I've been dreading this day for a few weeks now, my kids are going back to school today! I have completely enjoyed our laid back summer with no bedtimes, no schedules, no routines, and no car lines. This summer was a little different than usual with my husband traveling more for business, but we managed to find our special moments and embrace them. Just last weekend we were sitting on Sanibel Island listening to the waves crash into the shore and now I'm dreading the stack of papers I'll have to fill out tonight after they get home from school. Preparing for back to school wasn't too dreadful, our school requires uniforms which makes clothes shopping very easy. It wasn't terribly painful on the bank account this year thanks to a big bag of hand-me-downs for my oldest. He should be set for the next 1-2 years even when he hits his growth spurt. The school supply list this year wasn't too bad either. I had quite the chuckle over some of the items on the middle school list though; ... [ Read More ]
Ditch the Baggies – 10 Uses for Zippered Snack Bags (Reusable of course)
This post is sponsored by Maxwell Designs. Keep reading to find out how to enter to win your own reusable zippered snack bag like the one shown here! Have you ditched disposable snack and sandwich bags from your life yet? What are you waiting for? Disposables are such a waste of money, single use plastic, and destined for the landfill (if they made it that far). Many disposable snack bags don't even make it to the landfill and end up littering the streets and eventually finding their way to our waterways and endangering wildlife. There is a simple alternative - reusable zippered snack bags!! With kids going back-to-school this month, it's a great time to add a few snack bags to your lunchbox arsenal and a simple step in "going green!" These bags are latex-free, BPA-free, and do not contain DEHP, formaldehyde, brominated flame retardants, or lead. I bet you didn't even think about what was in those disposable bags, did you?? These bags are fabric on the outside and wa ... [ Read More ]
Back to School with Bentos
Bento: a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. Bento's can be arranged in "kyaraben" style (character bento) to look like popular anime or comic book characters or they can be "oekakiben" (picture bento) style to look like people, animals, flowers, etc. (Source: Wikipedia) In the US we can adapt traditional bento's to make lunch fun for our kids (and ourselves) using regular lunch ingredients with fun bento boxes and accessories. It's a great way to encourage your kids to eat healthier and is so much more fun than PB&J. My kids went back to school this week and it's been a fun project for us to do as a family to prepare for the next day of school. Basic supplies: Reusable lunch containers. Preferably BPA-free, metal, glass, or fabric. Come in a variety of sizes and may be traditional bento style or our more modern "tupperware" type containers. Some traditional bento boxes even come with stackable tiers for holding more food. ... [ Read More ]
