Bentos!

I’ve mentioned before that we’re really trying to make better food choices around our house.  One way that I’ve found to make things more fun is by making bento lunches for the boys now and then.  There are so many amazingly creative bento makers out there that I’m a little embarrassed to even show my simple attempts here.  Seriously, go search for “bento” on Flickr and prepare to be blown away by the results.

As much as I love all things bento, there is one thing that has always bugged me about the fun little accessories you can get to make your lunches even more adorable – they’re nearly all made of plastic.  I was so thrilled when I found LunchBots!  They are made entirely of food-safe stainless steel, which is not only healthier, but a breeze to clean!  The great people at LunchBots sent us the Uno (no divider) and the Duo (divided in half) to use and both have been through the dishwasher many times.  They’ve always come out looking brand new.

I’m really impressed by the lids on our LunchBots.  They obviously spent some effort to get these just right, and I think they have done it.  The lids are snug enough to safely keep the food inside without fear that lunch will spill all over the inside of a backpack, but they are also easy enough to remove that Declan, who is two, can take the lid off without any difficulty.  They are not made to be water-tight, so if you’re including a salad dressing or some kind of dip, I would make sure you put that in a separate sealed container that is made to contain liquids.

All in all, I love our LunchBots!  As we get ready for back-to-school here, I’m trying to decide which other containers I should add to our collection.  LunchBots also have a both a smaller container, the Pico, and a larger container, the Eco, that would be well-suited for toddler snacks at pre-school and adult lunches.  Head on over to LunchBots and check them all out!

Wordless Wednesday

Road Trip Mini-Vacation

Last week was our annual trip to Pennsylvania to visit my family.  I say “visit” because a trip to see family isn’t really a vacation.  There are always a ton of people to see, naps to be missed, and bedtimes that slip.  By the end of the week, I’ve found that our tempers are short and we need a vacation from our trip.  Hoping to avoid that this year, we decided to take a mini-vacation during our visit.  We packed up the boys and headed to Niagara Falls, Ontario, for an overnight stay.

It’s less than two hours from where I grew up to the Falls, so I’ve been there many times.  One thing I never got to experience growing up was staying in a hotel that overlooks the Falls.  I thought it might be too expensive for our budget this time, too, but I searched the internet and was pleasantly surprised by the number of affordable packages right now.  We decided to go with the Family Fun package at the Hilton Fallsview.  It included the room, but also a voucher for $40 to Macaroni Grill (the first in Ontario) and breakfast at their amazing buffet the next morning for all four of us.  Plus, the Hilton has an indoor pool with a great water slide!

I can’t say enough about how wonderful our experience at this hotel was.  The staff were all genuinely friendly and knowledgeable and the facilities were first rate.  Chris, the gentleman that handled our check-in, even accommodated Alex’s request for a room as high up in the tower as possible.  We were on the 42nd floor, which made both Alex and Declan very happy.  Here are some views from our room:

The view at night is just as spectacular, but I wasn’t able to get any really good shots without a tripod.  They light up the water at night with different colored lights and it’s beautiful!  There are also fireworks displays on several nights and, in July and August, they do fireworks every Wednesday as well.

It was uncharacteristically hot the day we were there, so we didn’t do as many outside activities as we thought we might.  The room and facilities were well-suited for this, though.  We had two bedrooms, each with its own television.  There was also a fireplace in the room, but we decided against trying it out, even though the boys were VERY interested.  We spent a lot of time in the pool and I think my husband and Alex went down that water slide about 30 times.  Alex described the hotel as luxurious and I would have to agree.  The beds were so comfortable and the pillows were nice and fluffy.  We were sad to leave after only one night, but it was a great experience.  If you are planning a trip to Niagara Falls, I highly recommend the Hilton Fallsview!

Buzzed Driving IS Drunk Driving

The Fourth of July holiday is probably the biggest celebration of the summer.  We finally have warm weather, everyone is out of school, and nearly everyone has the day off – a perfect day for a party!  The day often ends with fireworks and the mad dash on the roads to get back home.  With so many people driving on the Fourth, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and The Ad Council want to remind us all that buzzed driving IS drunk driving.

If you plan to drink while celebrating this holiday, make sure you have a plan in place BEFORE you go out.

• Designate a driver for the evening.  The designated driver should not be the least drunk person in your group.  The designated driver just shouldn’t drink alcoholic beverages that night.
• If no one in your group wants to step up as DD for the night, make sure you have the number of a local cab company already programmed into your phone.  Don’t take the chance that you’ll remember it or have quick access to a phone book while you’re out.

If you don’t plan to drink this weekend, please keep your eyes open for others who are.  If you see someone that has likely had one too many drinks to drive safely, take their keys and get them home another way.  Sure, they might get upset with you, but that’s so much better than losing a friend.

Be responsible this holiday weekend.  Plan ahead and don’t drive if you are impaired.  Call 9-1-1 if you see someone on the road who should not be driving.  Remember, buzzed driving IS drunk driving!

“Are we there yet?”

We are preparing for our summer road trip to Pennsylvania.  Google Maps suggests that it should take 13 hours, but we find that it varies between 14 and 16 hours.  It all depends on how restless the boys get.  Or maybe how many Chipotle restaurant stops we make.  It’s definitely one of the two.

One thing I’ve learned in the seven years we’ve been doing this (at least twice a year), is that the boys need to be distracted or things go downhill very quickly.  We allow them to watch movies and play on various gaming devices, but I really prefer that they do something that requires them to use their minds.

I was really excited when I found this Travel Bingo game the other day at Growing Tree Toys.  Alex will really get into the hunting and finding (and winning) aspect of it, while Declan will likely just make circles all over the bingo card.  Either way, they will both be engaging their brains and I will happy!

Does your family make long road trips?  How do you keep your kids from “are we there yet??” only 3 hours into the long journey?

Testing the Tooth Fairy

Alex lost his first tooth in February of this year.  It had been hanging on by a thread for nearly a week before we convinced him to let us help things along.  When the excitement was over, I thought for sure he would run right upstairs and put the tooth under his pillow, but he asked for a sandwich bag instead.  He put the tooth in the bag and put the bag away in the junk drawer in the kitchen.  I asked him what his plans were for the tooth and he said that he wanted to save it for a bit.  More teeth jumped ship and after two months, we had a collection 5 teeth in the drawer.

One afternoon, Alex announced that he was going to “test” the tooth fairy that night.  He planned to place one of his saved teeth under his pillow to see if she would notice.  If his test was successful, he planned to place the rest of the teeth under his pillow the next night for “the big payout.”  I honestly don’t know where he comes up with this stuff.  So, bedtime came that night and it was one of the quickest and easiest bedtimes ever – go figure.  When he woke the next morning, the tooth was gone and there was money in its place.  Success!

Alex disappeared for a bit and came back with two notes to show me.  The first was a map for the tooth fairy.  That night was the big payout and he wanted to be sure she knew where to find those teeth.  He also clearly stated his expectations for the exchange.  You can see below that “I need $15.”  Uh-huh.

In his next note, Alex left the instructions on where to place the money.  He also tried to pump the tooth fairy for information.  The note says, “Also, does one tooth equal $5?  I won’t tell.”  She didn’t answer him that night, but she did exchange the teeth for some more money.

The first tooth of the next wave came out the other night at dinner.  I’m anxiously waiting to see how this round with the tooth fairy will go.  Does your family have any special tooth fairy celebrations?

Water fun (and a parenting question)

It was hot this weekend.  It’s always hot in Alabama in the summer, but this weekend brought us temperatures in the mid-90s and a heat index of 105 degrees.  We don’t usually see that until mid-July, after we’ve had a chance to build up a bit of a heat tolerance.  Since we were already at Bridge Street, we let the boys have a little fun in the fountain park they have there.  It was pretty crowded, but the boys both had some fun.

I really try to let them just do their thing, but I find myself on a constant repeat of “don’t run, walk please, please don’t run” as they move from fountain to fountain.  I saw several kids slip on the concrete and fall while we were there.  None of them were hurt, thankfully, but I wonder if there might be some kind of non-slip padding or texture that could be added to this area.

We had a little trouble with getting Alex to follow rules while we were there.  Children are supposed to wear shoes and, as you can see in the photo above, not everyone does.  Alex didn’t have a problem with that one, but we also asked him not to put his foot over the hole where the water comes out.  There were so many children there that it was hard for them all to have access to the water and covering it up made it not fun for some children.  We asked Alex to be considerate of the other (smaller) children and have fun in other ways.  He did this at first, but when other kids his age started covering up the water spray and their parents didn’t do anything about it, he thought he should be able to do it, too.  We explained again that he needed to be considerate of the other kids, but he was hot and tired and it quickly turned into “but that’s not fair!”

We hear “that’s not fair” a lot around here.  Often, that just means Alex doesn’t like something we’ve said, but sometimes he’s right.  How do you handle things when friends of your children have rules at their homes that are significantly different than the ones at your house?  We’ve had some incidents in our neighborhood recently that have shown us that not all of the parents in our neighborhood are on the same page with what appropriate behavior is and I wonder if any of you have faced the same thing and how you handled it.  Share your thoughts and experiences, please!

Fun with Fruits and Veggies!

Several weeks ago, a new Earth Fare store opened in our city.  If you aren’t familiar with Earth Fare, they are the healthy supermarket.  My family was SO excited when we heard they would be opening here!  We try hard to make smart choices with our shopping, but it’s sometimes difficult given our limited choices at the more traditional grocery stores we have.  Earth Fare makes it very easy for me to pick the healthy option.  They won’t even sell products in their stores that contain trans fats or high fructose corn syrup!  (You can check out their food philosophy here to see the other ingredients/processes they will not sell.)  So, on the rare occasion (ha!) when my children are hanging like monkeys from the shopping cart and I’m  just grabbing what I can from the shelves, I can be assured that my purchases might not match my list, but they will be healthy.  Anyway…even before the store was open, Earth Fare partnered with Bridge Street (our local outdoor shopping area) for an Earth Day celebration.  They had children at the event sign pieces of iron that would later be turned into a sculpture that was specially commissioned by Earth Fare.  The unveiling of the sculpture was this weekend and we were there!

It’s hard to tell from this photo, but the petals all have the signatures of children who were at the Earth Day event.  As part of the unveiling festivities, Earth Fare had a fruit and veggie face making contest.  Alex was very excited and spent a great deal of time picking out just the right features for his face.

While Alex worked hard on his face, Declan was VERY excited by the seed-planting station they had set up.  I’m sure the original intent was to actually plant seeds, but Declan much preferred to push the wheelbarrows around.

Alex eventually finished his face and submitted it for the contest.  You might be able to see some of his “specialty features” in the photo below:  mushroom eyebrows, tomato eyes, and tomato feet.  He didn’t win, but he was very proud of it and so were we!  We hung around Bridge Street for a bit after the judging for some fountain park fun.  I’ll share some of those photos tomorrow!

Simple Pillowcases for the Small Set

I started making seasonal pillowcases for my older son a couple of years ago.  It was originally just a Christmas thing, but quickly became a good excuse for me to stockpile cute holiday themed fabric.  There aren’t a lot of holidays in the summer, so I made a few random and cute ones for those months.  I started with a simple pattern from somewhere, but I’ve changed it here and there over the years.  Alex has a standard pillow on his bed, but Declan still uses the toddler-size pillows so I modified the pattern for the smaller ones.  These are really simple to make and would make a great project for a beginner or as a project to work on with the kiddos.

The standard size makes a large case for the pillow, but I think that makes it easier for smaller hands that might have trouble putting a pillowcase on a pillow. Here’s what you’ll need to make the standard US pillowcase:

• 1 yard of cotton fabric for main section – if you’re using a pattern that has a directional design, you will need more than one yard to get the correct size of the main section facing the right way.
• 1/3 yard of coordinating cotton fabric for the cuff
• coordinating (or contrasting, if you want) thread

Step 1

• Wash and dry your fabric just as you will when the pillowcase is part of your normal laundry routine.  This will allow most of the shrinkage in the fabric to happen before you sew.  It’s always frustrating to me when my seams end up all wonky because I was in a hurry and skipped this step.
• Press your washed fabric.

Step 2

• Cut main fabric to measure 27″ x 41″ (most fabric comes off the bolt at 44/45″ wide)
• Cut the cuff fabric to 10″ x 41″

Step 3

• Press the cuff fabric in half lengthwise, wrong sides together.
• Turn one long edge under 1/2″ and press

Step 4

• Lay main fabric on a table, right side up.
• Match the long raw edge of the cuff fabric (not the folded edge) with the long raw edge of the main fabric. Pin in place.
• Sew these two layers together with a 5/8″ seam.

Step 5

• Press the seam you just sewed toward the cuff side.
• Fold the pillowcase in half, right sides together, and sew along the bottom and open side using a 1/2″ seam.
• Trim your corners.

Step 6

• Turn down the cuff so that the folded edge you pressed is on the inside of the pillowcase.
• Pin in place and turn right-side out.
• Stitch “in the ditch” (That’s just the area where the two fabrics come together). This should catch the folded edge on the inside and will look neater.

Step 7

• Press the finished pillowcase and enjoy!

If any of this doesn’t make sense, please let me know.  I tried to write it out logically as I went along, but there may be something in there that I missed.  I’d love to see photos if you make some of your own!

Get your Dad to the Doc!

I learned some startling statistics today.  Did you know that men are 31 percent less likely than women to have visited a doctor in the last year?  Men are also 30 percent more likely than women to have neglected their cholesterol tests.  High cholesterol is a leading factor in heart disease, which is the leading cause of death for men in the United States.  High blood pressure is another factor and both can be easily detected, monitored, and treated.  The key to all of those things is to get men to their doctor!

I don’t know about you, but the men in my family think doctors are great — for everyone else.  When I was growing up, I remember my grandfather telling my mom to take me to the doctor for some cough or cold.  When he caught the same thing from me, I told him he should go see the doctor, too.  Guess what he said?  “No, I’ll be fine.”  Funny, it was important for me to go see the doctor, but not for him — for the same problem!

So what can we do to help the men in our lives get to the doctor?  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Ad Council have launched a program to help men figure out which preventive tests they need to have and when they need to have them.

• You can visit the Dad to the Doc website and send the men in your life a free Father’s Day e-card.  It’s a friendly way to let them know that you want them to take care of their health so they will be in your life for a long time.

• You can ask your husband, father, brother, uncle or grandfather to visit the Healthy Men website.  This is where they can learn all about preventive care and staying healthy.  The site provides guidance on what questions to ask doctors, what some common tests are and when they are given, as well as a glossary for medical terms they might not be familiar with.

• Finally, while they’re at the Healthy Men site, ask them to take the health quiz.  It’s a simple quiz, but might point out that they aren’t doing all that they could be to monitor their health.

Will you join me in encouraging the men in your life to protect their health and get regular preventative care?  I hope so!