InstaFriday

Good morning!  Saturday morning breakfast:  whole wheat waffles with freshly ground peanut butter, real maple syrup, and clementines.

After breakfast, we're off to the library.  This little ham is excited for our outing!  I love her in blue and green.   She looked so cute getting dressed to go out, that I had to snap some pictures of her.

My fave.  And the only one that actually made the instagram feed. 

Predominantly animal books this week.  :)  It was a whole family outing today - daddy came too! 

Brownie berry "pizza" for dessert on Saturday night.  Just because. 

Sophie and I went to church on Sunday, just the two of us.  She was psyched to see Stella & Mya there too! 

On Sunday night, Case and I joined mom for a Crystal Bowersox concert at the Seagate.  She's not my favorite but she has a pretty amazing voice. 

Lookie lookie what Craig finished for me!  It was a belated birthday present because he just didn't have much free time to tackle it.  But he was able to knock it out this week and it turned out so nice!  He even put beadboard on the back and had my colors organized for me.  It was hanging on the closet wall to surprise me when I got home from work.  :) 

This week at the elementary school, there was an art show and tumbling show held on Tuesday evening.  We went after dinner and checked out some of Will's and his classmates art work.

The tumbling show was also pretty cool to watch. 

This little lady was enamored with all the automatic stuff in the elementary school restrooms.  LOL 

Decisions.  Decisions.  Getting ready to switcharoo Nova to something else.  Hmm... what's my mood? 

Tried some artsy fartsy stuff and I like the color combo but I'm not sure it's "me".  Sephora by OPI Bright as a Feather with Zoya Willow accent.

The kids have inspired me to try yoga for myself!  I got a cheapy mat from Target (like $6?) and borrowed a  beginner DVD program from the library.  Just finished my second 60 minute practice and I feel fantastic!  

Let's Pack Lunch!

It's been awhile!  And none of these are recent.  In fact they span from sometime in November to one in early January.  I've totally slacked on taking lunch pictures.  It's just too much.  I'm diligently packing our Planet Boxes and Will has yet to buy his lunch this year (though he has occasionally started buying milk once or twice a week).  But these posts are probably going to die off a little, save for a few here and there on my Instagram feed.  I know you're devastated.  ;-)

Contents:  peppers, candy bar, pretzels, pb&j, clementines.

On this Tuesday, their lunches were identical except for the sandwich fillings.  He had salami while she had pb&j.  Plus peppers, popcorn, apples and chocolate covered raisins.

Contents: s'more bar, trail mix with popcorn, raisins and peanuts, apple slices, peppers.

Contents:  s'more bar, peppers, leftover pizza strips (he eats this cold), clementines.

Contents:  peppers, sweet potato mini muffins, popcorn, pecans, apple slices, tootsie rolls.

Contents:  peppers, candy bar, banana, salami sandwich & pretzels, apple slices.

Contents: salted caramel chocolate chip bar (homemade) & Western dressing to dip his broccoli, grapes (I halve them for his packed lunches even though I never do at home anymore... just precautionary when I'm not around to watch him eat), salami sandwich (this is about all he'll eat in the way of sandwiches anymore... grrr!) and pretzels, raw veggies.

Contents:  carrot coins, grape halves, fruit & veggie mini muffins, candy cane cookies (homemade), peanuts.

Contents:  grape halves, pickles, salami sandwich, carrot coins, candy cane cookie.

Contents:  mustard (to dip pretzel), bell peppers, pickles, homemade soft pretzel, apple slices, 2 squares of cheese.

Give, Save, Spend

(A bit of an old post that I keep forgetting to share.  Pictures from October 2012.)  

Since Will's 5th birthday, we've been doing an allowance with him.  He has a handful of tasks that he performs when I ask and a handful of tasks that are expected of him on a daily basis for his own self care.  He's not really being paid for the things that are expected of him in his daily life, but if he slacks on them or has a particularly whiny/complainy week or two, we do not give him the allowance simply because he has acted irresponsibly and has not demonstrated a maturity worthy of handling money.  But for the work he contributes to our household (most of which has been new since his 5th birthday) we want to compensate him in a way that teaches him how to be responsible with money.  We based our savings plan on the book he received from us on his 5th birthday:

We made jars that are kept on a high shelf in his closet (out of his reach) and we pull them down every other week to contribute $1 to each respective jar.  So essentially, his allowance is $1.50 per week or $3 every other to make it easy to divide in the jars.  

Oh my gosh!  He looks so young here!  Can't believe how he's grown in just five months!

There have definitely been plenty of weeks where he hasn't earned his allowance, and many others where he has requested to help with more housework just to make sure he gets it.  ;)  The spend jar is his to do what he wants with.  He thinks up things he would like to buy and excitedly counts the dollar bills until he works up to it.  The save jar is going into his savings account at the bank.  And the give jar could be for various uses in which he charitably or kindly uses the money for something or someone else.

I realize it's kinda gross that he's counting money on his bedspread.  I didn't think he was going to pull it out and count it when we took these.  But he wanted to re-check how close he was getting to his next purchase. ;-)

So far this is working for us.  And I think we'll start Sophie on something similar when she turns five.

InstaFriday

Sophie's first haircut!

Mini manicures with cousins for our playdate.  

Crispy southwestern chicken wraps (link to recipe in my dinner post) 

Out for some exercise with my boy and my dog.  Bike ride for Will.  Walk/jog for me & Bru, just staying with Will's pace. 

Chicken & pineapple quesadillas (link to recipe in my dinner post) 

 Fast friends:  Sophie & Reese.  Little sibs of the Little Dragons.  Soon to be joining their big bros on the mats this spring.

Craig worked this night (karate night) so I was on my own with everything.  Had Weelicious sloppy joes ready in advance to ease my single-mom-ed-ness.  :)

Sophie is amazing at Memory. 

My little yogis.  They are adoring this yoga video from the library and getting some indoor exercise.  Perfect for the cold weather months!  This is cobra pose, but they just refer to it as snake pose in the kids' video so Will & Sophie are making "snake sounds".   

Warriors! 

Triangle pose (sorta).  Looks a little more like side angle with their legs bent.

Oh heavens!  I just swoon over fun polish!  Zoya Carey with sparkly Zoya Luna accents. 

What's For Dinner? February Weeks 3&4

Menu for the week of February 16-22:

1) taco salad
2) chili with grilled cheese
3) steak on the grill with salads and roasted red potatoes with thyme (Finally found a way that our kids will eat potatoes!!!  This is huge!!)

I'll give you three guesses who chose the above menu...
His name rhymes with Greg.  ;)

Moving on...

Menu for the week of February 23 - March 1:

1) whipped feta and roasted red pepper dip with pita chips for my girls night with work friends
2) Many Makings' chicken and pineapple quesadillas - I seriously love everything about these!
3) Weelicious sloppy joes - love this recipe, loaded with veggies
4) tomato bisque and grilled cheese (we like grilled cheese - can you tell?)
5) crispy southwest chicken wraps (Pinterest find)

A few pics from our tomato bisque and grilled cheese night...  The kids had some "fish" swimming in their soup.  It definitely encouraged their eating it!

Love this goofy girl...