birthday in a week. So expect more cake pics soon! lol I also have a friend coming over on Monday to make cakes for two of her kids. None of this is good for my diet!

Willow's Lunch

Heart sammie for Willow's lunch today. With peanut butter spread and a fruit leather heart on top. She also had butterfly crackers, a fruit gel, marshmallow and some chopped up string cheese in the little container. She ate every bit :)