School lunch? School smunch.

Since last summer, Madisyn and I have been brainstorming school lunch ideas for her. She doesn't care for sandwiches (Subway and turkey and cheese roll-ups are suitable, but PB&J or ham and cheese, forget about it). Needless to say, it was getting difficult to come up with new ideas by year-end. Which brings me to this year... twice as many lunches to prepare (thank you Thermos) and two snacks every day! At least I have won one battle, by convincing her to take hot lunch one day/week :) Anyway, since being motivated by Jen @ IHeart Organizing, I decided to get the ball rolling. Here's a preview of Madisyn's school lunch drawer:

All of the snacks are two deep, except the granola bars, which are four deep.



Refrigerated snacks (carrots are in those foggy bags):



And while I was at it, I took a picture of some of our other food cabinets... just because. I know this drawer will make some cringe. Yes, there are times when we eat pre-packaged pasta meals (Cheddar Broccoli Knorr is M's favorite), but we don't usually have mac & cheese in the house... go figure.



Breakfast drawer, with individual portions of cereal on the left, ready to add milk if desired, although generally we do yogurt, fruit, protein shakes (milk, yogurt, banana, peanut butter), waffles, pancakes and/or eggs for breakfast.



One of my temporary pantry shelves (my new pantry is in the making :)).

Definition of Cookie

Cook-ie [kook-ee]
Proper Noun
1. Temporary name of our beloved third child, affectionately named after Cookie Monster by the elder brother whom already adores his soon-to-be sibling.
2. Name that fits the question, "Where's Cookie?" "In Mommy's tummy!"


Picture courtesy of the talented big sister at 15w 3d (to be exact)

Fun on the lake!

Don't get too excited... this daily blog post thing is not an indication of what's to come. I just have some catching up to do :)

We don't spend as much time on the boat as we would like (well, Rob gets to spend more time while fishing), but as often as we can, we get the kiddos out for a day on Lake Michigan. Our friends and old neighbors (in Alger Heights) were visiting and staying with us from Canada with their four girls, so we all went out and the kiddos had a blast! Well, at least Madisyn and the girls did. There was about an hour where all LD wanted was for the boat to stop rocking and for him to go home :( But after some Mama love, and cuddling, he was good to go!



Rob doesn't love his picture taken, but I catch him every once in a while anyway :)


LD post-crying fit.

Ottawa County Fair

I have been slacking on taking pictures, which then has a drastic effect on my posts (who wants to see a post without a picture?!). I may actually start a daily photo blog because I've been so inspired by Katie and Theresa (and Theresa's blog post)! None-the-less, I have taken a few pictures this summer including some of the kiddos and their cousins Joshua and Levi (their only cousins, but only for another 3-4 weeks!) at the Ottawa County Fair.






Blurry? Yes. Priceless? Of course!