School Lunch - Breaking it Down

Now that all three of my kids are enrolled fulltime at school and will be there all day, including lunches, I don't think buying lunch for all three everyday will be the way to go.  For that kind of money, I could have a couple pretty decent date nights with my husband.

So I've been looking around at what I could use for packing and what I could put in there as well.  Three kids = three different views on lunch.  One hates cheese, another hates peanut butter, and one just hates sandwiches in general.  So I developed a list that the kids will use each night to pack their lunches.  Yes, I said, pack their lunches.  The hubby and I can supervise, but I am not spending time every night taking orders.  I waitressed for 15 years and I don't do that anymore.  

Let's see...here are the lunchboxes I got for them.  They are very sturdy and the compartments won't run together.  I don't think it will keep liquid out of each compartment, but it's close enough.  It's not like I am packing juice in the lunchbox.  These are Easy Lunchboxes and I bought them at Amazon.  The great thing is they will fit into their previous insulated lunch zip-top containers.  I also bought several flat-ice freezer mats that will fit right on top of the boxes.  

We gave these a test run at Disneyland, and they were great.  The 6 year old was able to open and close it with no problem.

I made sure to buy 6 of them, so we had 2 in rotation for every kid

Then I sat down and spent some time looking at what I make and I what I usually have on hand and came up with a simple system where the child gets to pick one item from three different lists.  That will fill each compartment.  The drinks will be either G2 from Gatorade or water with Mio added in a reusuable bottle.  

So here is the list...let's hope this works!

Lunch Packing Ideas 

Choose one of these:

• Sandwich/roll or bread
• Turkey
• Ham
• Peanut butter
• Cheese
•  Bagel thin
• Peanut butter
• Cream cheese 

• Cold pasta
• Cold pancakes
• Waffles
• Boiled egg
• Protein roll ups
• Meat/chz
• Tortilla roll up
• No bake energy bites
• Pepperoni Puffs 

Choose one:

• Baby carrots
• Diced pineapple
• Grapes
• Cheese stick
• Watermelon
• Cantaloupe
• Yogurt 

and

Choose one:

Fiber 1 brownie

Goldfish

Pretzels

Cut pickle

Fruit chew

Fruit leather

Granola homemade

Z bar

Homemade muffin

Have any other ideas to add?  Would love to see what other mamas are doing this year.

A HOT Disneyland Day

Normally it's pretty great to go to Disneyland with my kids and my parents.  We have such a great time, and we each have 1 kid per adult, which works out perfectly for rides.  Yesterday was supposed to be another perfect day, but almost went really bad as we struggled with the heat index all day.

As soon as we got there, we were all sweating.  Normally I carry my umbrella for some shade protection, but I had relied on a bad source for my weather forecast.  My precious portable shade stayed in the car while we walked around all day.  We all wilted under the searing sun, but none more than my mom.

After a couple hours at Disneyland, she was feeling what she described as "motion sickness".  She was sweating profusely, feeling dizzy and in general, not feeling good at all.  She was having trouble just following us around from ride to ride.  We had been on the Captain E-O ride, which moves around, so I didn't think much else about it.  This lasted several hours.  We fought the heat by escaping to air-conditioned cafes and rides, but it was a long hard day.  How bad was it?  My 9 year old daughter drank a bottle of water, a pouch of juice, numerous water fountains and shared a jumbo lemonade.  At the end of the day I asked her to visit the restroom before we left...she said she didn't have to go.  In fact, she hadn't gone in over 9 hours.

Once we were home, cooled off and had more liquid to drink, we all realized that we had been very lucky not to have suffered a more dangerous heat experience.  What seems so obvious now, was incredibly not obvious to me at the time.  I can only attribute this to my own heat sickness and trying to tough it out for the kids.

We are blessed that nothing worse happened, and will be even more careful to stay away from Disneyland on high heat index days and be aware of heat-related illness symptoms.  Here is a summary Heat Related-Illness Symmptoms

How does this Stormtrooper stay hydrated in that thing?

(light!) Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup

Yes, it's the end of August and the thermometer is still up there.  The thought of soup might not be the first thing you scream you want to have in the middle of the work week.  I would only assume that you don't have a garden full of hundreds of tomatoes that cannot be eaten by salad alone.  We have a really beautiful assortment of heirlooms, San Marzano and roma tomatoes, and I will not stand to see these little beauties go to waste.

This recipe is adapted from Slender Kitchen, and I adjusted it to feed our large party of 7 here at the house.  I have to say, this is one of the very, very few things I can make and absolutely everyone will eat it.  Even the hubby (who is disgusted at the thought of canned tomato soup) loves this really satisfying soup.

***UPDATE***  This soup went from YUMMY to plain RIDCULOUS this past week.  Rather than roast the tomatoes for 1hr at 400degrees.  I roasted them for SIX hours at 275 degrees.  They were magical.  The soup was a more concentrated burst of sweet, tomato flavor and even the color was deeper and richer.  I made the tomato base with the garlic, pureed them and put them in a container until I was ready to make the soup two days later.
You can stick with an hour, but if you have the time - please try the six hour roast.

(light!) Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup

Ingredients:

4 lbs assorted fresh tomatoes, sliced in half lengthwise
1 tbsp olive oil
Whole head of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
5 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup half and half

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees while you cut the tomatoes.
2. Toss the tomatoes in the olive oil, salt and pepper. Cover a pan sheet with foil and spread the tomatoes out evenly, with the cut side facing up. 

4lbs will take up the entire baking sheet

3.  Pour a few drops of olive oil on top of the garlic head and rub it all over.  Wrap the head tightly in a small piece of foil.  Place on the baking sheet with the tomatoes..
4. Roast for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let cool for 10-15 minutes. 

5. Add the tomatoes and any juice from the baking sheet into a food processor. Squeeze out the roasted garlic in to the food processor. Blend until smooth.
6. Add the tomato mixture into a large pot. Add the red pepper flakes, half and half and broth. Let simmer for at least 30 mins.

7.  Taste for seasoning and serve.

Serving options: 

• Try topped with some parmesan cheese or blue cheese
• Add some Tabasco sauce for extra kick

Sorry - no finished soup pic to share!  It was gobbled up too quickly...Dad even had FOURTHS!

 

Don't worry little tomato...you will not go to waste! 

Dog Days of Summer

The heatwave broke this week...finally.  For those of you snickering at my complaint of high 80's at the beach, please keep in mind that homes near the beach don't have A/C!

So while I relished the opportunity to put on my makeup without sweating like a piggy-piggy, I quickly figured out that my kids don't like swimming when the pool gets cold.  If you live in California, you know that  power bills are outta sight and we try not to heat the pool too often.

Thanks to a Living Social deal, I decided to take the kids over to Pump It Up! to burn off some energy during open play time.  Yes, my kids are a bit bigger, but they play very nicely with others and loved it.

Kids were very happy to jump, bounce and race around.  I loved the inherent safety of knowing they were in an enclosed space where I wouldn't lose them.(it's tiring always counting:  1...2........3 heads)

Big Sister gets a try

This was quickly replaced by "How High Can You Spin While Jumping?"

Even Big Bro loved it

They mostly had a great time.  I think my only reservation about the experience was that my kids were forced to sit through a "safety video" of the do's and dont's and I think they were the only ones in the play room that were aware there were rules (adults included!).  My kids take safety stuff kind of seriously and got really upset when kids were breaking the rules and even more upset when 7 year old kids were yelling, shoving and pushing my 9 and 10 year olds down.  I call that the "Communal Parenting Waiver".  Anytime there is a group of kids together, most parents immediately abandon any claim to their kids and assume that all the other parents there will be watching them and disciplining the kids for them.  Frustrating...but very common.

At least my kids knew better than to retaliate!  They get bonus points for showing incredible self-control today!

Welcome!

It's taken a good 10 years for me to finally admit it...I wanted a blog.  What I had first considered as narcissistic and rather self-centered way to write, has grown on me as a wonderful concept for a written/visual diary to my life as a wife/mom/daughter/sister/aunt etc, etc.

All those years of promising myself and my kids to keep a written diary of what we did together, funny jokes, good times and milestones, has finally reached some kind of fruition.  So this blog has a very picky audience...me!  That being said, we live a hectic, fun and OC centered life that I thought might interest others.  So aside from bring "all about me", I hope this blog offers some insight on how to get through living in the social pressure cooker, that is the OC.  It is a struggle to raise grounded kids with Christian family values among the vast oceans of superficiality and fakeness (not just talking personalities people!)

My husband and I are not rich, we do not have new cars, we do not vacay anywhere that is featured in a brochure and we still have our payday to payday struggles.  What do we have?  Three really fab kids, a beautiful place to live, generous parents who share a home with us, a beach a couple miles away and annual passes to our happiest place on earth...Disneyland.  God has certainly blessed us.

Here's to reading more about my slice of orange.

Yeah...it does feel like a circus sometimes