T'was the Month of Christmas...

And all through the house, all the creatures were stirring, even our ELF! Saturday morning when our boys woke up they found 'Chippy' our 'Elf on The Shelf' perched in our tree. They were so excited when the noticed him sitting in there. But not nearly as excited as I was ;) There's nothing better then when they're not listening to remind them that Chippy's watching and he will fly back to the North Pole and tell Santa just what they're up to!

So far Chippy's been pretty kind to us. He's been in our tree, in a bowl of marshmallows, perched in various places in our living room, and this morning we woke up to find him back in the tree. This time with a roll of toilet paper! Monkey was a littttle thrown off as to why there was toilet paper all over the Christmas tree. And than the thought it was pretttty funny! Bear was sure that I had done it, then he saw Chippy and was a tad annoyed that he had done that to our tree lol. Do you have a little North Pole visitor come by your place?

Feeding the Birds

This weekend was Thanksgiving here in Canada. While the weekend was full of food, family, and friends,  we managed to fit in some crafting! It's just recently that bear has decided that sitting down and making something isn't so bad after all! Yesterday, which was actually Thanksgiving, we decided that the birds needed to eat too! The boys enjoyed the peanut butter part. I think they maybe ate more then they put on the toilet paper rolls ;)

The one at the top is Monkey's, the one to the right is Bear's. Monkey needed a little bit of help spreading the peanut butter. But all in all it was pretty simple for them.

Now this Mama was thinking! We tell the boys that the birds work for Santa, that they watch the kids and then fly to the North Pole and tell Santa what they're doing! We do have an Elf on the Shelf that comes here in December that does the same thing, but these birds work all year! So with the birds being out in front of the house at their feeders, it will give me a better chance to bribe, if you will, them into better behavior! Look a moms gotta do what a moms gotta do!

As far as Thanksgiving, Monkey doesn't really say much, so when you ask him what he's thankful for he just yells some jibberish. Bear was thankful for dogs and stuffing! He brought a 'Thankful Tree' home from school Friday and he wrote that he was Thankful for flowers, trees, friends, cats, and stuffing! Ummm what about family?! I guess not, eh!

Monkey the Explorer!

As mentioned yesterday I took Monkey on an exploring trip to a local conservation area to check out the waterfalls. I snapped this picture in the parking lot on our way to the falls. I loooovvvveeee this picture! He looks like such a little man here. It makes me wonder what the heck happened to my baby boy?

I'm very happy that I snapped this picture as right after my camera battery died! Mother of the year ;)

There's a lot of stairs to get down to the bottom of the falls, he was a little nervous if he was too close to the rail, but he did great at going up and down all by himself! He loved the waterfall once we got to the bottom, but wasn't brave enough to venture too far from me. We haven't had a lot of rain in the past few weeks so the water is pretty low, meaning all the big rocks are exposed to cross the river. He would have none of that! He stayed feet firmly planted on the bank.

Last Day Of Lunch!

Happy Friday! Here's the last lunch of lunch week here in Mommyland! On the menu for Bear today is waffles and maple syrup, strawberries, celery with cheese, cheese string, and crackers. Today's pizza day at our school. So his first break he gets a piece of pizza with his lunch. I always send money for chocolate milk on pizza day too. Kind of a reward for making it through the school week without giving his teacher a mental breakdown ;) Kidding...maybe lol.

Here's what I did for Monkey today. I decided to take him and a little guy I babysit to a local conservation area to explore the waterfalls, fossils and of course the playground! I had planned on doing a picnic there, but the bugs were pretty bad. So we came back to town, went to the park here for a picnic and a play. I had two of these bear bento boxes that I picked up at Old Navy last year for Bear to use for school. So their lunch consisted of peanut butter wraps, blueberries, grapes, cheese strings and 1/2 a nurtigrain bar each.

Day 4 Fail!

Ahhhhh I totally forgot to take a picture of lunch today! How dare I think that today is a normal day and I don`t need to take a picture of his lunch!

Monkey's Lunch!

Here's monkey's lunch for the day! I've found when food is cute and not just thrown on a plate, they tend to eat more. I purchased the Winnie The Pooh cutter from eBay back in the spring. Everything else is from Ikea and Amazon ;)

Lunch #3

Nothing exciting here today for this award winning lunch packer ;) On the menu for Bear today is an egg salad in a whole wheat tortilla wrap, blueberries and strawberries, carrots with ranch dip, a strawberry nutrigrain bar, triscuts, and then he has some yogurt in the big dipper (what the pasta was in yesterday) but it wouldn't fit in the box, so I'll just slip it in to the front pocket of his lunch bag. While packing my husband's lunch last night, I realized just how much I really like the PlanetBox. Here's why: My husband took 4 things, much like this lay out, sammie, cheese and crackers, yogurt, and cookies. I had to find 4 different plastic containers and their lids, they had to fit the food in, but not be too big, because it all had to fit in his lunch box to go to work. Then I put it in the fridge and it took up so much room! I had to rearrange things to make room for all the containers. Then tonight, when he gets home, he has 4 containers to unpack and empty, then I have to load them all into the dishwasher. Think of how much space I'm losing from those 4 goofy plastic containers! See where I'm going with this! With Bear's lunch, I don't need to worry about lids (granted the dippers, but they don't have to be packed) When he comes home I open the box, dump what ever is left in the garbage, rinse the dippers, and toss in the dishwasher. The PlanetBox itself takes up the same amount of space 2 plates would. When I pack the night before, it fits nicely in the fridge, I can stack it on top of something, or stack stuff on top of it. 

This is something else that I love about the PlanetBox! Keeping this layout in mind makes it so easy to pack a healthy well balanced lunch! But by all means, don't feel like you have to stick with this way of packing!