This month our Little Passports kit whisked us off to Australia! We actually got this packet last month, but I hid it from Wyatt for a few weeks because I wanted to have it as an option to pull out some morning when he was looking for something to do after summer break started. I’m so glad I did because when I brought it out he was super excited to dig into it. “I’ve been waiting for a new Little Passports, Mom!” he told me.

I was a little surprised that rather than digging right in he asked me if I would make a video of him un-boxing it. Of course this mom with a new video camera was happy to oblige. Here’s what he had to say about this kit:

Looks pretty fun, right? Here’s a close up of the contents:

Why did I turn the photo sideways for the photo? I don’t know! I didn’t even notice until I added it to this post.

Wyatt spent a good hour reading though the materials and playing with the items in this kit, which isn’t unusual. As always the “souvenir” was his favorite part. He had fun scraping off the patterns on the card to reveal the colors underneath. He had a lot of questions about the Sydney Opera House, so we spent a bit of time looking at pictures of it together on Google.

If you’ve been toying with trying one of these kits, summer is a great time to subscribe. The kits are a fun, play-based way to “travel” and  introduce different cultures and countries to your children. A 3 month subscription to the World Edition (the one we get) is $13.95 per month. The USA Edition also runs $13.95/month for the shorter subscription and like the World kit the monthly price drops for the 1 year or month-to-month subscriptions.

Disclosure: I am a Little Passports Brand Ambassador and affiliate. I blog about the kits we receive from Little Passports each month but everything I say (or my kid says) about the kits is an honest opinion.

I really should have titled this post “My Kids Ate It and Ate It and Ate It. And Ate It.”

Citrus Chicken is my new go to chicken recipe and I’ve been making it a ton over the past couple months. The simple marinade features garlic, orange and lime juices and it comes together really fast. And because it’s comprised of ingredients we almost always have on hand I can pull this recipe together at the spur of the moment.

And it’s versatile! Did I mention that it’s versatile? The original recipe calls for chicken breasts, but I make this most frequently using chicken thighs that I buy on sale. I’ve also used the marinade on my kids’ favorite chicken drumsticks and on boneless pork loin chops. The original recipe called for a quick saute, but I’ve also baked the meat in the oven. My favorite way to cook this chicken though is on the grill. The sweet juices permeate the meat and caramelize just a little to give it a light citrus flavor. If I have a little extra time, I like to mix about a cup of chicken broth with a few tablespoons of lemon or lime juice, reduce it down to about a third of a cup and pour it over the top of the chicken at the table. This gives it a delicious little pop.

Citrus Chicken
recipe adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/2 teaspoon grated lime rind
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme (I often sub in parsley from the pot on the back deck)
• 2 teaspoons bottled minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon grated orange rind
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 5-6 large chicken thighs (I’ve also used chicken breasts and drumsticks with great success)

Preparation

1. Combine first 7 ingredients in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Pour juice mixture into a large zip-top plastic bag. Add chicken to bag. Seal; let stand over night or for as much time as you have. (Half an hour or even five minutes works fine.)
2. Heat grill to medium heat. Coat grates with a thin layer of oil. Remove chicken from bag; discard marinade. Grill chicken until cooked through.

Modifications

I’ve already spelled out some of the variations I’ve made to this recipe up above. I use chicken breasts, thighs, drumsticks and pork loin chops. And sometimes I bake or saute the chicken instead of grilling. I also leave out the ground red pepper that the recipe originally called for because that would be a deal-breaker for my four-year-old but I think it would be a great addition if you were serving this to people who like a little heat.

But my best modification is that I’ve started making up packets of this recipe in advance and keeping it in the freezer. My grocery frequently puts max packs of chicken thighs on sale for $5. When I pick some of these up, I make a triple batch of the marinade, divide it between three freezer bags, and add 5 or 6 thighs to each packet. I lay the bags flat on a cookie sheet and freeze them solid, then store the packets in the freezer to use later. If I let the chicken defrost in the fridge over night, it gives the meat plenty of time to marinate as it thaws.

The Verdict

My family loves this recipe! Citrus flavors are some of my favorites, but my husband and the kids love this too. It’s mild enough that the boys will eat it, but it has enough extra flavor to keep the grown-ups happy too. Win-win!

What are your favorite recipes to stash in the freezer? Do you ever double or triple a dish to save time down the line?

This marked the first week of our new summer schedule. Yay summer! But that means that there are going to be a few changes around here. Augie is on a new preschool schedule for the summer — he attends every day now — and Wyatt is out of school and will not be attending camp. So the Week in Bentos will now have a lot of preschool lunches and hardly any big kid lunches.

Another fun thing this week is that I got a big shipment of bento toys from BentoUSA (aka All Things for Sale) so I have some especially fun lunches to share today!

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

Snoopy! Augie loooooooves Snoopy, so I was thrilled to see some Snoopy stuff show up on the BentoUSA site a few weeks ago. I tried to show some restraint, but I bought most of the things they are selling. (Some show of restraint!) Monday I made my boy this cutie Snoopy luncheon: four mini peanut butter sandwiches cut and stamped with Snoopy cutters, carrots and snap peas with hummus in a little Snoopy sauce container for dipping, and a few grapes behind a Snoopy divider. The divider is actually meant to be used as a stencil for decorating rice with furikake seasoning but it also worked pretty well as a food divider. I had to tilt it slightly to get it to fit in the box though. This lunch was packed in a single layer of our monbento box.

Tuesday

Tuesday, I broke out my new Spiderman rings and made Augie this Spidey lunch in the PlanetBox: Spiderman peeks out of a pile of grape tomatoes, meatballs standing in for “impact balls” (Wyatt informed me that these are balls of webbing he can shoot that explode on impact), red watermelon balls with a couple blue Spidey logos, a “radio active spider” (cucumbers in a silicone spider baking cup), and a small blue Lego box filled with hummus. I initially added icing eyes on top of the cucumbers in the cup, but then after I took the picture I decided they were probably going to melt and muck up the cukes, so I ended up removing them from the lunch.

Wednesday

Wednesday I broke out the Yumbox. Augie was my helper when I put this lunch together and I followed his lead about what to put in. He chose honey wheat pretzel sticks, cantaloupe chunks, cucumber spears, hummus for dipping the cukes and the pretzels, a rice ball and leftover chunks of chicken wrapped in prosciutto. He picked a couple cute little kitty and puppy mini-forks to use for eating the melon and chicken too.

Rice balls (called onigiri in Japanese) haven’t made an appearance in the boys’ lunches for quite a while because they both told me quite clearly that they “hated” them about a year or so ago. So imagine my surprise when Augie told me he wanted me to give him leftover rice in his lunch after dinner on Tuesday night. I pulled out my bag of rice molds for him to choose which shape he wanted and he went with the ball shape.

Thursday

Thursday’s lunch was a panda-palooza! It was packed into the Lunchbots Trio and it had a panda sandwich, cucumbers, strawberries and bamboo…er…I mean pretzels.

This lunch is a great example of how you can make a cute meal with very little effort. Really, the most complicated part of this is the sandwich and even that was fairly simple. I used a Cutezcute cutter set to cut the bread and stamp a panda face on one of the slices, then spread the inside with peanut butter and jelly and slapped it in the box. Next it was just a matter of placing the strawberries, cucumber slices and pretzel sticks in the remaining spaces. Finally, I speared the strawberries with a couple of panda forks and slipped a piece of panda baran (food divider) between the berries and pretzels to help prevent the pretzels from getting soggy.  I also put one in between a couple of the cucumbers for purely decorative purposes and that panda peeking out of the green ended up being my favorite part of this whole lunch. Simple can be really cute, folks!

Friday

This is what a preschooler’s lunch looks like when his mom wakes up a half an hour after he’s supposed to be in school. I turned off my alarm instead of hitting snooze this morning and then I woke up 2 1/2 hours later! Yikes!! I pulled out our Lock & Lock box (it’s back in stock!) and threw this lunch together as fast as I could: leftover bratwurst slices, cucumbers, strawberries, Triscuits.

Has your summer started? What’s your lunch situation?

Stumped for ideas for packed-lunches? Check out my lunch box idea list or visit Wendolonia’s Bento Box Gallery for nearly 1500 searchable lunch photos!

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Full Disclosure: I love board games. I loved them when I was a kid and I still love them as an adult. I feel like I’ve spent most of my life looking for people who will play board games with me and am thrilled that my kids (ages 8 and 4) are both old enough to play games with me now.

That being said, it’s pretty challenging to find games that we can all enjoy playing together. Some are tough because my little guy needs to be able to read to play them. Some make my children so competitive that they nearly come to blows. And some are just sheer torture for adults to play. Candyland sends my husband — and me! — running for the hills.

Last December I was on the look-out for some good family games to give my kids and when I solicited suggestions from friends on Facebook I was thrilled to get more than 40 responses! Woo hoo! I haven’t played all of them so I don’t feel up for recommending them here, but we did get a couple for the boys.

We bought a lot of the games I’ve listed below new, but I’d like to take a moment to recommend that you keep an eye out for board games at garage sales this summer. They are usually pretty cheap — I usually pay well under $5 for them — and they are often in great shape. As long as they have all their pieces, I almost always pick up any I see since most board games cost $15-30 new.

Richard Scarry Busy Town Game

Oh, how I love this game! This was the #1 recommended preschool game when I asked my friends so we bought it for Augie for Christmas and I don’t regret the purchase at all. It involves searching a detailed drawing, counting and cooperative play. Players compete together against the game — not against each other. It’s not super-engaging for adults, but I do enjoy the fun of finding hidden objects and the kids adore it. And best of all, they always — and I do mean always — work together when they’re playing instead of engaging in their usual bicker-fest.

Jenga

Jenga is one of those classic games that everyone should have on hand. It’s challenging for everyone (but not too challenging), an unlimited number of people can play and it doesn’t require any reading so a preschooler can hold his own. I also like that it teaches physics and fosters those fine motor skills.

LEGO Creationary

Most of Lego games we’ve played are pretty good, but Creationary is our favorite by far. Everyone in our family loves to play it. The premise is pretty simple — players take turn drawing cards and attempt to build the pictured items with Legos while the other players try to guess what they are making. My 4-year-old makes simple shapes, while his Grandpa wows everyone by building excellent sculptures using an elegant economy of bricks. After awhile we almost always tire of what little competition is involved in this game and we all just sit around drawing cards and building simultaneously, but it’s all good.

Battleship

We bought our Battleship game at a garage sale for $2 and what a bargain it was! This game is a little too complicated for my preschooler to play on his own, but he loves playing it as a team member with me or his dad. The grown-ups keep track of recording the hits and misses with the pegs, and he determines where the boats should go and points to the squares on the grid where we shoot our missiles. My 8-year-old loves the graphing and the competition and he’s usually a pretty good sport when he falls behind.

Go Fish!

Go Fish is a perfect introductory card game for little kids and best of all it’s portable and usually very inexpensive. We got our version of this game as the treat included with a kids meal from a grocery store deli! Both kids are learning the basics of card games by playing this — taking turns, how to hold a hand of cards, how to organize them and keep them hidden from view. I enjoy playing this solid, basic game and I also like that we can play several rounds in a spare half hour.

Monopoly Millionaire

Of all the games on this list, this one is the least appropriate for younger kids, but I’m including it anyway because my preschooler and 4th grader both beg to play it. We gave my older son this Monopoly Millionaire game for Christmas this year and our family has played it quite a bit since then. It has all of the standard elements of the traditional Monopoly game, but it’s been significantly streamlined and takes a fraction of the time to play a game. All of the usual learning elements are still there though including math and negotiation skills and good sportsmanship. Again we adults have the preschooler play on our “team” and ask him to make some of the decisions which has the added benefit of leveling the playing field between the grown-ups and the older kid.

What games does your family like to play together? Please comment with any favorites below!

More disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. We actually own all the games in that picture up there though and I’m writing this post because we play them and enjoy them!

I’ve already mentioned that Wyatt is not attending summer camp this year, and I think it’s worth noting that I’m a little bit terrified. I’ve had at least a few hours of school time or childcare to lean back on for both kids almost since I started working from home and this will be my first prolonged period where I’m with my kid 100% of the time — day and night — since I became a mom.

I’m excited to give Wyatt a relaxed summer like the ones I had when I was a kid where I spent every day watching “The Price is Right”, building Lego structures on a blanket in our back yard, swimming all afternoon and secretly staying up until midnight reading library books. But times have changed and I have to get at least a little bit of work done every day, so my days with him will require a little more structure than that. I also want to teach my eldest to be a little more independent and to not rely so heavily on video games and Minecraft walk-thrus for his daily entertainment. I know I need to have a few rules in place in order to get through the morning without constant interruptions and requests for snacks.

So, as any planner will do, I’ve come up with a schedule for the summer. Mornings are the toughest for us so I made Wyatt a detailed schedule listing out his responsibilities:

The top half of the chart shows the things he’s required to do every morning. The first five — wash up, get dressed, eat breakfast, put on shoes, be ready to leave the house by 8:55 am — are the daily tasks that he should be doing on his own but that I always have to nag him about. the next three — sweeping, trash duty and laundry — are his allowance jobs. If he doesn’t do them daily, he doesn’t get his money for the week. The next two are fun things — reading and independent play. Reading is actually on there as a formality because he loves to read and doesn’t need to be encouraged to do it, but I think it’s good to set expectations in that area. I’ll get into the independent play stuff down below.  He crosses each item off the list as he completes it.

The second half of the chart is the carrot/stick section. Every day, Wyatt has the privilege of having up to 45 minutes of extra morning screen time. He has to complete all of the activities on the chart to get any time at all and I also will dock his time for unpleasant behaviors. The main thing that will get time taken away is if I have to nag him to complete his morning jobs — this is my attempt to encourage him to meet his responsibilities without being asked. Other things that will prompt me to take away five minute chunks include: asking for screen time or snacks, rudeness, back-talk, whining that he’s bored, refusing to help a family member when asked, and excessive complaining. If I take time away, I cross off the relevant chunk both so I can keep track and so he has a visual cue. I’m planning to laminate this chart so we don’t run through a ton of paper.

This all sounds pretty strict, but I’m really only using it as a guide and I’m doing my best to help him with all these goals. My hope is that we aren’t even using the chart within a few weeks because it will all be habit.

One area I’ve been offering a lot of help with is independent play time. I want him to have a fun summer and enjoy himself, so I’ve printed out a list of ideas for him when he’s looking for something to do. Most all of these were pulled from the Summer Fun List and they were selected because he can do them without any help from me at all (or at least with minimal assistance). Here are the things on the list:

• Do a jigsaw puzzle
• Do a Lego challenge
• Do a Little Passports kit
• Learn a magic trick
• Make a comic book
• Make a movie with a video camera
• Origami
• Puzzle books
• Read something — book, comics, magazine
• Work on a Cub Scout belt loop/pin
• Write a letter
• Write or draw pictures in a journal
• Build something cool out of cardboard boxes
• Play in the pool and/or the sprinkler
• Ride bikes or scooters
• Set up a treasure hunt for friends or siblings
• Set up an obstacle course and race with friends or time yourself
• Slip ‘n’ slide
• Wash the car
• Make sculptures with modeling clay
• Paint, draw, color, etc.

My friend Whitney and I have also been pinning ideas for independent play for our 8 year old boys to a Pinterest board so more ideas are constantly coming in there.

So far (three days into summer) the list has been working. This week Wyatt has made an origami Han Solo and Millennium Falcon, read 4 novels, taken a couple bike rides, sketched out a Minecraft mod to appeal to his father’s tastes and written a complimentary letter to Doritos in hopes that they will send him coupons for free bags of chips!

The last thing I’ve put together is a rough sketch for our afternoons. I’m making an effort to contain my work time to mornings only over summer break so I have free time to enjoy my kids in the afternoons. I’ve found that without a daily plan I end up puttering around the house too long though, so I’ve put a rough schedule for the week together:

• Monday — library
• Tuesday — At-home activities and/or crafts
• Wednesday — outing
• Thursday — swimming
• Friday — outing

I am not going to be strict about this at all, and if we decide we want to switch things up on a given day that’s awesome. But this will at least give me a jumping off point every afternoon.

How about you? Do you keep a summer schedule with your kids? Or does camp take care of that for you?

So I’m coming at you with an unusual Monday Week in Bentos post this week. Last Friday was Wyatt’s last day of school and he got out early, and  I was running around all morning and never got my act together to post my weekly round-up. You can see that I immediately put myself on summer time!

So now we are officially on summer vacation and I’m playing a bit of catch up! Here’s what went down in Lunch Land last week:

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

Augie used our square Lock & Lock bento for lunch on Monday and I filled it with chunks of nectarine, squares of garlic naan, leftover roast chicken, carrots and sugar snap peas. I included a couple little fork picks that look like sweets with the fruit and chicken so Augie didn’t have to use his fingers to eat them.

(Please note that this box is currently out of stock at BentoUSA. I’m not sure when it will be back in stock, but I’m putting the link here in case it’s coming back soon.)

Wyatt’s lunch was packed in the Laptop Lunches bento box: strips of garlic naan, carrots, a little Lego box filled with black bean dip, nectarine chunks, chicken in a square silicone cup and strawberries.

Tuesday

Tuesday Augie had salami, wheat thins, grapes, a big honkin’ strawberry, cucumber slices and grape tomatoes. I packed his lunch in our Lunchbots Trio.

Wyatt had a salami, cheddar and pesto sandwich, a few chips, strawberries and grapes. This was packed in an EasyLunchboxes box.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, I made Augie a kitty sandwich with our Cutezcute cutter set. I think it was peanut butter and jelly but I can’t remember for sure. He also had chopped plums with a little fox pick (I thought it was a mouse when I packed it but now that I look at it, I see that’s pretty obviously wrong), strawberries and cucumber slices. This was packed in a single layer of our monbento box.

Wyatt had a lunch in the Yumbox: cheddar cheese stars (the scraps are underneath), strawberries, salami, naan stars, carrots and black bean dip.

Thursday

And then Augie had the Yumbox on Thursday: salami, strawberries, cucumber flowers (I was reminded of the technique when I saw this lunch Melissa posted the other day), Triscuits and grapes.

Wyatt got a special lunch for his last full day of the school for the year: plums with one of those donut picks, chips, grapes and a salami and cheese sandwich. I spelled out “ONE MORE DAY!” on top of the sandwich with letters I cut from the cheese to set a celebratory mood! Woo hoo!
(This was packed in the PlanetBox lunch box.)

Friday

No lunch for Wyatt on Friday because he got out early. I packed something for Augie, but I accidentally deleted the pictures from my camera. I have NO idea what I sent for him either!

Stumped for ideas for packed-lunches? Check out my lunch box idea list or visit Wendolonia’s Bento Box Gallery for nearly 1500 searchable lunch photos!

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I’m continuing my preparations for summer vacation this week by updating our yearly Summer Fun List. There are lots of repeats on here from last year (and the year before) but that’s because they’re summer standards — and because they were fun last time! There are also a few things we didn’t get to in years past, but I’ve added a bunch of new stuff too. This year I’m also trying to focus a lot on things that the kids can do independently (more on that in a post next week).

One thing I’ve learned from the past is that it’s essential to do some preparation up front. Invariably, the kids would look at the list and ask to do something and I would have to say “no” because we didn’t have the supplies on hand or I had to dig around for the instructions. This year I have already started printing instructions for certain items so we can hit the ground running and I’m putting them into a binder. I’ve also started gathering supplies from around the house and I’m putting together a shopping list so I can pick up the few items we don’t already have on hand.

Alrighty then! Here’s the list:

Anytime

• Dance party
• Do a jigsaw puzzle
• Do a Lego challenge
• Do a Little Passports kit
• Learn a magic trick
• Learn to blow bubble gum bubbles
• Make a comic book — Download and print comic book templates to get started
• Make a movie with a video camera
• Open an electronic device — find a broken electronic (keyboard, radio, etc.) around the house or buy one at a garage sale
• Origami
• Play “stomp and catch” — have the big kid make the board
• Play a board game
• Puzzle books
• Read something — book, comics, magazine
• Sign up for Postcrossing.com to send and receive postcards
• Work on a Cub Scout belt loop/pin
• Write a letter to friend, family or yourself — we are finding lots of inspiration and fun ideas in this book
• Write or draw pictures in a journal

Backyard

• Alphabet treasure hunt
• Build something cool out of cardboard boxes
• Camp in the backyard
• Go on a bug hunt
• Have a water balloon battle
• Hold a garage sale
• Play in the pool and/or the sprinkler
• Play with squirt guns
• Ride bikes or scooters
• Set up a treasure hunt for friends or siblings
• Set up an obstacle course and race with friends or time yourself
• Slip ‘n’ slide
• Wash the car

Cooking

• Make homemade butter with a mixer or by shaking cream in a jar
• Make homemade lemonade
• Make popsicles
• Plan and make dinner for the family
• Root beer floats
• Try a recipe from The Little House Cookbook

Crafts

• Do some “Camp Mom” activities — I bought this ebook a few weeks ago and it’s full of great ideas
• Do a Kiwi Crate project
• Home Depot workshop — I’ve already reserved places for the boys in the Despicable Me 2 workshop on July 6
• Make balloon shooters
• Make cork canoes, race them in the stream at the park
• Make lanyards
• Make mini skateboards
• Make parachutes for toys
• Make sculptures with modeling clay
• Make slime
• Paint with watercolors

Excursions

• Adventure playground
• Baseball game
• Beach
• Camping (not in the back yard)
• Drink Slurpees and eat chips sitting on the curb in front of 7-11
• Fill out our East Bay Regional Parks passport
• Find the labyrinth at Sibley park
• Fruit picking
• Go bowling
• Go for a hike
• Go letterboxing/geocaching
• Go out for ice cream
• Lake Anza
• Picnic in the park (or the back yard)
• Preschool picnic
• See Epic
• See Monsters, University
• Sign up for the library reading program
• Six Flags
• Splash park
• Swim at the Cull Canyon Lagoon
• Swimming lessons
• Visit the swimming pool
• Take a walk after dark
• Try a new playground
• Try a trampoline jumper place
• Visit Dad in Washington, D.C or Grandma and Grandpa in Iowa
• Visit Santa Cruz for a day/weekend

What are you planning for the summer? Do you have a big list like this too?

This post contains a few affiliate links.

This is the last week of school before my oldest son is out for the summer and I am in full on organization mode trying to get ready for the long days ahead. This is the first year he will be home with me instead of going to preschool or camp and I have to admit that I’m just a little bit terrified! I’m looking forward to relaxing with both of the kids and having a fun summer, but I still have to work part of the time, so I am trying to make a plan and set both of my boys up to entertain themselves independently.

First stop: art supplies!

Both of my kids like to create, draw and invent things. Wyatt (the eight-year-old) makes incredibly detailed drawings and tells stories with his art. Augie (the four-year-old) has also been doing some story-telling lately, but his favorite way of creating by far is still just messing around with materials and seeing what they do. I like creative play myself, and one of my favorite ways to spend time with my boys is sitting around the table making stuff.

We have a nice collection of art supplies, but until yesterday they weren’t easy for the kids to access by themselves. They were stored in three or four different places, many of them were still on high shelves to keep Augie from getting into them and they were in a terrible jumble.

Take a gander for yourself:

I wanted to reorganize the materials so that they were all in one place that the boys could reach and so that they could see all of the cool stuff that was available to them.

After a hard-core Pinterest search and a call for suggestions on the Wendolonia Facebook page, I decided to put everything in an Antonius cart from IKEA based on this example from Wee Wonderfuls. This system has almost all of the features I was looking for: big enough to hold our supplies with a little room for expansion, easy for the kids to access, divided trays so everything has a designated spot and easy to see what was available. The only thing missing is portability, but I think I can get casters for it so we can move it around the house.

This is what it looks like fully loaded. Let’s take a tour of the drawers:

The top drawer has our most frequently used supplies: pencils (and sharpeners), watercolors, scissors and staplers, glue and tape, thin-tipped markers, crayons, dry erase markers, miscellaneous markers and chalk.

The boxes hold some of the specialty supplies we’ve received in our Kiwi Crate: watercolor crayons, oil pastels, construction paper crayons and fabric crayons.

The next shelf down has: air dry modeling clay, window markers, yarn, foam sheets, sponges, craft sticks, buttons, googly eyes, and tons and tons of stickers. I’m a sticker lover from way back and I bought boat loads of them back when I first started scrapbooking. A few years ago I noticed I never used stickers on my pages, so I turned them over to my kids.

The third drawer down holds: foam alphabet letters (I’m planning some projects with these to help Augie learn his letters), pom-poms, lanyard string, pipe-cleaners, elastics for stringing beads and buttons, and our Facebox stencil kit. I also have two big envelopes stuffed with big sheets of stickers and stencils. Augie is big into the stencils because they use them a lot at preschool and he was super excited when I pulled a new set of textured bug stencils that we’d all forgotten about out of one of our art supply boxes. Yay for organizing!

The last drawer is all about paper. The main event is a huge stack of colored construction paper we’ve been working our way through since last summer. I also included a bunch of paper strips I cut for a project that the kids hated and never finished last summer and some specialty papers (origami, vellum, metallics). There are also a ton of the little notebooks that just seem to accumulate in our house. The boys like to grab these when we go out to eat so they have something to draw on while we wait for our food.

And finally there are some art supplies we use all the time that are not on the cart. The first is a big roll of butcher paper we use for big collaborative art pieces. The second is painting supplies and wet glue. I generally trust Augie to be careful with our art supplies and not to make a huge mess, but putting a bunch of paint and glue in easy reach would just be dumb of me!

OK, and one more quick note: if you are interested in crafting with your kids but aren’t a fan of putting projects together yourself I highly recommend monthly Kiwi Crate kits. This year they are doing a “Camp Kiwi” theme for the summer and their crate themes are Nature Explorers (June), Wonders of Water (July), and Fun with Flight (August) so this is a great time to buy a 3 month subscription.

How are you preparing for summer? What art supplies do you keep on hand so your kids can create?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, but I only share links to products that we love and actually use. I hope you’ll find them to be convenient and that you might discover something new that your family will also like.

We are sooooooo close to summer! So close! But school is still in session at the moment (one more week left) so I am still packing two lunches per day. Here’s what my boys had this week:

This post contains affiliate links.

Monday

No school on Monday because of Memorial day.

Tuesday

The fridge was pretty empty on Tuesday, so I had to raid the freezer and the pantry to feed the kids. Nothing wrong with that, though, right? That’s why I fill those babies up! Augie had grapes, dried cranberries, two little Mickey sandwiches filled with jam, snap peas, hummus (in the Lego box) and some frozen corn. This was packed in a Lock & Lock bento box.

It was Wyatt’s turn to take our new Yumbox out for a spin. I filled it with tiny jam sandwiches (you can barely see the jam, but I promise it’s in there), the last of the grapes, turkey meatballs from the freezer, corn and radishes. He recently decided he officially loves radishes and now eats them with gusto. Go figure!

Wednesday

Augie’s turn for the Yumbox again! The kids are super into this box so they are taking turns bringing it to school. I’m not sure if they like it so much because they really think it’s cool or because it’s new, but there is some serious love going on for it at the moment.

This is what I put in it: berry yogurt, raspberries, blackberries, cucumber slices, hummus, wheat thins, and leftover citrus chicken from dinner the night before.

Wyatt’s lunch was packed in the PlanetBox: raspberries, blackberries, cherries, carrots, black bean dip and a salami, cheddar, pesto and mayo sandwich on garlic naan flatbread.  As I mentioned last week, he made this sandwich up and I have to admit that it’s pretty rockin’. I had one for lunch myself on Wednesday, inspired by this photo.

Thursday

Augie was home sick Thursday, so no lunch for him.

Wyatt had a near repeat of his lunch from Wednesday but this time it was packed in a Laptop Lunches box: carrots and bean dip, Triscuits, cherries and his the same salami, cheese and pesto sandwich.

When he came home I noticed that he’d barely eaten any of his sandwich and when I told him I was surprised he very carefully explained to me that it wasn’t the same as the ones he makes because the pesto and mayonnaise were mixed together on my version, whereas when he makes them he puts only one of the spreads on each piece of bread. Gotcha. It’s a pleasure serving you, your royal highness.

Friday

Augie went back to school this morning and I packed his luncheon in the PlanetBox: leftover roasted chicken with alphabet picks spelling out his name, semi-circles of garlic naan, cucumber slices, hummus and strawberries.

Wyatt’s lunch was in the Yumbox: lemon yogurt, strawberries, carrots, black bean dip, cheese and wheat thins and leftover chicken. I gave him a little fork pick to eat the chicken too, but then as I was packing it in his lunch bag, I remembered the yogurt so I threw in a set of Lego flatware too.

Next week is the last week of school and I CAN’T WAIT! Woo hoo!

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I am normally a bad breakfast eater. I always have a couple of big cups of tea, but if I eat anything at all, it’s usually the scraps and extras that are leftover after I make my kids’ lunches. I realize the importance of a good breakfast — and I insist my kids eat one — so I’m always vowing to improve my morning eating habits for my own health and to set a good example for my boys.

Last Monday, I took the time to make myself something a little nicer than I usually do for breakfast. I liked the way it looked so, as I am prone to do, I took a picture and posted it to my personal Facebook page. The photo got a ton of likes and nice comments and it inspired me to make better choices. I decided to try to make a point of eating breakfast every day for a week (and take pictures!) to keep myself accountable. My goal was to get at least a little protein and a serving of fruit or veggies at each meal. Here’s what I had:

Monday’s breakfast was the one that kicked this whole project off. I toasted a slice of sweet batard bread from a beloved local bakery (Semifreddi’s for those of you in the Bay Area), then spread a thin layer of pesto on it. I also poached an egg and added that to the top of the bread, then threw a few strawberries from the farmer’s market on the side. This was very tasty, but it was a pain in the butt to eat. The bread was super crusty, and I couldn’t cut it with a knife and fork. I cut the egg up and ate the toast with my hands but the egg kept falling off. Blergh.

The next day I was in a rush to eat before taking Augie to school, so I went with something simple: Puffins cereal with milk and a bowl of grapes. This is one of my favorite fast breakfasts because I get that serving of fruit and some whole grain from the cereal.

Wednesday was not a good day. I skipped breakfast first thing in the morning, then by the time I dropped the kids at school and ran a few errands I was ridiculously hungry. I reached for the first fast thing I could find when I came in the house and that happened to be a handful of cookies. They gave me a stomach ache and I deeply regretted eating them.

I did much better on Thursday! I spread some pesto on a slice of whole wheat toast then added some chopped roasted bell peppers from a jar on top of that. The topper was a couple of poached eggs.  Nom!

I was back to basics again on Friday — Cheerios and grapes. Fast and easy.

I forgot to take any photos of my breakfast over the weekend because we were on the go. I have no idea what I ate Saturday, but Sunday we went out for brunch and I had a two egg breakfast with an English muffin and ridiculously indulgent potatoes. The place we went to lets you upgrade to something they call “Home-fry Heaven” and they plop grated cheese, pesto and sour cream on top. Soooooo good, but not necessarily good for you. Wyatt loves them though so I shared them with him.

Yesterday was cereal again.

Today I skipped eating in the early morning, and by the time I got home from drop-off and the weekly grocery run it was getting close to 11 a.m. time, so I went with something a little more lunchy. I zapped a bowl of farro and sugar snap peas in the microwave and then threw in some chopped tomatoes and fresh mozzerella and a glop of pesto.

Have you noticed that I’m kind of obsessed with pesto at the moment? Wyatt has been enjoying it a lot too, so I’ve been getting a container every week when I buy our groceries. We are mostly using it as a condiment on sandwiches, toast or tossed with veggies. I’m excited for my basil plant to get big enough for me to make some at home too.

What do you eat for breakfast? Do you eat the same thing every day or do you like variety like I do?