First day of 2nd & 5th grade!!

We finally made it to the first day of school!! We had a good summer, but a bit long for this mama!! It's funny though, when I dropped them off, I had a hard time driving away. Trying to figure out what I'm gonna do with all this time to myself :)

Anyway, these 2 are getting so big so fast! I'm really having a hard time with 5th grade this year. It just snuck up on me. How in the world can she be in 5th grade!!?? It just feels like it's all down hill from here :) But, I'm so proud of her, making it through a really tough year last year. I'm excited to see what this year holds! And my little 2nd grader!! She's so excited for this year & I'm so glad. She woke up at 6:45 (which is super early for this little anti-mornings girl) without being coaxed. Think she was excited!!?? She was one big smile this morning!! They are going to a new school this year & I'm just a little anxious to see how it's gonna go. It should be a great year & I'm excited to see how much they grow & learn! I need to stop saying excited :) But, that's what the first day of school is all about!!!

Praying they have a great day & love this new & improved environment for learning!! I hope all of your first days went/will go great! I always love the first day...so many possibilities & such an amazing road ahead of learning & new experiences!! Kinda wish I was going back to school :)

Happy New School Year to all of you!!

Daddy went to work late so he could see them off. Yearly tradition...thanks daddy!!!

Off we go!! Daddy's got the supplies :)

Here's the building...off to a new adventure!

Kenz in her classroom! So exciting!

Hannah in her classroom...sitting with her friend Riley from church. A huge blessing that she knew someone!!!

Back to school means packing lunches!!

Normally this is one of my least favorite things about school. I know it's weird, but it just gets tedious for me. Because we are a gluten free household it also poses another issue of finding foods that we like & that aren't processed to the gills. So, I make a lot from scratch & get very creative. Not everything in our lunches are the heathiest, but I try to do as much as I can!
My other issue has been trying to stay "green"-ish. We haven't used baggies for lunches in a long time, but it makes my cupboards a total mess. So, I decided to try something new this year. And I'm actually excited about lunch making! We'll see how long that lasts :)
Anyway, I found these great bento-ish boxes at the dollar tree & went from there. They are similar to the ones you see all over pinterest. They have one big compartment & one smaller. As the school year starts. I'll share some of my lunch ideas, until then...here are some links to great & healthy lunch ideas:

Family Fresh Cooking

Out of the Box Food: This one does great comparisons with your typical kids' lunch items, with homemade or healthier alternatives. (like lunchables, fruit roll ups, chicken nuggets, etc)

The other cool thing I found on a blog (which I'm very bummed to say I didn't save or follow) was these silicone ice pop molds. These are so cool & have so many uses! Basically, just fill & freeze. I plan to do my own "gogurts", smoothies, apple sauce, etc. So much you can do with them!!!

Here are a few more things that I purchases to make my lunch making easier & a little more fun:

    

I don't plan to go crazy & make a hello kitty sandwich or anything like that. But, I need to keep it fresh, for me & the girls :) They love hard boiled eggs in their lunches, so I thought these egg molds were so cute & fun. They also love rice balls with a little nori or furi kaki. So these little silicon molds are fun. I bought a different plastic type of rice mold last year & they were just messy. So, I'm hoping these will be better. Those little soy sauce containers we use with the rice balls or I sometimes put a tiny bit of salt in them for their eggs. And we needed water bottles & these were so cute & cheap & easy to fit in their lunch boxes.
I'll be sure and post some pics of our first week of lunches! I would love to hear of any great ideas y'all have!!
I hope the beginning of school is a great time for your families! I always love the excitement of a new year, new school supplies, first day outfits and now school lunches :)
Have a great year!!

We're having a baby!!!

Well, I haven't posted anything since February! Things have just been crazy...but I thought this would be a great excuse to get back to blogging.
Yes, we are having a baby girl in January! We can hardly believe it! We keep going back & forth from being over the moon to moments of "Holy Crap, what are we gonna do!!??"
First of all, I haven't done this in 7 years. Being pregnant again is a mixed bag of excitement & being really miserable! I haven't felt all that great, with morning sickness, major fatigue & some other not so pleasant side effects I won't go into in mixed company!
Our girls are so excited! It was a really cool experience to take them to the ultrasound! One of the perks of having older kiddos is that they get to experience everything with us. Well, another is that they are great helpers!! They have been serious troopers in all of this...especially when mommy doesn't feel good or is super cranky!
But, overall we are super excited to meet this little baby girl & we're anxious to see who she looks like, what kinda hair she's gonna have (we have a variety in our little family :) ),  what her name will be (still have to decide that), & just how God is going to bless us through her!