by Sarah | Mar 30, 2014 | All About Family, All About Home, All About Kennedy, All About Me, All About Molly, All of Us, Blogging Life, Redefining Perfect, Sponsored
*Today’s post was sponsored by Fruitshoot. All opinions and lunch ideas are my own.
I have this special treat I love to do for my girls.
I don’t do it as often as I should, but then it’s not a treat, is it?
I like to make bento-style lunches for them.
I create sushi rolls out of sandwhiches, or just the meat and cheese. I add in vegetables and fruits, and the best part? They are so excited by the fun take on the food, that they happily eat all the healthy food I can pack into the meal…and even better? They eat more than they would if I just offered them a sandwich.
Today we’re heading out on an adventure for our first day of spring break. For my new job (more on that later), we’re heading out to a farm to check out the baby animals. The girls are so excited, but I’m going to surprise them with their favorite kind of lunches.
I’ve got all their favorites in there. Tomatoes, cheese, carrots, bologna, craisins, strawberry’s, yogurt covered raisins, and hard boiled eggs. I rolled the bologna and cheese into sushi-like rolls, and then made the [amazon_link id=”B00CDPNA70″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]kitten and panda faces[/amazon_link] out of them, too. I went with a “round” theme with the carrots to match the rest of the fruits, and mixed all the fruits, dried and fresh, together for them.
All of that is topped off with their (and my) newest favorite drink. Apple Fruitshooter’s!! They love the tasty drink, and that they can open them themselves (that whole independent streak they’ve got going) – and I love that handy little note at the top of the label “No Sugar Added”.
It’s a fun and easy way for us to all get what we want…and it’s a great way to get a drink into their lunches.
So how do you like to fun-up your kids lunches?
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*Today’s post was sponsored by Fruitshoot. All opinions and lunch ideas are my own.
by Sarah | Mar 12, 2014 | All About Home, All About Me, Redefining Perfect
A couple weeks back I mentioned that I’d be de-cluttering my photos, and my house, and etc.
I haven’t been dedicated to doing it every single day, because it’s a huge job. However, I’ve gone through quite a few folders. I’ve started with the least overwhelming-the non-family pictures, and I haven’t touched any of my “pre-2010” folders yet.
Still, I started with 29,428 files.
I’ve added about 120 photos that I’ve taken on excursions.
Even with the added photos, my numbers are down to 24,660.
Calculated out, that’s 4,880 photos deleted in two weeks. They need far better organization and some editing, but the doubles are deleted, the blurry shots are gone, and my files are definitely trimmer.
I’m going to keep going, and hopefully in two weeks when I check back in, I’ll have an even bigger drop to report (or more organization, whatever I tackle this go-round).
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In other news – I’ve started working on de-cluttering the house, too. I dove head-first into my kitchen today and made huge leaps with that. My house is a far bigger prospect that’s going to take many weeks and lots of baby steps. It’s nice to get something accomplished, though.
by Sarah | Mar 5, 2014 | All About Home, Blogging Life, Pinterest Challenge, Redefining Perfect
I’m a Pinterest junkie. I pin everything and anything, really. I even have a tendency to make probably 5% of all I pin, that’s capable of being made. Usually food items first, but a craft or two slips in. I want to be more active so I’ve decided to try to do two a month, one food, one craft.
I’m starting with these Mini Red Velvet Cheesecakes (from Sally’s Baking Addiction).
I’m a sucker for Red Velvet, and for cheesecake, so what better, right?
First off, I only have one mini-cupcake pan, so I made regular size cupcakes. The final product looked identical to the mini ones pictured on the original site.
I managed to make the cupcakes in about an hour with little mess. I was even able to wash my mixer while the cookie base baked. The recipe was easy to follow, and I loved the addition of yogurt in the cheesecake.
Of course, the proof is in the final product. The cupcakes came out beautifully. Just stunning.
I could hardly wait the appropriate cool-down period to dive in.
The cheesecake tasted amazing. The red velvet was good, but too much. Because it’s a dense “cookie” form instead of a light cupcake sort, there was too much cookie to cheesecake in the ratio.
My end result? A definite YAY ~ with a sidebar. Next time I make it, I’ll adjust the recipe and make half the cookie recipe, and double the cheesecake. In my opinion that would make perfection!! (and that is just my opinion, the teen is scarfing them down like nobody’s business)
And no, I’m not going to put the recipe here, I made no adjustments, just followed it exactly. So head on over to Sally’s Baking Addiction to get the recipe. It’s delicious.
by Sarah | Feb 25, 2014 | All About Home, All About Me, All of Us, Photography
Three years ago I started on a trail like this, and didn’t get far. I wish I’d stuck with it, I might not be where I am today.
<<–Do you see that? Almost 30,000 photos taking up 67.2GB of space on my hard drive (external).
I’m fortunate to have a photo managing program that automatically sorts by month and year when I’m in management mode, but still. 30k worth of photos?
And do you know how many are ‘sorted’ in any way shape or form? Maybe 3%
What’s worse? Probably 10% of them are missing the META data…no date (or WRONG date), nothing.
When I want to find a photo, unless it’s been taken in the past few months, it’s a scavenger hunt with pictures and my undependable memory.
So today I bit the bullet and started to remove the clutter.
I now have images sorted by human/family pictures, and not so much. Then divided into years. In the process I did manage to remove 300 photos just by virtue of knowing they weren’t necessary.
Over the next month or two I hope to whittle down all of the blurry, duplicate, needless shots. Most especially of my family. Also, so I can find photos I can use for blog posts, or just for fun.
Then, I want to back them all up (Hello new [amazon_link id=”B003MVZ8NI” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]DVD+R[/amazon_link]’s) on discs and store them somewhere safe.
Lastly, I want to print some out to have on hand.
My family deserves better than this disorganized mess. and my brain will be much happier in the end.
(Soon, I’ll be starting the same de-clutter concept on my house…it’s worse than my photos…we are such packrats)
by Sarah | Nov 18, 2013 | All About Home, All of Us
I moved into this house eleven years ago.
I started with a full set of silverware. Eight each of spoons, forks and knives (first on the right).
Within the first two years I was buying a new set. I liked them (second from the right), and I got new dishes and everything. I kept all of the old spoons from the first set – well, what was left, which was only 3. Where the other five went?
No clue.
Over the next six years two of the remaining three disappeared from the first set, and approximately four of the second set also ran away to regions unknown.
Keep in mind, I’m talking spoons. Not knives, not forks, not tablespoons – only teaspoons. That’s it. They just kept disappearing.
Finally, two years ago I got fed up and again bought new silverware (first on the left).
I have 3 spoons from that left. 1 from my first set. 1 from my second set.
I finally went to the dollar store and bough just straight teaspoons to give us some more.
We don’t have a dishwasher.
My kids don’t take them to school.
Erik doesn’t take them to work (he has his own silverware there).
The spoons just…
Disappear.
And I have no idea why.
Any ideas?
Spoon fairies?
Kleptomaniac gremlins?
by Sarah | Nov 1, 2013 | All About Erik, All About Home, All About Me, All of Us, NaBloPoMo
I have two tales of raccoons…one with a happy ending, the other…well…I figured for the first day of NaBloPoMo I’d be nice and not ruin the month too early.
This first story happened not too long ago, right here at this house with that big fat sucker in the picture over there. <<—
That is my driveway that Mama Coon was perched on, right over the gulley and the pipe that runs under my driveway where she lived with her babies.
Where she would come out regularly and pull any tiny scrap of food out of one of our trash cans that we lost the lid to. Even if it meant strewing crap across three yards to do it.
To make matters better, her and her little brats started to chew and rip at our shingles as the weather turned colder. They wanted IN.
They would destroy our roof to do it.
So we, naïvely perhaps, called animal control.
After all, they were being destructive to property now, not just purely a nuisance.
The best advice he could give us was this…(it’s been a while, the words might not be exact):
“You have a big trash can? Good. Set a trap and catch the raccoon. Fill a good tall trash can with water and drop the trap in. They drown real fast, don’t worry. Once she’s dead, wrap her up in a big trash bag and throw her away. Get all three of them, or they’ll never leave.”
Erik and I stared at each other slack-jawed for a while. We thought about Denver, quite young at the time, and what he would think if he caught wind of what happened. Plus, really? That’s flat out cold murder. It’s not hunting (which I’m fine with) or euthanization of a sick pet (which hurts but is sometimes necessary). It’s flat out murder.
Not cool, dude.
In the end we opted for trap & release. We’re fortunate enough to live on the border between suburbia and rural. We borrowed three traps, got all three of those buggers caught and took them miles away and released them.
In some cases, the less humane option is vitally necessary (as the other coon story will show)…but not every single time.
~shudder~ Could you kill a coon for no reason when the trap and release option was just as easy?
I have this special treat I love to do for my girls.
