RACK’ing: Day 1 December 1, 2011

Today’s act was to bring poinsettias to three different staff members at school. I figured this was a cheery way to kick off the Christmas season! I also wanted to do this in an environment where my kids would be well-received as I wanted Day 1 to be completely successful.

I asked my kids to each think of someone at school who may not be the recipient of a lot of thanks. Not that I don’t think that their teachers don’t deserve an infinite amount of gratitude, but I wanted them to remember that there are so many other people at school who make their days memorable and happy. My kids picked their PE teacher, the janitor, and one of the paraeducators. Unfortunately, I was not with my kids when they handed over their flowers (it was one of those kinds of mornings) but two of my kids reported that the flowers were received with big thank yous and surprised smiles. The third pot of flowers was left on a desk, and hopefully well-received by the very busy janitor J

 

What I am loving best about this project is that it is turning out to be HUGE! Lots of families have done it in the past and continue to carry on the tradition. But I know that there are many, many more families who have been inspired to join us this month, and that makes my heart happy. I know that some of our neighbor friends cleaned up in our division this afternoon. And another set of school friends picked up two HUGE and BURSTING bags of garbage on their walk home from school. Another set of friends delivered mittens to a local elementary school. Those are just the ones I know of. I know that several other families had activities planned too.

I also love that this is making my kids be more aware of each other: my daughter has been much more pleasant all of us and has readily agreed to help out with tasks around the house when asked. My youngest carried in his sister’s HUGE jump rope bag from the car today without being asked. Yesterday, he had his hands full of his backpack and coat, my coat and his sister’s notebook, again without being asked.

Anxious to see what Day 2 brings us…

Countdown to Random Acts of (Christmas) Kindness November 30, 2011

My kids are ready to go. I love it. So ready that we ended up starting today. Which is maybe a good thing since this weekend is forecasted to be a bit busier than I originally planned.

Today was mostly about preparing. We made tags that we’ll use throughout the month. I’m not a fancy girl so this is what our tags say:

You’ve been RACK’d! This Christmas season, our family is counting down the days by performing 24 Random Acts of Christmas Kindness. Kindness is contagious ~ pass it on!

We printed these out on our computer and mounted them onto red or green cardstock.

We also did a bit of shopping for the little girl that we adopted through my kids’ school. It breaks my heart when these kids NEED shoes, socks, hats and mittens. We also found her a baby doll and a soccer ball for her older brother.

And we did a bit of RACK’ing. Is that a verb? My little guy has always had a big heart and he’s also always had his own version of English. Today is a good example of this. He woke up and said, “Mama, today I want to bring fruit to the houseless!” So that we did. We packed up a bag of fruit (and crackers and peanut butter) and planned to distribute fruit when we were in the city visiting Santa this afternoon. When we got into the city, he found a woman sitting on a stool surrounded by bags – in a posh mall. He asked if he could approach her but my middle son was quite insistent that she was not homeless. We talked about how it is not up to us to determine if someone needs an extra bit of food…and that if she didn’t really need it, she’d hopefully pay it forward or say “no thanks.” After we had that settled, my almost-6-year-old pulled out some fruit and walked up to her and asked if she would like it. You should have seen the smile on this woman’s face. “Are you sure you don’t want it?” she asked. “No, you can have it,” he replied.

Our second stop was also a woman, this one with a dog at her side. She was offered the rest of the bag and again, my little guy was rewarded with a big smile and a huge thank you. As I suspected she might do, the woman immediately showed her dog the contents of the bag. “Look, Precious! Fruit!” she said to her. If her dog likes apples as much as our, both of them will have slightly fuller bellies tonight.

Random Acts of Kindness November 28, 2011

My kids use my old Advent calendar that my godmother made for me when I was young. Not only do I love that they are carrying on a piece of my childhood, I love that this Advent calendar doesn’t actually *give* them anything. No chocolate, no candy canes, no small gifts: just a small ornament to hang on a felt tree. I love seeing how excited my kids are to help stuff 24 mini ornaments into their pockets, and I love that they remember that Joseph is hung on December 22^st, Mary is hung on December 23^nd, and Baby Jesus is hung on December 24^th. The Holy Family hangs at the top of the tree, Baby Jesus at the very top.

But this year, we are going to embark on a new tradition. Well, I hope it turns into a tradition. I’m a bit disenchanted by my kids’ selfishness. I suppose this is the season where the “I wants” come out in full force. I want them to remember how fortunate they are. I want them to see that they go to school with kids who need coats and hats and socks and shoes. I want them to see that they can have a positive effect on the world. And so in addition to hanging tiny ornaments to mark the days ’til Christmas, our family will be participating in 24 random acts of kindness. We spent this morning brainstorming who we might like to effect, and what sorts of projects they may want to complete.

Here’s what we came up with. Will you join us?

December 1 – Bring holiday flowers to three staff members at school who aren’t always in the limelight…cooks, paraeducators, custodian, front office

December 2 – Pick a friend (or two or three) at school and do something kind for them.

December 3 – Make a donation to the local food bank.

December 4 – Shop for our adopted child. We adopted a child through our school and will be purchasing and wrapping items together as a family.

December 5 – Prepare a meal for a family who has a busy schedule and could use an extra hand.

December 6 – Deliver stamps and holiday cards to a nursing home.

December 7 – Clear the drains of debris in our cul-de-sac, and perhaps our whole division!

December 8 – Deliver handmade holiday cards to our local PD and/or fire station.

December 9 – Pack and deliver bags for the homeless. We plan to be in the city that day so we will be packing up bags of food and other necessities to hand to three people.

December 10 – Do something kind for each member of your family.

December 11 – Work together to do something kind for a neighbor…thinking about raking their leaves?

December 12 – Donate art supplies to a local school.

December 13 – Call your grandparents!

December 14 – Bring up the garbage cans for our neighbors.

December 15 – Prepare a meal for a family who has a busy schedule and could use an extra hand.

December 16 – Popcorn Day at School – Buy a bag of popcorn for someone who forgot their quarter….or maybe we’ll bring Christmas treats for the class since it is the last day of school before Winter Break.

December 17 – Pack Christmas baskets through our church.

December 18 – Bake and deliver cookies for the neighbors.

December 19 – Leave quarters on vending machines at the grocery store.

December 20 – Put candy canes and holiday notes on the windshields of unsuspecting cars.

December 21 – Hand out balloons to kids shopping with their parents.

December 22 – Leave a special note of thanks for the mail carrier. He’s worked hard this season!

December 23 – Go the library…and hold the door open for people as they go in and out. Wish them a Merry Christmas. Bring the librarians cookies too?

December 24 – Still thinking on this day…gotta see what the day looks like as we make plans to be with family!

Hoping to update along the way as we embark on our adventure…if your family chooses to participate, please post and let us know how it’s going!

 

 

Happy Halloween! October 31, 2011

What kind of spookiness did you pack into your kids’ lunches today?

The Contents –  Mummy dog, pumpkin apple, banana-ghost, cheesy-ghost, kiwi-stein, carrot sticks

The Details –

Mummy Dog – You’ve probably seen these before, but if not, this is just a hot dog wrapped in crescent roll strips.  Add mustard dot eyes and bake at 375 for about 15 minutes.  If you’re my daughter, wipe the eyes off because you can’t stand mustard that much.

Pumpkin Apple – Half an apple with a carved out face.  Happy faces are much easier to carve than detailed teeth 🙂  I just used a paring knife to make simple cuts.  I’ve seen this done with small oranges too, much more realistic looking, but my kids don’t like to peel oranges at school.

Banana Ghost – Half a banana with mini-chocolate chip eyes.  I soaked these bananas in Fresh Fruit but I’m not sure they’ll last.  We’ll see…they may be rotting, slimy ghosts by lunch.

Cheesy Ghost – Half a cheese stick with mini-chocolate chip eyes.  In the past, I’ve done the face with edible markers but I couldn’t find mine this morning.  I’m thinking the kids prefered the chocolate chips anyhow, ha!  To fringe the bottom, just start tearing up the cheese like you’re peeling off a strip.

Kiwi Stein – Center section of a kiwi fruit with just a bit of peel left for the hair.  Candy eyes and frosting mouth.  Nestled in a Halloween cupcake liner to keep the hot dog mummy from getting soggy.

Carrots were added just for color and to pack the food in to prevent it from sliding everywhere.  Just as a personal aside, I don’t pack sweets into their Halloween lunches as I figure they’ll get enough that day…and I pack as much food into their lunch as possible with the hopes that their bellies will be stuffed full of goodness before any holiday festivities in the afternoon.  Do you employ any lunchtime strategies?

The Verdict – Claims that lunches were good, except the ghost banana.  This one did turn into a slimy mess.  No one touched it.  This lunch was a bit of an experiment too – the little dude won’t eat banana or kiwi but wanted these in his lunch.  I thought maybe the presentation might tempt him to eat it, but no go.  Silly boy just picked the (candy) eyes out and left the fruit. 

Hope you and your family had a happy and safe Halloween!

Good Reads June 20, 2011

One of my goals as a parent is to raise good readers.  While I wish I could say that I’d like to raise children who like to read as well, I am fast learning that it is very difficult to dictate what your children like.  At best, I can expose them to a lot of things and immerse them in things that are important to our family, but at the end of the day, it’ll be up to them to decide if they actually like something, no?  But back to my original goal.  Even if my children end up hating to read, I hope they atleast learn to be good readers:  readers who can choose books that are atleast mildly interesting to them, books that occassionally challenge their ability or thoughts, books that provide them with knowledge, a laugh or strike a chord with them somehow.  Our children have been read to since they were infants, one of them has had a love for books from that moment on and today, she is often found with her nose in a book.  Another took years before he’d sit long enough to hear more than a few words at a time.  And yet another reads purely for information.  I am grateful that my children have always had teachers who have also placed high value on reading.  So when I came across this bit of subway art, I knew it had to be turned into our end of year school gifts.

I started with this cast of characters:

I love this piece because it captures just about every single “expectation” that we’ve set forth for our kids.  You can download your own copy at eighteen25. 

The piece of wood is actually a cutting board that I found at Daiso.  And I used red acrylic paint and glossy mod podge that I had leftover from other projects.  Put all together, it turned into this:

 

I made an extra one for our incredible school librarian too.  She’s makes being a librarian a way cool job. 

Changing topics only slightly, one of the ways I will encourage my kids to read this summer is to sign them up for different local reading programs.  If you don’t do this already, I highly encourage you to check into it!  Your local library probably has a program, as do many bookstores.  My kids are participating in a minimum of four programs so far.  I recently heard a stat (I’m not sure I actually believe, but I will share it anyhow) that claims that if children read just four books at their level over the summer, they will maintain their end of school year reading level over the summer. 

How do you keep your kids reading over the summer?  And what good reads have they picked out so far? 

PS – If you’re stuck finding reading programs, here are two:

Borders, Double Dog Dare

Barnes and Noble, Summer Reading Imagination Destination

 

Earth Day! April 22, 2011

Okay my friends, let’s celebrate Earth Day! Share your waste free lunch by posting links to your blogs in the comment section. If you don’t have blog, you can just list the contents of your lunch. If you’d like to submit a picture, please do so and I will update this entry with your picture. Pictures can be sent to: my3kidcircus@gmail.com

To get things started, I wanted to pass on these fun deals that can help you go waste-free!

Check out this deal from Mamapedia…$12 for $24 worth of re-usable lunch bags. And aren’t they cute? You can click on the picture to head on over to Mamapedia.

And here is another deal, also from Mamapedia. $15 for $30 worth of product from Cafe Press. Go get yourself some cute re-usable bags! Again, click on the picture to head on over.

Until Sunday, you can enter the code EASTER10 to save an additional 10% on both purchases. And, no, this post is not sponsored by Mamapedia, Re-Pac or Cafe Press.

Now, the fun begin! Here is my lunch for today.  Today’s lunch celebrates both Earth Day by being waste-free and Easter!

The Contents – Green apples, snap peas, cucumber and bunny carrots.  Two baby chicks sitting upon a nest of noodles.

The Details – The noodles are simply tossed with a bit of oyster sauce for flavor.  The baby chicks are made of a hardboiled egg and leftover Halloween sprinkles for the eyes and a triangle of carrot for the beak.  To make the triangles, I just used kitchen scissors to snip out a bit of a carrot slice.  Once you snip four or more triangles out, you’re left with a “flower” to decorate the noodle nest.

The Verdict – My oldest son asked if they were penguins…

And for dessert:

Chocolate “dirt” pudding with green sprinkles (that you can’t see) topped with marshmallow bunnies!

Hockey Sticks April 18, 2011

Why “Hockey Sticks”?

My youngest has a strange speech thing going on where he will often swap out beginning or ending sounds of words, especially if he is missing the word from his vocabulary.  For example, the other day, he told me he was drinking from his “pug.”  Last night, he came up asking if he could eat a hockey stick.  I had no clue as to what he was talking about.  “You know, those chocolate hockey sticks!”  Given that he has a sport-obsessed brother, I took me awhile before I made right jump to “Pocky Stick.”  So, in his honor, here is his “hockey stick” lunch:

The Contents – half a turkey or ham sandwich on sourdough, Calabee snap peas, Pocky sticks and fruit salad.

The Details – One thing I like about doing lunch this way is the flexibility they can offer.  For instance, this is my daughter’s fruit salad:  strawberries, kiwi and asian pear.  My middle son got kiwi and asian pear.  And my youngest got asian pear.  Not really a salad, I know, but you get the point.  It’s pretty easy to just proportion out the fruit according to each kiddo’s likes and dislikes.

The Verdict – My daughter is becoming a sophisticated reviewer of her lunch:  She has often commented that her crackers and cheese get soggy.  My son claims that his doesn’t.  However, my son is really a little, shall we say, oblivious to such details about his food…so I just chalked it up to boys being boys.  However, today, my daughter claimed that her much anticipated Pocky sticks were not only soggy, but that they had also absorbed the flavor of the sourdough bread.  “Could you please not lay them on top of my sandwich, mom?  I mean, I could still eat them because the chocolate part was pretty well protected, but the uncovered part was just gross.”  Message well received, my dear.  Not that “pretty gross” didn’t stop you from eating the rest of the cooky.

And now, something to start thinking about.  Tomorrow, I will have more details.  But Friday is Earth Day, and I am going to challenge each of you to come up with a waste-free lunch on Friday.  I’m pretty sure you know what that means, but just in case you don’t, stop by tomorrow and we’ll chat more!

Pan Frying Potstickers, Peeps April 13, 2011

I have all sorts of pictures for you today.

First, business as usual.  Lunch.  I still have no food in my fridge, and my morning went totally haywire.  My allergy boy had a fairly big allergic reaction to something he ate for breakfast – what, I don’t know as he’s had all of these foods before, even from the exact same package.  Thankfully, he is okay and this weekend we probably see if we can replicate the reaction.  But, because I was in the middle of making lunch when all heck broke loose, lunch got a little overcooked and thrown together as my daughter ran out the door.

The Contents – potstickers, frozen veggies, a mini banana muffin, 2 starburst, and not shown – mandarin oranges.

The Details – So the potstickers got a little overcooked.  Which is ironic because a friend called me yesterday to ask me how I cook them so that they turned out so nicely.  That made me laugh, because normally, I just throw them in boiling water and in my opinion, they look a little sickly, but the kids like them that way and it’s really the easiest method.  But the day she saw them, I pan fried them.  To pan fry potstickers:

1. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a pan over medium-high heat.
2. Once it is heated, swirl it around the pan to coat.
3. Layer potstickers in the pan.  They can touch, but don’t put them on top of each other.
4. Add about 2/3 c warm water to the pan and cover.
5. Cook for about 8 minutes until most of the liquid is evaporated.
6. Take the lid of the pan and let cook for a few more minutes as the liquid continues to simmer off.  During this part, you can flip your potstickers if they are getting toasty.

Let the potstickers cool before putting the lid on your lunch – this will prevent them from getting mushy.  It is highly likely that they will soften up before your kiddo eats them.

The Verdict – Lunches eaten.  No one cared about the burnt potstickers, whew!

*****

Look at the bedtime snack my daughter made for herself.  If she is going to pick up any of my neurotic habits, this one isn’t so bad.  I’m guessing she also picked out an animal pick to eat it with – my kids like to eat bananas with picks.

*****

And finally, I can’t take credit for this, but I had to share:

I have no idea who made this, I wish I could tell him or her how much I love it.  But these are greeting me at the entrance of the church where my son goes to preschool.  Is this not the cutest thing you have ever seen?  The details are incredible, right down to the little glasses on Pastor Peep.  Even the banners and alter are pretty exact replications!

Anyhow, I am a little obsessed with Peep creations, so I had to share.  I am trying to decide if and how I should incorporate Peeps into our lunches…they seem like they’d get a little gross, no?

 

Linking up to What’s For Lunch Wednesday!

 

 

April Fools! April 1, 2011

What kinds of pranks have gone on in your household today?  I think my kids are unsuspecting when it comes to their lunch boxes…sorry for the bad picture and poorly laid out lunch!

The Contents – a container of ritz bits, a rotten asian pear and sushi.

The Details – Inside the ritz bits container is Pirates Booty and half a sandwich.  The asian pear is very obviously stuffed with a gummy worm.  And the sushi is made of Rice Krispy treats, gummy worms and Simply Fruit Rolls Ups.

My youngest and I had fun making the sushi yesterday.  First, he mixed up a batch of Rice Krispies for the “rice.”  Then we rolled out a Simply Fruit Roll Up (hint:  peel it off its wrapper and then lay it back down on a flat surface – it’ll be easier to work with).  Using your fingers, flatten a scoop of the mixed Rice Krispy out onto the fruit roll up.  Lay your “filling” down the middle of the “rice.”  We used gummy worms, but use your imagination!  Roll the fruit roll up back up, and press the edges together to seal it.   They were easier to cut once they’d sat overnight, but if you’re impatient, it could be done right away.

We also made nigiri – Rice Krispies shaped into a round rectangle, topped with a fish molded from a Starburst – but my kids ate them before I got a picture.

All in fun…we’ll see what they say when they get home!

I will have to say that this lunch was more challenging to make than I thought it’d be!  I saw lots of cute ideas for swapping food around into different wrappers (ie, putting carrot sticks in an empty bag of cheetos), but when you do lunches bento-style, it’s suddenly a little harder!

Happy St. Patty’s Day! March 17, 2011

Those pesky Leprechauns!  Once again, they wreaked havoc on our kitchen.  They tipped the chairs and cereal bowls.  They switched out cereal spoons for forks.  They turned the milk green and this year, they somehow got into our eggs and turned the eggs green too!  Of course, they left their customary box of Lucky Charms, and despite the fact they had very clearly gone near or even into the traps, they all got away.  One of them was even brave enough to play with the blocks and Legos my five year old used to build a second trap, destroying it, but alas, it too, was not caught!

My seven year old thought for sure I’d be doing green lunches today, but I surprised him (huh, I’m tricky, just like the Leprechaun’s, eh?) and did rainbow lunches instead.

The Contents – a pot of gold, sunshine, rainbow fruit-bobs, shamrock sandwiches and a rainbow over booty clouds.  Not pictured is a small container of lemon pudding, which darn those Leprechauns, they turned that green too!

The Details – Fun times, and I love how colorful the fruit-bobs make their lunches.  I had other, even brighter fruits, but someone ate all of my strawberries and a few others are on banana strikes.  Oh well.  I do want to remember this as a potential layout for an entire side of fruits and veggies, not necessarily on sticks.  The licorice rainbow is made of rainbow Twizzlers – the idea came from this fun post but I had to make it waste-free for their lunches, just ’cause that’s how I roll.

The Verdict – My five year old has given it a “looks cute,” but didn’t care much for his fruit-bobs.  We’ll see what the others say, but I have my guess 🙂

Hope you have a great St. Patty’s Day, however you celebrate!

Linked up to What’s For Lunch.

ETA – If you’ve visiting, please make sure that you check out this page for a very cool give away!