Some more lunch box pictures! (sorry for the coloured text! My blog is refusing to put a space between my paragraphs and its all just a big long mess)
Spaghetti fritata (again) on mixed leaf salad, half a crusty roll and butter, carrot sticks, cucumber sticks and strips of red pepper with guacamole dip and a piece of chocolate brownie cake (yum!). Photography by E.
Lentil soup - turned out way more watery than usual, half a tiger roll and butter, mixed grapes, slice of orange and a mini chocolate brownie. Photography by E.
Asian style pasta salad, mini pitta, piece of cheese, cherry tomato, carrot sticks and nacho cheese dip, melon, strawberry, grapes and blueberries. The pasta salad came from the Laptop Lunches recipe book. I wasn't sure I was going to like it, but it was extremely delish! It's made with cooked pasta, broccoli, carrot, (any other random veg you feel like!) and bean sprouts. The dressing is made with sesame oil, soy sauce, sesame seeds and some crushed garlic. Really delicious. I think it would be nice with egg noodles too. (photography by me on this one)
My other lunches planned for the week are:
Thursday - vegetable samosas, carrot and raisin salad, wholemeal roll and apricot cookies.
Friday - Pitta bread filled with Quorn meatballs in a tomato sauce (not sure how that's going to work! The idea just came to me.) I'll put some lettuce and maybe onion in them too and maybe a bit of grated cheese. With that we're having carrot sticks and dip, an apple flapjack and some fruit.
Saturday - Chinese noodle soup, roll and butter, apple coleslaw and a slice of carrot cake.
Sunday - A noodle salad - made with whatever veg I have left over. Veg sticks made from whatever I've got left lying around in the fridge, some sort of dip for them, yogurt and a fruit salad made with leftover fruit.
We got new doors put in our house today. I thought they'd be those horrid plastic kind, but they're actually quite nice wooden ones. There was a choice of white, blue, green or red. We picked red, because we'd had a red door before. Everyone else in the street seemed to pick white! So we're the odd ones out.
This is the front door (with a wee boy testing out the letter box!) Its only the outside thats painted red.
And this is the back door. The kitchen seems so much brighter!
This is my naughty wee boy doing his favorite thing! Rummaging through the potatoes. He likes to get the onions and garlic out and peel them. Or take all the spices out the spice basket. He's got two bashes on his head. (Only two this week! He usually has much more. Sometimes he headbutts the floor if he gets annoyed!)
Some very big children (and a cat!). Can't believe how grown up they look! Someone is missing from the picture - he was playing the computer. His favourite hobby at the moment.
Because we were getting new door fitted I spent the last couple of days tidying up the kitchen. The washing was VERY out of control. Its all sorted now, and the kitchen is neat and tidy (well, by my standards!) I hope I can maintain that. I recently decluttered my sewing area too, so that's pretty tidy and its easy to start a project because everything is to hand. I'm hoping to work my way through the rest of the house and then set up some sort of a tidying/cleaning routine to keep everything in order. Of course, I've said this many times before.... we'll just have to see how long it lasts this time!
I'm waiting on some books arriving from Amazon. My children were wanting to do some more structured work, and I found a great (and FREE!!!) curriculum online. Its called Myths, Maps and Marvels. There are quite a few books that you need, most of them Usbourne books, and classic children's stories, but my library barely has any of them!!! It's not so free when you have to buy about £100 worth of books! I'm going to substitute some of the books and use what I have or what I can get from the library.
I can't wait to get started with this though! It looks great. I don't think I've ever really learned about history in a linear way. At school we just did the odd random project about the Victorians, WW2, ancient Egypt etc. The curriculum covers history, geography, literature and introduces children to the major world religions. They're all interconnected, so you are never just studying a random topic. It also uses the internet a lot too. I always knew there was a lot of good stuff on the internet, but I was never really sure how to use it for learning. When you are learning about dinosaurs for example there are links to watch videos, play games, see reconstructions etc. The Usbourne Internet Linked Encyclopedia is awesome!
We usually do some work in the afternoon - when R has a nap (which doesn't seem to happen very often these days!) so my plan is:
- History
- Geography
- Maths or language arts block work (from the Waldorf curriculums we usually use)
- Chapter of our read aloud book
- Crafts
With the read alouds I'm going to get the children to make a page about the book, with the title, author and maybe some bits about what they liked or didn't like about it and some drawings. I'll make them their own personal reading logs too. Its nice to look back and see how many books you've read. I used to keep track of my reading, but I never have time to read these days!
Sewing-wise - since this is supposed to be a sewing blog after all! I just got the most BEAUTIFUL embroidered nappy cuts. They are too nice to make into nappies that are going to be poo'd in! I was planning to make them into "luxury" nappies, made with bamboo and natural fabrics. I will get to cutting all the inners and soakers as soon as I have a minute. It's kind of given me the embroidery bug. I DO have an embroidery machine. Its a very basic model, and has built in Disney designs. I also have two cards I got free with it, but again they're Disney, and I really don't like Disney. Also the truth is, I don't even know how to use it properly! It CAN connect to the internet and download designs, but its so vintage. It uses one of those old style printer cables, with all the pins in the plug. Its so vintage my computer wasn't even able to detect it, even with software updates. BUT... all is not lost! I'm going to see if my brother can do anything with it. If not, I think I might just embroider a few Disney designs anyway to make some pockets or covers. I hope he can fix it though. There are so many ADORABLE designs on the internet. I've seen this lovely under the sea set, and I can just imagine a whole sea creature set of nappies! Or some Christmas ones with snowmen and snowflakes (though he might even be potty trained by then).
Also, I was going to make some overalls/dungarees for R, but my mum has just bought a couple of pairs, so I probably won't bother now. I still want to make some wipes, and haven't got round to it yet.
So the plans are:
- Embroidered nappies first
- Wipes
- Mothers Day gift
- Embroider some PUL fabric to make some covers/xl sized pockets
Then... I was thinking maybe a fancy Easter/spring time outfit for E and for R, a few tops for myself and some pyjamas for me and E.
Comments