Here are this week’s lunches:

Monday

Monday, I sent Wyatt to school with a squirrely lunch: salami, apple, grapes, Scrabble Cheez-its, garlic naan cut into squirrel shapes and a couple of cheese acorns — one for each squirrel. This lunch was packed in our Laptop Lunch Box.

While I was packing his lunch, Wyatt asked me to please be sure to pack the red container next to the hinge on the outer box. When I asked him why he told me he likes to take the lid off and tuck it between the red container and the wall of the bigger box and that keeps the lid from closing on his lunch while he’s eating. Clever boy! I never even thought about that.

Augie doesn’t attend preschool on Mondays so I often try to do something fun with him in the morning. This particular day, he decided that we should go to a park and have a picnic lunch. He even picked the containers we would use — kitty and panda — out of the big basket of bento boxes.  Since Augie is a big eater and I’m doing Weight Watchers right now, I packed us identical lunches: tomatoes, grapes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and goldfish crackers. The sandwiches were slightly too big to fit in the panda and cat bento boxes, so I cut the sandwiches to fit in the box with a big beer mug.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, Augie’s lunch was pineapple, apple slices, mini-sausages, garlic naan cut into circles and a few grapes.

I don’t often send apples in the boys’ lunches because if they get even a little brown they won’t usually eat them, but I had some juice  leftover from the pineapple can so I dipped the apple pieces in that to keep them from oxidizing. Augie didn’t eat one of his pieces, so I took a quick picture to show how well it help up. Not too shabby!

Wyatt’s lunch was basically the same: garlic naan circles, apple chunks (also dipped in pineapple juice), mini-sausages, pineapple and goldfish crackers.

Wednesday

Stripey bento! Augie’s lunch was packed in a hinged lid box (similar to this one). I arranged the contents — sausages, strips of naan, grapes, and goldfish crackers — in long strips.

Wyatt’s lunch was raisins, goldfish crackers, a couple of cat cookies, grapes, clementine wedges, a squirrel naan and mini-sausages.

Thursday

On Thursday, Augie had meatballs, edamame, raisins, fish crackers, cat cookies and a teeny, tiny, lady apple. This is the first time I’ve tried the lady apples on Augie and he seemed to like it pretty well. When I tried sending them in Wyatt’s lunch a few years ago, they didn’t go over so well.

Wyatt had school lunch, so no bento box for him.

Friday

Today, Augie had yellow bell pepper chunks, leftover chicken from dinner, blueberries and some Triscuits.

Wyatt had a donut hole, potato chips, blueberries, a Laughing Cow cheese wedge, chicken and clementine wedges.

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The fourth week of the year has passed and, as I imagine they say in Hollywood, Project 365 week 4 is “in the can”. This week, I had a too-many-photos problem. Despite a pretty quiet week, I took a lot of pictures I wanted to include in my album and once I had them in the slots I wasn’t left very many spaces to include the stories that I wanted to tell about them. I ended up hiding quite a bit of by jouraling as you’ll see down below.

I started out by typing the date on the intro card using my typewriter. I don’t have my typewriter out where I see it all the time because Augie tends to bang on it and jam the keys which bums me out. I have to remember to get it out and play with it more often.

Sunday’s photo is just a shot of Zach making breakfast eggs. I had two photos for Monday — one of a rainy walk home from school, the other is one Zach took of the boys and me building a birdhouse. Tuesday I was struck by how much cheese we had in our fridge (14 kinds! No exaggeration!) so I took a picture of our cheese drawer. Wednesday Augie and I went to a local preschool play place while Wyatt was visiting a friend’s house.

I included an insert for the kids’ homework again this week. Augie brought home a duck watercolor (top photo) and Wyatt had a nice piece about his Chinese zodiac sign.

Thursday’s photo shows my FitBit after I hit my goal of 10,000 steps for the day. I had a whole raft of photos for Friday — Korean dinner, cozy kids, and Augie dressing himself. And Saturday I wrote about our family outing (more below).

This was the page where I struggled to get everything I wanted to include into the page protector. Here’s how I solved that problem:

We went out for dinner at a Korean restaurant which was a risky proposition with two kids who don’t really like to try new food very much. The food was lovely though and the kids tried a ton of new things so I made a collage of photos and wrote a bit about their adventurous spirit in Photoshop Elements. After I printed it, I taped on a business card for the restaurant because it was pretty. (Shown in the photo of the page up above.)

I also wanted to talk a bit about how Augie has started dressing himself. I loved the photo with his Perry the Platypus booty showing as he pulls his pants on, so I taped it to a folded journaling card and wrote the story out around it. I love how easy it is to capture these small milestones with this project that might otherwise be overlooked. Since Augie was born, I haven’t had much time to do the big scrapbook pages I used to do, but my 365 projects capture his day to day life pretty well.

I did another bigger card to talk about our Saturday hike and include an extra photo of Wyatt. I’d also like to note that despite living in the SF Bay Area for 20+ years, I still managed to misspell “San Francisco” the first time I wrote it. Yeah.

Questions about this project? Read my introductory post here. I am putting my album together using Becky Higgins Project Life divided page protectors, the Project Life Clementine Core Kit, and lots of products from my scrapbook stash.

Oops! I was super busy last week and didn’t manage to get all the lunch pictures pulled together into a blog post, so I’m coming to you with a special Saturday edition of The Week in Bentos this week. Exciting!

And because I’m posting a day late, I’m including pictures of today’s lunch at home. Even more exciting!

Monday

Wow! We’ve been waking up late a lot in the past few weeks, but Monday we were really late. We were so late that even though I had Wyatt’s lunch 3/4 packed, I didn’t have time to finish filling it, so he had school lunch.

Tuesday

Tuesday, Wyatt actually got to eat that lunch. He had a whole wheat dinner roll, a clementine, raspberries, Scrabble Cheez-its, deli turkey and a few slices of salami (the remnants of lunch meat that were left in the cheese drawer from the week before). This was all packed in our Laptop Lunch Box.

Augie’s lunch for preschool was a whole wheat bun that I split and filled with homemade blackberry jam (not visible in the photo), a clementine, grapes and soy cheese cut into star shapes for a little protein. This was packed in our little bird bento box.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, Augie had shelled edamame, clementine wedges, green grapes and sliced baked tofu. He also had a separate box of white cheddar popcorn that I forgot to take a picture of. He specifically asked me for the popcorn because one of his friends at preschool brings it in his lunch and as Augie put it, “I want to eat him’s popcorn, Mama!” We can’t have that, now can we! I love it when my kids ask for things in their lunches because a.) they rarely do it and b.) it gives me good ideas.

Wyatt’s lunch was packed in the Easy Lunchbox: sliced, baked tofu, green grapes, clementines and popcorn.

Thursday

On Thursday, Augie had kissing squirrel sandwiches filled with ham and soy cheese, red grapes and more edamame.

Wyatt had a few pita chips, grapes, Scrabble Cheez-its and Darth Vader and Boba Fett ham and cheese sandwiches. The sandwiches were cut and decorated with our Star Wars cookie cutters.

Friday

On Friday, Augie’s lunch had a ham “rose”, Triscuits, grapes, carrot sticks and peas.

And Wyatt had tortilla chips, hoisin chicken tenders cut into chunks, scrabble Cheez-its, and grapes. The chicken was leftover from dinner on Thursday. I sauteed some chicken tenders, then I just improvised the sauce by mixing together hoisin sauce, soy sauce, garlic from a jar, siracha, and a dab of sesame oil. Wyatt loved it but Augie wouldn’t even try it, so Wyatt got to take it in his luncheon tray.

BONUS: Saturday Lunch!

This is an example of a typical weekend lunch for us. Augie had a pb&j sandwich, applesauce and Cheez-its. I took a few extra seconds to spell his name out on the plate with his crackers, which I admit was a little silly since he can’t read.

Wyatt can read though and he was thrilled that I spelled his name out too. We were out of W crackers so I had to substitute an E on its side but he assured me that he didn’t mind that.

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Thank you to Hunt’s for sponsoring this post and encouraging my culinary skills! Visit Hunt’s Signature Recipe Collection to find tons of delicious ideas for using Hunt’s tomatoes in your meals.

I’m can’t put my finger on exactly what’s changed this year, but now that Wyatt is in second grade we are really busy during the week. PTA, play dates, scouts, work projects — we’ve been doing all these things for the past few years, but suddenly we’re finding that we have something going on almost every day. I’ve always been about fast and easy for our week night meals but now I’m really about fast and easy.

Chicken with tomatoes and olives is one of my favorite meals to throw together when I have to make dinner quickly. I’ve been making this dish since I was a bachelorette living over a bakery in Berkeley  (say that three times fast) and it continues to be delicious and satisfying almost 20 (!!) years later.

You only need three ingredients to make this dish: kalamata olives, canned, diced tomatoes and chicken breasts or tenders. I like to use tomatoes that are pre-seasoned with basil, garlic and oregano, but you can use plain canned tomatoes and season them with spices you have on hand if you like. You can also sub green olives for the kalamatas if you prefer. And come to think of it, you can sub chicken thighs for the chicken breasts. This recipe is totally flexible!

Start by cooking the chicken over medium high heat in enough olive oil to coat the pan. Chicken tenders will only need 2-3 minutes per side. Breasts or thighs will take longer. Once the chicken is cooked through, remove it to a plate.

Next, dump in two cans of diced tomatoes and as many olives as you like. I used the entire jar of olives pictured above. Drain the juice off the olives before adding them to the pan, but be sure not to drain the tomatoes because you’re going to use that juice to make a little sauce. When the tomatoes start to bubble, scrape up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan and stir them into the sauce until they dissolve. They’ll give your sauce extra depth and flavor. Continue to cook the tomato mixture at a steady bubble until the juices have reduced and thickened to your taste.

To serve, put the chicken on a plate and top with the tomato mixture. I usually serve a steamed green veggie and some rice on the side and sometimes I sprinkle a little crumbled feta on top of the chicken which is extra delicious. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should tell you that when I make this my kids eat the chicken and sometimes eat the tomatoes, but they always pick the olives out complaining bitterly the whole time.

What do you cook for a fast dinner on school nights?

Thank you again to Hunt’s for sponsoring my post. Find more ideas for cooking with tomatoes at Hunt’s Signature Recipe Collection. I was selected for this opportunity by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions expressed here are my own. #HuntsRecipe #spon

Three weeks in and I’m still right on track with my photo a day project for this year! So far I’ve easily been taking photos ever day and often I’m taking several pictures that I want to include in my album.  I’m also managing to keep up with the album about which I am pleased as punch. Here’s what I put together for last week:

On Sunday, I photographed my grocery cart and then listed out everything in it that I could see or remember. Monday’s photo shows the supplies for a craft project that the boys and I put together from one our our Kiwi Crate kits. (Kiwi Crate ships out a monthly kit with all the supplies for two kids’ craft projects in it. I bought a 3 month membership for half off on Plum District last month and so far we really like it.) I had two items for Tuesday: a photo of my new laptop and a screen shot of some texts that I sent Zach when we ran out of Pull-ups at bedtime. Calamity! On Wednesday I photographed our pizza dinner and used the photo to symbolize how sick we all were.

I took a bunch of Instagram photos on Thursday, so I put together a little collage of some of my favorites. I also pulled one of Wyatt posing as Draco Malfoy out for a little bit of extra attention. Friday’s photo was of Augie at the grocery store with me. Saturday was a picture of our traditional pancake breakfast. I took a lot of pictures of food this week!

I did so much journaling right on my photos this week that I had several spare slots open in the middle section. I asked the boys to help me fill them and they were happy to pitch in. Augie drew me a picture of a rocket ship and Wyatt wrote a bit about a video game he’s been playing called Terraria. I also loved an idea that Cathy Zielske posted on Twitter to document the books our family is reading at the moment, so I included that too. I’m going to try to do that a few times this year, I think!

Questions about this project? Read my introductory post here. I am putting my album together using Becky Higgins Project Life divided page protectors, the Project Life Clementine Core Kit, and lots of products from my scrapbook stash.

Before I dive into the photos I took of my kids’ lunches this week, I want to make a slight detour and share an article with all you bento packers and everyone else who is trying to feed their children healthy, appealing food. Earlier this week, my friend Whitney shared an article with me about what sorts of meals most appeal to children. The article references a study that found that children gravitate toward plates with seven different foods in six different colors while adults prefer three foods in three colors. There are other interesting facts in the article too, including this lovely tidbit:

“While plates that are designed with partitions aren’t necessary for preparing a diverse set of foods, Japanese style bento boxes would match better with our findings since they tend to have significantly more pockets.”

Needless to say, I love this article because it provides scientific confirmation that this way that many of us parents serve food to our children isn’t coddling, indulgent or “a waste of time” (a phrase I’ve heard just a few too many times).

Science! Yay!

Now, let’s get to those photos!

Monday

Holiday! No lunches.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, Wyatt’s lunch was packed into the Laptop Lunch Box: rainbow goldfish crackers, raisins, half of a gigantic whole wheat dinner roll, green grapes, deli turkey, crackers, and a Laughing Cow cheese.

Augie was home sick from preschool on Tuesday with a bad cold and he had almost no appetite, so I pulled out all the stops to try to get him to eat a little. I ended up putting together this little woodland scene inspired by Hey! Jen Renee’s plate lunches (I even went out and bought the IKEA cookie cutters last week): soy cheese trees, squirrel and hedgehog pb&j sandwiches and grapes. He was delighted!

Wednesday

On Wednesday Augie had sliced deli turkey, carrots, sugar snap peas, rainbow goldfish crackers and green grapes. It was packed in a bento box very similar to this one (the only difference is the color).

Wyatt was home sick on Wednesday and we ate mac and cheese for lunch.

Thursday

Thursday, Augie had salami, crackers, grapes and apple chunks that he asked me to put in for his dessert. This was packed in a single layer box with a hinged lid. You can see more examples of lunches packed in these boxes in the Bento Box Gallery.

Wyatt’s lunch was packed in an Easy Lunchbox: salami, whole wheat bun, tortilla chips, grapes and clementine wedges.

When I opened his lunch box in the afternoon to clean it out, this is what I found:

There was barely anything gone! As usual, he told me that they got to the lunch room late (which seems to be routine) and then on top of it two kids in his class kept trying to reach into his lunch box to eat his food so he had to fend them off. I was SO annoyed. The poor kid must have been starving.

Friday

Today Augie got a special bear lunch. His nicknames — since before we even brought him home from the hospital — have always been some form of “Bear”: Augie Bear, Little Bear, Mr. Bear, or just plain old Bear. My new IKEA cutters included a bear cub, so I had to use it on a PB&J sandwich. I also included grapes, clementine wedges and fish crackers. The idea is that the bear likes to eat fish, see? I thought about including a honey stick, but I knew his preschool teachers would hate me for it so I left it our. I also think it would have been cool if I’d had blueberries to put in around the bear but we didn’t have any. Of course, this was sent in the panda bear bento box!

And finally, Wyatt’s lunch today was another dinner roll, clementines, fish crackers, grapes, salami and a Laughing Cow cheese wedge.

Have a great weekend!

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I realize that many of you are up to your necks in real snowflakes at the moment, but here in the SF Bay area it has been bone dry all winter. I’m not trying to say that we would normally be strapping on our snow shoes at this time of year or anything but we’ve usually had at least a little rain by now. In order to bring a little bit of that wintery feeling into our house, I’ve been making paper snowflakes and taping them to our windows.

I learned to cut paper snowflakes back in elementary school, as I’m sure you all did too, but I didn’t start liking how they looked until my mom — an expert snowflake cutter — shared a few tricks with me. Today I’m going to share everything I learned from her with you!

To start, you’ll need a piece of paper and a pair of scissors. I like scissors with really sharp tips, but they’re not necessary.

Your first task will be to cut your paper into a square. To do this, fold it in half diagonally, matching the top edge of the paper to a side edge as pictured above.

Now trim off the extra little strip along the edge. There’s no need to be super precise about this.

When you’ve finished cutting, you will be left with a right triangle.

Fold your triangle in half again by matching the two sharpest corners. Crease the fold with your finger.

This next part is a little tricky because instead of folding it in half again — which would result in an eight-pointed snowflake — we are going to fold the paper so that we will end up with a proper six-pointed snowflake. Like in nature. You want your paper snowflakes to look like they came from nature, right?

Unfold the triangle you just made so it’s folded in half with a crease down the middle. Now bring the edge over so that the crease on the right side of the paper crosses over about a third of the way into the left side. (Look at the picture if my words don’t make perfect sense). Flatten the crease on the paper about a half an inch up, but don’t flatten it all the way up! You just want a little crease at the bottom right now, because you probably don’t have your fold right quite yet.

Now bring the opposite edge across and match it up with the edge of the fold you just made. Again, crease the new fold about a half inch or so. Open the fold and check to see if you’ve made three same-sized sections. You probably haven’t so fiddle around with it a little until you’ve divided the half triangle into equal thirds. Once you’ve got it to your liking, flatten the folds with your finger all the way up to the top edge.

Fold your triangle in half again and then really press down on the folds to make a sharp crease in the paper. I like to use my scissors for this. Sharp creases will make it easier to make precise cuts.

Finally, cut off the points that are sticking up above the top of the folded edges. This will ensure that all of the cuts you make for your snowflake go through all the layers of the paper.

Now for the fun part: cutting the snowflake! I start off by cutting the top edge of the snowflake. This will define the basic shape of the flake. My preference is to cut it so that one edge is higher than the other because that gives it the classic six-pointed snowflake shape. If the two edges are the same height, your snowflake will look like it has 12 points. (Which is also nice.)

A note about unfolding: you are going to be tempted to unfold your snowflake while you are in the process of cutting it. Don’t do it!  The more you cut, the more delicate your paper will be and it will be really hard to refold it properly. Besides, if you unfold it before you’re done, you’ll ruin the big surprise at the end and that’s no fun, is it?

After you have your top edge cut, start cutting into the folded edges of the snowflake. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind as you’re cutting:

1. This one may seem obvious, but it’s so important that it’s worth mentioning: do not cut through both folded edges of the triangle with the same cut! If you do, you will cut the center out of your snowflake!
2. In my opinion, the snowflakes that look best have very few chunky bits of white paper in them. To avoid this, I try to cut out as much paper as I can while simultaneously leaving enough paper to keep the snowflake from ripping. It’s a fine balancing act, my friends!  I find that leaving between 1/8 and 1/4 inch between the cut-out areas is just right (but don’t get out a ruler or anything).
3. After I’ve cut the top, I use that edge as a guide for my next cuts. I cut through one of the the folded edges in parallel to the top edge but about an 1/8 of an inch down. Once I have finished the parallel cuts, I’m a little more loose about where I cut, but I eventually bring the cut line back to the original fold.  Does that make sense? It is really hard to explain with words, so you’re going to want to look at the photos up above.
4. As I work my way down to the tip of the snowflake, I alternate which folded edge I start cutting from and I always use my previous cuts as a guide for the subsequent cuts.
5. If I find myself with some bigger chunks of paper in the middle of the triangle, I like to make a few smaller  jagged cuts into it (see above right photo). This gives it that authentic, crystallized look. These types of cuts also look great along the top edge.
6. The snowflake I’m cutting in these photos only has straight cuts, but I love the look of curvy cuts too. Experimenting with different types of shapes is all part of the fun!

When you are done cutting, your snowflake will look something like the photo above on the left — not very much paper, lots of cut-outs.

Gently unfold it. I like to fold each crease back onto itself a little as I go to encourage the snowflake to lie flat.

Ta da! Once it’s all unfolded, marvel at the beauty you’ve created!

Do you like to cut snowflakes out of paper? How do you use snowflakes after you’ve made them? I’d love it if you shared any tips you have for us down in the comments!

Does it feel like it’s been all scrapbooking all the time around here? It feels that way to me — just a little bit — but I’ve been on a roll keeping up with my projects, so I’m just going to go with it!

I’ve finished up the second week of my 2012 project 365 album, so it’s time to share:

We started off our week on Sunday with an epic 4 mile hike up in the Berkeley hills. (Epic when you consider that the three year old member of our group walked the whole way.) Monday is Augie’s day off preschool so we went to IKEA for lunch. It is also garbage day, so I took a picture of Wyatt hauling in the recycling bin. Tuesday I took a photo of myself in a full-length mirror to document my daily uniform. The alphabet card was cut from this Jillibean Soup paper and it fits perfectly in the Project Life page protectors I’m using for this album.

I included another 8.5 x 11 insert this week. One side held a piece of art work that Augie made at school and the other side held the agenda from this month’s PTA meeting with my notes scribbled all over it. I maintain the website and send out the weekly email newsletter for the PTA so I do a little bit of volunteer work just about every week.

I also included a photo of Augie playing on the computer at the library for Tuesday. Wednesday’s photo was taken with my new Christmas toy: a  Fuji Instax Mini camera. The little Polaroid-type photos are sized just right for the 3 x 4 pockets in the page protectors and I think they’ll be a fun addition to this album. This particular photo was of Wyatt and his friend who came over for a play date. Thursday I got a haircut, so I snapped a picture of myself in the mirror with my phone before my hairdresser got to work. Friday’s photo documents our excellent dental hygiene practices. And Saturday poor little Augie was sick with a cold and a fever so I wrote out a list documenting what that is like right now. Finally, I had to include a photo of Saturday’s delicious leftover pizza breakfast!

What did you do last week?

Questions about this project? Read my introductory post here. I am putting my album together using Becky Higgins Project Life divided page protectors, the Project Life Clementine Core Kit, and lots of products from my scrapbook stash.

Time for the January update on my 40th year project. Woo hoo!

This month I started digging into the box of super-special-save-forever treasures that I packed up and sent to California when I helped my parents move out of my childhood home several years ago. Though my parents had made changes to my room in the 15 years since I moved out to attend college, the closet and my huge desk were still packed with my stuff. Toys, papers, notebooks, tchotchkes  – you name it, I saved it. I did my best to clear everything out because I didn’t want to saddle my parents or myself with all my junk so the stuff that went into the box is the creme de la creme. Going through this box is very intense for me because literally every piece of paper in it has some kind of significance in my life. So far I’ve only managed to excavate 2 inches into it! You’ll see a lot more of these historical documents as I add them into my album in the coming months.

Let’s take a look at what I put together:

This page shows:

• I little bit about my love for tea. I really like tea.
• A photo and a smidge about my life from my freshman year of college.
• I great quote from Ira Glass about mastering creative pursuits. These are words I revisit frequently. (Found on Pinterest.)
• Rob Lowe, my teenage crush. I totally forgot how much I loved Rob Lowe until I found the photo of my bedroom in the lower left corner of this page and saw all the posters of him on the walls. He does nothing for me now, though. Isn’t that weird?
• A sparkly photo of myself I took using Incredibooth.
• A photo of my room from when I was in 9th grade. It was definitely NOT this clean normally. I think I took the photo specifically because it was so tidy.

I also included a going away card that my co-workers made me when I left my first post-college job in an 8.5 x 11 page protector. Lots of funny messages with inside jokes inside there.

The back of that page protector has a layout I made after asking Wyatt and Augie a bunch of questions about me. Their answers cracked me up and I realized they think my job is laundress. Nice.

The second side of this layout has:

• A picture of me with much longer hair than I have now.
• A bracelet that I found in the basement when we moved last year.
• My typical morning routine.
• A couple things about my love of books.
• A bit about my childhood relationship with NyQuil (Blech!) and the lengths I went to to avoid taking it.
• A picture of my awesome Sharp boom box.
• And a photo of me on my 21st birthday.

This next spread incorporates both the divided page protectors and a full sized 12×12 page.

The right side has:

• A photo of my goofing around in my first real grown-up lady apartment.
• A card that was thrown out into the audience when I went to a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in high school.
• A print-out of the box from my all time most favorite LEGO set.
• A note on my chances of surviving a zombie apocalypse. (Slim.)
• Stickers from my trip to Disney World when I was 8 that I never stuck onto anything. There’s a Minnie Mouse one behind the Mickey you see there, too.
• A photo of my Grandma Ruby and all her kids.
• And a picture of the first gingerbread house I ever made.

The opposite page holds a report card from 6th grade and my 7th grade ITBS test results.

The back side of that page holds a Mills College admissions office brochure about student life. My roommates and I were interviewed and photographed for the brochure.

And finally, the last page includes these little tidbits:

• A photo and ticket stub from a trip to Minnesota I took with my friend Gretchen for an Iowa football game.
• A photo and quote from Amy Poehler that I like.
• All you’ve ever wanted to know about my feelings for orange pop.
• My 7th grade class schedule.
• More about zombies!

And finally, in honor of the Martin Luther King holiday, I’ll leave you with an insipid poem I wrote in sixth grade that was inspired by his famous and much more eloquent speech:

A Dream by Wendy Thorpe

I have a dream!
I have a dream for peace on earth,
No nuclear bombs, and jobs for all.
I have a dream that Mr. Chauvinist and Ms. Prejudice are dead,
Laying in their coffins.
I have a dream of flowering shrubs.
Trees in blossom, and grass swaying in the breeze.
What I dream is a beautiful picture,
No hospitals, just health,
No poverty, just wealth.
I have a dream.

Flowering shrubs, ladies and gentlemen! Flowering shrubs.

This was a bad week for packing lunches, my friends. We overslept almost every single morning this week and when that happens, I go into panic mode trying to get the kids to school on time. The first thing that gets booted from my to do list on these mornings is packing a lunch for Wyatt because I know he can just buy one at school. If I could have done the same for Augie, I would have but unfortunately if I don’t pack him a lunch, he doesn’t eat so I carried on in the face of adversity. Heh.

Monday

I packed most of Wyatt’s lunch for Monday on Sunday night so it was mostly ready to go in the morning: home made banana bread, goldfish crackers, blueberries, clementines, salami and crackers.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, Augie had turkey meatballs, flatbread, blueberries, orange bell pepper and cucumbers.

Wednesday

Wednesday’s lunch for Augie had clementine wedges, cucumber spears, sugar snap peas, deli turkey and crackers.

Thursday

Thursday, we didn’t over sleep! Hurray! Hurray! Augie’s lunch was packed into the panda bento box. It held blackberries, orange pepper strips, cucumber spears, deli turkey, crackers and soy cheese cut into flower shapes.

Wyatt had Lauging Cow cheese, garlic naan cut into circles, green grapes, blackberries, salami and crackers. This lunch was packed in the Laptop Lunch Box.

Friday

Today Augie had meatballs, garlic naan, grapes, orange bell peppers and cucumbers. It was packed in this reliable and inexpensive bento box.

Wyatt ate school lunch for a record third day this week.

In other news, the hard drive on my laptop is going to die any second now. I’m backing up like crazy but everything locks up or shuts down every five minutes or so. I’m actually pretty surprised that I managed to get this post put together without a major problem today! If I’m quiet next week, that will be the reason why.

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