back to school, for mom

It's that time of year again.

Back to school.

Excitement is high.

The kids are scrubbing lunch boxes and shoes and backpacks that have been left to gather dust over the summer.

Angeline is making the sewing machine hum. 

{Good grief she out grew last year's dresses in a flash this summer.  I'm prepared for her to pass me up like I'm chained to a tree here in the next 6 months.}

The  new school supplies have been bought and carefully packed in their proper places.

On Friday morning my children will head back into the classroom for 9 months of study.

And I will begin my wild morning marathon of getting breakfast prepared and lunches packed and faces wiped and rooster tails smoothed down and papers signed and homework folders organized by 8:00 am each morning.

Ok. Really, I don't do e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. for my family in the morning. BUT I do need to makes sure everything somehow does happen.

 I would feel ultimately responsible if my child didn't show up at school some morning for no other reason besides "mom didn't have my lunch packed in time".

LUNCHES.

I try all kinds of things to keep myself excited about packing lunches.

I try all kinds of things to keep my children excited about the lunches that I pack.

Some days I even try adding hilarious jokes to distract from the pathetic lunch. It buys me a little favor but it isn't long lasting.

Don't be fooled.

I really struggle with packing lunches.

Either I pack the same thing too often or I totally forget that Son A hates peanut butter but Son B loves peanut butter.

Or I pack things that I love to eat and forget that my kids don't necessarily share my personal preferences.

Or I send something that just doesn't really work. It takes way too long to heat up so they just don't eat it or it ends up creating the mess of the year on the front of their shirt.

Or whatever....you get it, right??

I have some years on my back and I know how this goes.

It only takes about one or two weeks of packing school lunches and all the above scenarios begin to surface.

And then I get in some for silly argument about school lunches with either child A, B, C or D.

They end up sad and crying and I end up feeling unappreciated.

 I eventually repent because visions of my tear stained, hungry child at school with un-salvageable salsa  dripping out of his lunch box along with a small bag of crushed chips haunt me when I am falling asleep at night.

This morning I thought to myself, You know, Shaunda, you really could be more proactive in this whole lunch packing initiative. 

So I began brainstorming of ways that I could prepare in advance for this whole morning rush and lunch packing pressure.

I decided to make these babies.

They are basically home made hot pockets.

I mix up a batch of my french bread dough.

Roll it out and cut it into small squares.

Place some sliced ham. pepperoni and cheese inside.

Bring the corners together and pinch them shut.

Bake.

Freeze. (If you can keep from eating them)

So they're a bit messy and time consuming to assemble, but it is like finding a nugget of gold in the freezer on a hurried school morning. Especially if you were thinking you might have to go out and butcher a chicken in order to have something to put in the lunch boxes.

For me these little hot pockets present a win-win situation.

Never once have my children complained about this particular item.

They are quick and easy for me to pack

They also offer an easy alternative for the boys to pack their own lunches. (My oldest daughter already packs her own lunch)

I want to work towards allowing the boys to pack their own lunches this year. However, I know that means that I need to have lunch items on hand that are not too complicated for them to pull together.

I  am considering doing a baking day twice a month this year in which I will make baked goods and prepackage them for lunches.

Along with the baked goods, hopefully I will have the courage to prepare more of these sandwiches or other similar kinds of baked sandwiches or pizza.

I would love to hear any good ideas that you have for either menu suggestions for packed lunches or methods which have helped you sustain good momentum with packing exciting and nutritious lunches through out the entire school year.

So. Yeah. I am basically yelling "HELP" before desperation even has a chance to strike this year.

birthday fun

Cassie turned 4 this week.

What a great occasion for celebration.

This is her early morning birthday joy face.

Cassie had her first real birthday party this year. 

She has been a long time fan of Madeline. 

The secret is that I am also a huge fan of Madeline.

It was fun for me to introduce her to the Madeline books when she was really quite young. I was secretly thrilled when she started toting around the Madeline doll that had just been lurking around our house for years and began bringing the Madeline books to me for story time. 

It really is no surprise to me that Cassie has found such a big soft spot in her heart for Madeline since this tiny, feisty, spunky adventurer fits Cassie's personality to the T.

For several years I have known that someday we would have a Madeline birthday party for Cassie.

I've been tucking some ideas away in my head for this party. Occasionally great ideas would pop up on pinterest and I would save them on my birthday party board.

When we began talking about having a Madeline party this year, suddenly new ideas came flooding to me faster than I could process them. I even had trouble falling asleep one night because my brain was in overdrive. *

It is  hard to say who had more fun in the end with this birthday party, Cassie or Mom or the Big Siblings. :) This is a good dilemma to face.

Cassie's big siblings made an amazing team in pulling off her birthday party -- as you will soon see. They basically took my wild ideas and made them a reality.

 Cake credit goes to be sister, Angeline

 The awesome Eiffel tower -which was the perfect prop-  was borrowed from my friend Shari.

I told her "I am begging to borrow your Eiffel tower because I feel like a kid with grown up dreams but no cash".

Cassie with her friends that she invited to her party. The little stinker on the far right didn't receive a special invitation, but she is Cassie's little uncooperative shadow these days.

Just a little note about their costumes:

I found the straw hats at Dollar Tree for $1 each. The capes were simply cut from a large blue plastic table cloth also purchased at Dollar Tree. I made small slits near the top of the capes and wove red ribbon through and tied it in the front to keep the capes in place.

The capes also doubled as a smock for the painting project they did later in the morning.

The best part for me was that since they were so simple and inexpensive to make it didn't bother me a lick to throw them in the trash a few days after the party.

It was best if I kept all thoughts of Super Man out of my head as I watched the kiddos gallivanting around the yard.  Any such thoughts totally ruined the charm of my home made Madeline capes.

The Bad Hat even showed up the party and delighted the guests by being a genuine pest.
Shooting marshmallows, stealing their pet puppies, dropping fake bugs and snakes out of the tree...creating an atmosphere of general mischief.

It was all pretty much genuine, no acting required for this Big Brother.

Angeline planned (and created) this pin the hat on Madeline game.

Angeline also guided them in a painting project while I was getting lunch ready. (see, I told you...my older kids pulled a big load)

This picture makes me chuckle every time I look at it. If you look closely you will notice the girls are sitting on their stuffed puppies in a valiant effort to keep the Bad Hat from swiping them. 

I have no pictures of the scavenger hunt planned and executed by Nicholas, but it was a highlight of the day. The scavenger hunt included finding these stuffed puppies which they toted around for the rest of the party.

Eating lunch together wasn't exactly the coolest or calmest moment of the day. :) No one ever said that birthday luncheons for a 4 year old and her friends would be exactly calm.
(no worries, I rescued those sheers from the little miss half a second after the shutter clicked for this photo)

I think the bottled juice and cheese balls were the favorite part of the meal. 

Pardon me as I gag just mentioning it.

All in all, the perfect moments and the not so perfect moments all together added up to a special and fun filled day for Cassie and her friends.

I think I enjoyed it perhaps more than any other birthday party I've hosted in the last 13 years. 

I am seeing a repeat Madeline party in the future, maybe for Elliana or maybe for Cassie again in a few years.  

I would be delighted to introduce you to these Madeline cartoons if you have never watched any of them before. Beware: you may possibly fall in love with Madeline too.

*this used to happen to me often before I was a tired momma. Now it's a special occasion for me to actually be able to have creative thoughts as I am trying to fall asleep.