Roundup: 14 From 2014!

Happy New Year (2 weeks ago)!! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with family and friends, and I also hope that reflecting on the past year brings many cherished memories to hold dear. For us, this is especially true. This year brought a new home, a new adventure with the beginning of Kindergarten, and most importantly, a new member to our family.. a beautiful baby girl. It will be hard to top this year. But, with so much happening this year, other parts of my life took a major back seat. My neglected blog is one of those things. Time to respark the love affair.. not necessarily with cooking and packing lunches, because believe it or not, I've been doing all that.. but the actual sharing of what I've been up to. In an effort to bring you up to speed, rather than do a recap of the 14 most popular posts of 2014, I'm doing some favorites, but also some clean up and posting of things from the past year that never got to make their debut. I'm doing it on the 14th to really get the point across. No, it has nothing to do with the fact that it took me two weeks to pull together this post... why would you think that?! Anyways, enjoy, and I look forward to sharing more with you this year, and getting out there to see what everyone else has been up to, as well. Here's to a wonderful 2015! I can't wait to see what it has in store!

JANUARY - Our year started off just as crazy as it ended. On January 2nd, we sold our house of 16 years. This month also marked Zoe's 5th birthday! Major, major stuff! So, this picture is from a previously posted lunch from her birthday. See the full post and details here.

Chobani Greek yogurt frozen into shapes using silicone molds. Yum! (Photo below from the birthday cake, complete with fondant dinosaurs, of course!)

FEBRUARY - Valentine's Day! Yup, seems like a good excuse for a 'hearty' lunch, doesn't it? This is one from last year made in a muffin tin. Read the full post here.

Orange vanilla Greek yogurt, raisins, chocolate chip cookie, cucumber, leftover rice pilaf and baked chicken, and shredded cheddar jack cheese, topped off with some fun heart picks.

MARCH -Simplicity. There were lots of lunches like that this month as we were working on getting in a new home. Just quick, yummy, fun, and done.

Cucumber w/ a bear pick, Trader Joe's Cheddar Rockets, Swiss cheese, olive/caper mix, grapes, and smoked turkey, all in our Nibble Tray.

APRIL - Technically still 'homeless' and living with my mom made it very difficult to nest before baby arrived, so I had to spend that energy making things for her instead. Two projects were born... 2 nice mid-weight blankets that I use every single day. Seriously, love these things! And, burp cloths. While, I thought I'd never use this pain in the arse to make lovely things, when we transitioned to bottles, they too became and are a daily necessity. Plus, come on now.. they are so cute!

To make these blankets, I used this tutorial from Greener Grass. I used flannel and minky dot and they were super easy. I absolutely love this fabric, too. I could so see a room decorated with these colors and whimsical forest patterns.

For the burp cloths, I used my own mash-up of the tutorial found here at Diary of a Quilter and the one here at The Happy Scraps. The biggest thing I can say is that you have to prewash, dry, and iron all the fabric, including the cloth diapers. This is absolutely not a step to skip. I used flannel pieces and made a general measurement and used the cereal box tip for ironing. You'll see what I mean if you look at the tutorials. They were tedious, but turned out so cute. Seriously.. I want another baby just to use more burp cloths! Will I make you some? Um.. hell no. I would never make them again without some serious incentives.

I even managed to bust out a few bibs with scraps. These were super simple too, and I found a great free template here at Craftaholics Anonymous, but I will admit that I made my mommy sew all the snaps on.

MAY - We moved into our new house AND our baby girl was born! Yup.. it was pretty much nuts!

For hubby - Baby turkey, cheddar, and green apple bagels (both traditional baby colors included since we didn't know what gender we were having), baby Triscuits with Babybel cheese, baby peppers, cucumber, and carrots with guacamole, little Chobani bite yogurt, and Vita Coco to drink, all packed in our GoGreen lunchbox.

For the kiddo - baby bagel with cream cheese, strawberries (baby elephant picks too), cinnamon almonds, baby jelly beans, baby triscuits with Babybel cheese, baby carrots, cucumber, and pepper, all in our favorite EasyLunchboxes.

JUNE - In the summer, I'm all about salads, and taco salad is a favorite. Ours is meat free and always uses Russsian dressing. Yum!

Taco salad (chips packed separate), black beans, dressing in our mini dipper, and sesame sticks, all packed in our Easylunchboxes.

JULY -Snack boxes are in full swing around here in the summer, and we got in some great practice and ideas for when school would start, too. Almost always packed and stashed for easy access when in need of a quick snack, an on the go treat, or a last second pick me up when lounging by the pool, these things are more popular than 'actual' lunches. Here are a few examples.

Cucumber, grapes, and caramel Pirate's Booty in our Lock&Lock box.

 Mini croissant with Trader Joe cookie butter and slivered almonds.

Trader Joe's peanut butter pretzels, apple slices, and candy corn (yes we have it year round, thanks to our realtor, mixed with peanuts .. omg so good and tastes just like a Payday candy bar)

AUGUST -With an abundance of zucchini and an obsession with butterscotch, this bread was destined to be born last summer. It is amazing. That is all. Get the recipe here.

SEPTEMBER - And, let the Kindergarten adventure begin!

'Apple' cucumbers in cup, checkerboard apple, peanut butter and apple jelly sandwich w/ leaf, apple Pirate's Booty.

OCTOBER - Happy Halloween!

Turkey pepperoni in cup, orange bell pepper, Goldfish crackers in Mini Dipper, Muenster cheese, and a chocolate in polkadot container, all in a Lunchbots Trio.

NOVEMBER - Can anyone say leftover turkey with a twist?

Grapes, Greek pasta salad, smoked turkey on ciabatta with spinach, Swiss, Dijon, and cream cheese, all in our Easylunchboxes.

DECEMBER - Merry Christmas!

Smoked turkey with tree picks, cucumber 'trees', holiday Wheat Thins, and Swiss cheese 'trees', all packed in our Sassy box.

 A little 'cheesy' snack for the Kindergarten class! How cute are they? And that's that, then. Here's to 2015!

Playing Hooky

We're going on a little road trip today. It really wasn't planned hooky from school, but when your options are limited, you have to do what you can. It so happens that I have to be down in Ann Arbor today in the middle of the day, and with no real alternative, the kiddo is joining me on my little adventure. It would be a lie, though, if I said I was disappointed. We'll make a day of it and hit our favorite toy store, as well as Whole Foods and Trader Joe's! So, rather than Kindergarten lunch #15, a road trip snacker it was instead. And, we're off!

Trader Joe's mini 12 grain crackers, yellow bell pepper, raspberries, leftover baked chicken, and frozen yogurt cars.

I still swear by these silicone ice trays for making frozen yogurt shapes. The kiddo loves them and there is always a bag full of random shapes in the freezer. Greek yogurt works the best, and I only use Chobani or Brown Cow, so I can't say how other brands will hold up, but I imagine any would be fine. You can do this with applesauce too!

In this lunch...

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Fun with Yogurt

You really can have fun with yogurt! Sure, you could just eat it as is or with some fruit and nuts, but you can do so much more with it, so why wouldn't you? Don't get me wrong. Add-ins are one of my favorite things to use, and, of course, there are hundreds of fantastic recipes with yogurt, but that's not what this is all about. This is more on the 'playing with your food' line of thinking. For yogurt, usually all you need is a mold and a freezer, and you have struck the creative goldmine. Anything is possible! Nearly anything, at least!

*TIP* The first tip I have for you is to use Greek yogurt or whole milk yogurt. Our personal favorites hands down are Brown Cow Cream Top and Chobani, but Stoneyfield YoBaby or YoKids work good too. Not only are they the most delicious (don't even attempt to argue otherwise), but the thicker, richer nature of them tends to work best when 'playing' around. And, the taste? Um, yeah... did I mention they are THE best! Also, though not a requirement necessarily, we try to steer clear of those brands with added color, fake flavors, thickening agents (the shame, the horror), and the worst in my opinion, the artificial sweeteners. Gag..

So, you have your yogurt. Now what? My 'tool' of choice is a silicone ice tray. They come in so many shapes and sizes, so you really can get nearly anything you might want to look for. Seriously, you can google just about any shape along with 'ice mold' and you'll find it. Okay, don't search for any shape. I know what you're thinking, and it's there, too. You've been warned! If you want a bit more family friendly place to start, try Fred brand on Amazon (TJ Maxx and Marshalls often have them too), check your local crafting store, especially around the holidays, or stores like Bed, Bath, Beyond. We have Meijer grocery stores local to us, and they even have lots of fun molds. You can also use plastic candy molds, but popping the yogurt creations out can be a bit trickier, and depending on quality, the mold may crack in the freezer. Just saying. But, I'll get to that.

Another option is just using a mini cutter on frozen yogurt puddles. That's about as fancy as you can get, right? To do this, you literally just put a piece of wax paper on a small, flat surface like a little cutting board, and blop some yogurt on top. Freeze your yogurt puddle long enough to harden and cut out the shapes you want to use. Then, peel off the wax paper, and you're done! It's that simple. You can also add sprinkles or colored sugar if you like, but I suggest adding it before the yogurt goes in the freezer. The sprinkles will stick a lot better because the yogurt is still wet.

Stay tuned for more creative yogurt tips coming your way!

CutezCute Puppy Love

One of my favorite tools for making sandwiches look super cute, super fast is the CuteZCute cutter. I love that it is so versatile, even beyond its original cut out options. You can see lots of ideas on how to use the cutter on Pinterest, as well as the product website, of course. I realized today that the cutter makes an adorable dog, and there are multiple ways you can do it.

Using the stamp option, you can press your design into the bread, and then toast, or in this case, grill for a grilled cheese. In the lunchbox below, I used the cutter for the shape of the head, but then cut additional pieces to lay on top in a contrasting color cheese (and fruit leather for the tongue).

Cucumber 'bones' and grapes in our Easylunchboxes Mini Dippers, homemade no-bake granola bars, and grilled cheese with Swiss and American.

So, what pieces did I use to make this CuteZCute puppy? I used the outline main cutter, of course. For the eyes, I used the cat eye (sideways), and a panda eye for the eye patch. For the mouth, I sued the panda's mouth/nose and the cat's nose for the tongue. I used the side and then, rounded edge, of the main cutter to create the ears. Simple, cute, and yummy!

In this lunch...