Bring Your Family to Lunch Week Brings Back Memories

Okay, not my favorite picture of us, but here we are standing in the doorway to the lunchroom awaiting our turn to go through the line.  My mom came along and took the picture for us.

Do you miss cafeteria lunches?  I'd have to say I had my fair share of them all through Elementary and Junior High School.  By the time High School rolled around, the cafeteria didn't offer enough food to fill my very ravenous appetite, so I brought my own food from home.  I worked as a lunch worker every school day in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades.  That earned me a free lunch for the day and with it came a free cookie.  It meant I could only eat after everyone had been served, but that also meant that I could have whatever I wanted.  For instance, if I wanted a slice of pizza from one line, fries from another, and a peanut butter bar cookie from another, I could do that (as long as there was enough left over, that is.), and I did do that on several occasions.  But I remember usually getting the salad bar and fresh rolls.  I tried not to get too much food because we usually only had 7-9 minutes to eat before the next class started. 

My first introduction to school lunch came on the first day of school in first grade.  It made me kinda dread lunch time, at least for the first couple weeks until I figured things out and found some friends.  My dad had packed me a lunch, bless his ever-giving heart, but didn't he know that kids carried their lunches in disposable brown paper bags, not a floral fabric shoulder bag?  They also used ziptop or sandwich bags, not tupperware and seran wrap.  I could feel every eye on me, and my face burned red with embarrassment.  I had been paired up with a sixth grade boy that was supposed to show me where to go and how to buy my milk.  He took me to buy my milk, and I got "red" milk- no that's not strawberry milk, it's the color of the carton.  Red signifies whole milk, blue is 2 % and green is 1%.  I didn't know that blue milk is what everyone was drinking, and my 6th grade helper didn't clue me in on that either.  When I found a seat at a lunch table, I didn't realize that I was sitting on the "boys" side.  It wasn't intentionally segregated that way, it's just the way that the students did things and since the 1st grade was the first in the lunchroom, the "boys side" didn't start filling up with boys until after I sat down there.  I felt so alone.  I couldn't find any of my friends, and my brother didn't go to lunch until much later.  I was too embarrassed to move to the girls side.  My helper left me and I was clueless how to open the stupid milk container and I was so thirsty, but not wanting to draw more attention to myself, I just acted like I didn't want it.  Sorry dad, that was 20 cents down the drain.  I could hear passing students say, "Why is she sitting on the boy's side?"  I could feel them laughing and pointing at me.  I knew they were staring at me and my lunch bag.  I was also one of 4 kids at that whole school that wasn't white skinned, so I think that was another reason everyone was staring, and maybe perhaps because I insisted on doing my own hair.  Just take a look at my school picture from first grade- I'm in the middle with the funky floral clipped to the side of my head and the stained pink shirt.

Anyway, I was too embarrassed to take my food out in the open for people to see the tupperware and seran wrapped food, so I just sneakily picked at it while keeping it hidden in my bag.  As I looked around I began to wonder, where is my capri sun or koolaid squeezit?  I didn't have fruit snacks or any other pre-packaged item.  I had a large peeled carrot wrapped in seran wrap, and a sandwich in tupperware.  I hated that day, but luckily for me it was one of the very few times that I had a sack lunch from home since my parents generally purchased a lunch ticket for us to get cafeteria food in elementary school.

What memories school cafeterias bring back to me.  So, earlier this month I got word of a "bring your family to lunch" at Steve's school and I just had to hop on the chance!  I brought my camera along, so I could blog all about it.  Pictures say a thousand words, so enjoy the lunch we had... I know we did. 

The menu was:

Beef Freaking Gross Ravioli (Yuck!  Me and the Chef Boyardee are NOT friends!)
Grilled Cheese
Orange slices
Celery and Carrot sticks
Fruit snacks
Milk

When I went through the line, I was given an option to have leftover chicken noodle soup from the day before or beef ravioli.  Hello!  "I'll take the chicken noodle."  No brainer.

My lunch

Amara enjoying her grilled cheese.

Lily opening her fruit snacks first.

Blurry Steve.  I said, "Smile."  To which he emphatically replied, "Why would I want a picture of myself eating school lunch?" I snapped the photo in the middle of his ranting.

Mom took a pic of the whole family sitting at the cafeteria table.

Lily's 100th Day of School

Lily came home from her 100th school day with this cute booklet that she made.  To read her responses, you may need to turn your head sideways.  It's cute.  And, she also had to turn in a project.  Scroll down to see what she did.

I can eat 100 pizzas.

I could never eat 100 dog hair.

I wish I had 100 pupys.

I wouldn't want 100 tigers.

If I had 100 dollars, I would buy 100 cats.

What I will look like when I am 100.  (Click the picture to see it bigger.)

 To celebrate the 100th day of school, Lily was assigned to make anything she wanted using 100 of something.  Fun, right?  So, I asked her, "Do you want to use 100 chocolate chips and make a cookie?  Or how about 100 beads and make a design on paper?"  She replied, "Hmmmm... I know!  I want to make 100 shadow puppets!"  Okay.  And how do we turn that in?  We photograph each shadow, of course!  So, while Amara was napping, we got out a lamp and the camera and took them into my closet and away she went, making shadows.  When we were done, we simply downloaded the picutres and let smilebox compile them into a slideshow.  Well, that slideshow ended up being almost 6 minutes long.  I didn't like the pressure that placed on the teacher to adapt her whole schedule to have the class watch shadow puppets, so the next day I ended up putting the photos into a collage instead.  I sent Lily to school with both, but the collage worked out better because the projects were for a wall display in the hall.  I'm glad I thought to do the collage instead.  Cool idea, Lily!  No one else had 100 shadows as their project, but I did see a few cookies with 100 chocolate chips and a few papers with 100 beads for their designs :)!

Collage Page 1.  (I guess Page 2 didn't get saved properly.)

Collage Page 3, final page.

Here's the slideshow if you've got 6 minutes on your hands:

Announcement personalized with Smilebox

I saved 12 bucks! Face painting for Family Night!

So, for $6 a piece, we could've got our faces painted at the circus.  Well, my daughters begged, and I resisted.  I told them, "I've got paint at home.  We can paint your faces there."  Two days later, family night rolled around and the girls didn't forget that I said we could paint their faces.  I just hoped their expectations weren't too high.  I only had 3 colors of finger paint for them to choose from and I couldn't find a paintbrush anywhere in the house.  So, our activity for family night was "Lani gets to fingerpaint using her daughters' faces as canvas," and the colors to choose from were purple, black, and orange.

Well, Amara had seen some kids have their faces painted like animals, so she wanted to be a pig.  I didn't have pink, so I thought orange would be close enough, and that I would just paint around her nose.  I tried to give the look of a pig's nose by using black to enlarge her nostrils.  She turned out looking more like a tiger?  Maybe.  Actually, the only resemblance of a tiger was the colors I used, orange and black.

Lily, wanted purple on her face like a flower.  I started painting and things just got ugly from there.  I tried to go for the look of a sweet purple pansy, but she ended up looking like... well, if an exploded eggplant got together with a luchador from Nacho Libre and had a baby, that's what Lily looked like. 

 
I was laughing so hard inside I would've pulled a hernia if I didn't at least burst a few laughs out.  I just hoped they would find as much amusement in their mother's 60-second finger-painting escapade.  Then they ran down the hall, headed off toward the mirrors.  Their reaction is was documented by both our Canon
Digital Camera and Steve's new Ipod Touch.  Comparing the 2 videos, I think the Ipod has better color, sorry Canon.  So, without further ado, their reactions as recorded by Steve's Ipod Touch...

Make a free slideshow

The Circus Came to Vernal!

This was one FUN event!  Two weeks ago we went to Vernal to see the Circus that had come to town.  We decided to go to the matinee and have Amara miss her nap, but we were certain she would love the show.  She really loved the show,even though her expression in the picture above shows her tired side.  After each performance, Amara would stand in front of her seat and attempt the performance she just saw.  If the elephants were sitting on a stool and spinning in circles, she would sit and start spinning in circles.  She wanted to balance on my lap like a tight rope walker, which I didn't let her do until it was time for intermission.  Lily was completely absorbed in the show and had such a great time.  She really wanted to ride the elephant and camel and ponies but our budget replied, maybe another time.  

All in all, the show exceeded our expectations and was well worth the $24 we spent to get our family plus my mom in to see it (thanks to coupons and special deals for teachers).  We saw all you'd expect to see at a circus- the flying trapeze artists, tight rope walkers, roaring tigers, skipping elephants, bears that sit and rock on large rocking horses, silly clowns, scary motorcycle daredevils, insane jugglers of knives and fire (hoping Amara realizes the danger in that and doesn't try to mimic it), impressive quick change act, and the list goes on and on.  No video taping was allowed, but we were allowed to take pictures, so enjoy the slideshow.  Click on the link below.
 

Make a slideshow design

29 and Feelin' Fine!

Well, it's weird to say that I'm now 29 years old.  It seems time has sped up since the conception of my firstborn.  Seriously!  Where did the time go?  I swear I'm 25...-ish.  And I guess I sorta am, but when I say "I'm 29," it's almost as if I'm saying, "I'm almost thirty," which does not sound 25-ish.  It's weird, for sure.  But, don't get me wrong, 29 is a fine age and I plan on staying that age this entire year and some of next.  Sorry 28, I didn't realize our time together would be so short, but I think we have had some good memories and it's time to move forward and age a bit. 

Suffice it to say, age 29 got a stellar welcoming!  Picture this- flowers, gifts, friends stopping by, homemade cards, fabulous dinner with my loved ones, and Steve's most delectable homemade cheesecake.  Seriously, blogging/re-living this memory is both delicious and rad  (Whad'ya mean, "What's 'rad'?")!

 Dinner: Spinach salad supreme with poppyseed dressing and bacon, Hot spinach-artichoke dip, Shrimp coctail, Freshly baked whole wheat rolls with butter, and King Crab Legs to my hearts content!

 What appears in this picture to be a glistening white flying saucer headed for my hubby's teeth is actually the aforementioned delectable homemade cheesecake.  Thanks honey for spending 3 hours the night before making me my favorite for my birthday!

 I got flowers from both Steve (the pink gerber daisy) and Tom (the peach colored rose) and my mom gave me 2 happy birthday balloons earlier that day.  Aw, I feel loved.

 Here are my gifts- The Air Bake cookie sheets from Steve and the girls, a decorative pitcher from my sweet neighbor Becky, and the lotion from my friend Amanda.  It was so sweet to be remembered by both family AND friends!

 Now for the homemade cards :)

Amara's card for me.  Left: lightening, a face, and a football.  Right: A happy mountain.

Lily's card for me.  Left: A ballerina.  Right: A person with a lollipop bouquet.

Front of Steve's card for me.

Inside of Steve's homemade card.

Back of Steve's card.  Yes, it says "Unicorns are awesome!"

 My mom surprised me with this awesome rotating book shelf for my gift.  It was no longer needed at the school she works at, and they told her she could give it to me.  Awesome!  It now houses our loads of childrens books.

For documenting purposes only, I felt the need to take a pic of myself on my birthday, but I didn't feel like snapping a shot of just myself, so I made my hubby smile next to me.  I snapped this picture at the very end of the day and we were both tired, as is somewhat evident in our red eyes. 

It was a great birthday, and although I don't have a picture of it, mom and Tom came over and had dinner with me, which meant a whole lot!  Our girls were ecstatic to see them!  We need to get together for dinners more often!

Updated! The Christmas Orange...

Above is a very short clip of the fun we were having with the Christmas Orange.  Unfortunately our memory card was almost full on our digital camera, thus the shortness of the clip.

The Christmas Orange Family Night-

The Primary gave us 2 oranges and a paper with a Family Home Evening outlining a lesson and games we could do.  I loved this night.  The photo says it all.  We had fun!

Memories We Made the Days Before Christmas 2010

Christmastime of 2010 brought our family closer together as we laughed through Mr. Worst, warmed our bellies with sloppy spaghetti, and fiddled with fun for 24 days.  Both the Steve and Elinn Allgaier family and the Jake and Kelli Lauret families joined us in our memory-making mayhem.  What a delight to reminisce with them and share in their similar memories although we live miles apart!  And I bet you're wondering what we did for days 16-24 (or even if you weren't wondering, I'm going to tell you anyway).

Day 16: Steve's idea- Send a Holiday Email to your family members.  I'm glad we got this one thrown together last second.  In case you missed it, here's another look at our holiday email:
"We want all you to know how much we love you all.  We hope this short greeting finds everyone in cheerful spirits.  We have had a wonderful year filled with family visits, filling up our new home,  and celebrating every holiday to it's fullest.  Lily started kindergarten this year and attends the elementary that Steve teaches at (it's his 4th year already, can you believe it?).  Lani and Amara play cheuffer (spell check?) almost everyday and Lani teaches preschool to Amara and 3 other 3-year-olds, as well as volunteers in Lily's classroom every Friday.  Ah, a good life.  May God bless you all!"

Create your own free greeting

Wow, I can't believe that was sent out a month ago!  My, how time flies!

Day 17: Lani's idea- Think up an embarrassing or funny moment from your past and share it.
Lily and Amara love to hear Steve and I tell stories from our childhood, but that's not what happened that night.  Grandma Mapother babysat our children as Steve and I went to the temple.  Lily tells me that they couldn't think of any embarrassing moments so they all just told jokes.  There's always something to laugh about when Grandma is around!  Oh, and a big THANK YOU to grandma for babysitting so Steve and I could attend the temple.  It was very special to take time to draw closer to our Savior during the holiday season that was meant to celebrate Him.

Day 18: Amara's idea- Shadow Puppets!  Find a flashlight and try to make as many different shadow puppets as you can. 
I'd have to say I really enjoy all of Amara's ideas.  That night was crazy busy and so we had to save that activity for another night, but when we did it, we had fun!  Now where did our flashlight go?  I found Lily reading story books in my closet with it and I saw Amara packing it around the house for the next few days.  I'm not sure where it ended up.

Day 19: Lily's idea- Fold a paper into thirds (our family did fourths) and take turns drawing a creature.  The first person draws on the top third of the paper, then folds it over so the next person can't see what they drew, then the next person draws a body and arms on the next third of paper, and the last person draws the legs and feet.  Be sure not to peek until the drawing is finished.
Although we ran into a preschooler tantrum mid-way through this activity, I think it went well overall.  Our funny aliens are hanging up in the girls' bedroom.  Both Amara and Lily love looking at them.  What cool creatures we made!  Take a look:
This is how they hang on the wall-

First we have: Lani (hat), Steve (head), Lily (legs and feet) ...Amara was busy having a meltdown.

 This next one was: Dad(hat), Amara (face- can you see the eyes, nose and mouth?), Lily (body), Lani (legs)

 Next creature features: Lily (hat), Lani (head), Steve (body), Lily (legs) (again Amara is busy melting)

 And the final: Amara (hat), Lily(face), Lani (body), and Steve (legs)

Day 20: Steve's idea- Write a love note to one another and hide it somewhere where they'll be sure to find it later that day! 
This idea gets mega-points for being so great; however, we lost out because we never got around to doing this one.

Day 21: Lani's idea- Carve out some time tonight to drive around a look at Christmas lights. 
Steve was outnumbered when he suggested we do this one on a different night.  I knew if we didn't do it now, it wasn't gonna get done and it was a tradition my family did every Christmas season (I wonder what Osmond Lane looks like now.  That's where my family always went to view the pretty light displays).  So we bundled up and ventured out in the car, driving slowly in case of black ice and patchy fog.  It was so great to hear our backseat squeal with excitement at every light we passed.  "Christmas out my window!" is what the girls would say every time they saw a house decorated with lights.  Then Steve got in on the excitement and would glance down a street and if it looked like the neighborhood had lots of Christmas cheer, we'd make a turn.  We spent about 15-20 minutes looking at lights that night and it was indeed memorable and magical and WAY worth it!  Thanks Steve for giving in.

Day 22: Amara's/Lani's idea- Give yourselves only 5 or 10 minutes to create a homemade Christmas ornament using things around your house.  Time yourself and work independently, then when time is up, see what you came up with. 
I wasn't sure how well this was going to work, but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with what 5 minutes did.  The kids and I (Steve had mutual that night) had fun cutting up old Christmas cards and taping on an ornament hanger.  When Steve came home, he saw 3 new ornaments on the tree, and I loved spending time creating with my girls.

Day 23: Lily's idea- Give a back rub, foot massage, or back scratch to each other.
Our family lined up shortest to tallest and spent probably 2 or 3 minutes rubbing or scratching one anothers' backs and then switching off so everyone got a turn.

Day 24: Lani's idea- Give a gift to Jesus.  Sit down together and think of something you can do together to give a gift to Jesus, then write it down and put it on your tree where you'll see it and remember to do it.
It would have been a nice ending; however, we were gone out of town to Grandma and Grandpa Christensen's and didn't bring our calendar with us, so this is another great activity that didn't get done.

All the activities that we did turned out to be successful at doing what they were meant to- creating memories (even if some of those memories included tantrums or dragging feet).  One night after the girls were asleep, Steve sat down by me and said, "Hun, I just wanted to tell you thanks for doing this memory-making calendar thing.  I know I didn't always show support, but I am really happy with the way things turned out.  I think the girls had fun and we had fun and I think it would be a good thing to do again."  I totally agree.