This weekend we took a little drive over to San Antonio.  As with all road trips I am a little obsessed with the thought of what are we going to eat??  I hate stopping at gas stations for junk (you know the candy bars, bags of cheetohs, candy, etc.) or having to pull over at a Mickey D's and your choice is fried chicken nuggets or a sad looking burger that costs you a days worth of calories.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a health nut who doesn't appreciate a little McNugget every now and then but eating like that on road trips can just "mess you up" for the day.  I decided to go ahead and pack some bento boxes for the girls the night before so they'd have a big choice of things to eat while we drove.  I thought I'd share to give others some ideas of what might be some good traveling foods.

This first box was Izzy's.  I went ahead and labeled everything.  I promise those are carrots and not cheese puffs.  The banana chocolate chip muffins recipe is from skinnytaste.com.  I took Gina's chocolate chocolate chip banana muffin recipe, and omitted the cocoa powder and glaze, and made them mini sized.  The chocolate marshmallows are between the size of a large one and mini ones and are new from Kraft.  I thought the girls would love them but apparently they aren't quite as tempting as they look.  Maybe if I made them into rice krispy treats?   The turkey pepperoni with cream cheese bites are made from taking turkey pepperoni and spreading about half a teaspoon of low fat cream cheese and folding it over like a taco.  I wasn't sure if Izzy would like those but they were a hit which means I can add them to her list of lunch items.

Emily had a similar box but a smaller version.  She threw a fit over the fact that I snuck a piece of cheese into it. The girl claims to hate cheese and will only eat string cheese, yet loves everything I make when I sneek cheese into it.  You just can't say it's cheese!  She also got a cereal bar which I thought would make for a good breakfast on the run.

One of our stops in San Antonio was having lunch with Clay's grandmother, whom I absolutely love and call grandmommy.  My girls call her great grandmommy or sometime just "Great" for short, very fitting of a spectacular woman.  

Great has the most beautiful soul and is smarter and sharper than anyone you will ever meet.

Clay will probably hate me forever for putting this photo out there, he always does whenever I share a photo of him on the internet, but here he is with his sweet grandmother.

And here I am.  Her mink is fabulous isn't it?  Looking good Great!

Don't know what keeps your kids busy at restaurants but our Leapster Explorer sure has helped us out a lot recently.  This restaurant even had Etch a Sketch's for their tiny guests.  How fun!

The last part of out trip was attending a service for a dear friend's mother.  Rather than having a funeral or a memorial service it was called a Celebration of Life.  It is something they believed their mother would have wanted and I have to say it was a perfect tribute to her. After the service the celebration continued with a good spread of food and a wonderfully loud mariachi band.  I could just picture my friends' mother watching from above rejoicing in this celebration and being so joyous that her friends and family were celebrating the wonderful life she had.

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Saturday Morning Cartoon

We received Kung Fu Panda 2 from Netflix yesterday and Clay and I plotted a little surprise this morning.  He went and picked up donuts from Shipley's and we had a little Saturday morning fun.

Can you guess which on my girls was most excited?

Yep!  Emily has a super sweet tooth and if notice she had a sprinkles in the first picture and a nut covered here...she's begging for a third.  Don't worry, we don't usually let her do this otherwise she might become a donut.

Snuggling up with Daddy, especially during the scary parts.

I LOVE our new aqua colored console we got for Christmas!!!  Makes movie watching so much more fun.

This just might become a Saturday morning tradition!

Blessings X 2 (times two)

That's how I always feel when I see this.

 How can you not smile at this? :)

 Look at that hair fly! 

 I'm surrounded by the cutest little feet.

 Sugar, spice, and everything nice.

 Truly, truly blessed I am.

Mother's Day Brunch 2011

This year I wanted to do something extra special for my mom.  Sure, I could go out and buy her something expensive but I wanted to make to show her that I put a lot of thought it making a special day for her.  As luck would have it one of my aunts was also visiting from out of town so I was able to celebrate with two moms!  I chose to do a butterfly theme.  Have you noticed how much butterfly stuff is out right now?  I made this wreath which greeted them at the door and also gave it to my mom as part of her gift.

 I saw something similar at a beautiful florist in my mother-in-laws home town.  At $140 a wreath I knew I had to try and make one on my own to make it easier on the pocket book! This cost me about $20 to make, NICE!

I recently got a new Silhouette SD Cutter and was SO intimidated to cut anything but I knew this would be a perfect opportunity to try something simple.  I cut out a dozen or so cardstock butterflies and hung them from my light over the table. 

Simple and cute!  And can I just say I think the Silhouette and I are going to be good friends.  Can't wait to share some more projects from it in the future.

I made a variety of brunch foods including Martha Stewart's Asparagus and Leek quiche--DELISH!, chicken salad croissants, fruit salad, my sister-in-law's fabulous bok choy salad recipe, and a variety of store bought sweets.

I've also gotten a little crazy lately with the candy molds.  No fancy colored chocolates here but I LOVE these butterfly pretzels rods I molded. Fun!

These little bags held their gifts.  I wish I had remembered to take a picture of them.

 My mom got a travel pillow which I sewed a pillow cover for from scraps of fabric, the small canvases that I showed here, and a few bags of snacks.  She and my dad are going on a two week trip/cruise to Northern Europe this week so I thought it would be nice to take along.

I think they all had a fabulous time.  Here's a shot of my mom (on the left) and my aunt and uncle enjoying themselves.  Yes, even the dads got some nice brunch!

Clay and the girls surprised me last night with a few gifts.  I got a really cool garden hose (the kind that coils up like a spring so there are no kinks!) and a watering wand.  Izzy picked out a glass dragon fly on a stake for my veggie garden.  I also got a gift certificate for a one hour Swedish massage!!!  Can you say SPOILED!?!?!  They went way overboard.  But the best gifts of all were the presents that the girls gave me today, that they made in school this week. 

 I just absolutely love the book Izzy made me.  And her pictures ARE fabulous!

 Hee hee!  Don't I have on a fabulous dress?!

 So true!

 So sweet!

Oh SO sweet!!! Hee hee!  Told you they spoil me around here.

 And SO funny!  I look pretty good for 100!  And this just shows my daughter knows me so well at age 4 already!  She pretty much nailed everything else...well, milk might not be my very favorite drink! ;)

And the best thing about today is spending time with these sweet little munchkins!  Sushi for dinner out tonight! Yay!

Happy Mother's Day to all your beautiful and deserving moms!!! XOXO