Back to School Lunches

Lunch food c/o Whole Foods. It's our favorite place to shop for nutritious ingredients to keep our family healthfully fed, and their website is FULL of gorgeous and healthy recipes for the family.

When Sophie started kindergarten last year, the whole lunch-packing thing was pretty daunting. She found out quickly that her SF restaurant palate did not approve of purchasing school lunches, and apart from "pancake with sausage day," she requested home packed lunches every.single.day. 

Apparently I was NOT alone in my reluctance to pack homemade lunches... I recently found out that 90% of parents surveyed would rather help with carpool or homework than pack lunches. What? Yes, I know. It can be a brutal morning routine... and yet...

Is packing a lunch so bad?

By the end of last year, (apart from the dragging myself out of bed every morning factor), I was secretly enjoying the lunch packing. I'm not going to lie- It took awhile (like the entirety of last fall, haha!) to get Sophie to approve of the my lunches -- "mommy, I was kind of hungry when I was done with my lunch. Can you add more tomorrow?" // "mommy, I had too much lunch and I had to sit for SO LONG to finish. Can you make it smaller?" // "mommy I love cheese, but not that kind in my lunchbox. I prefer the other kind..." // "My apple hurt my loose tooth!" // Kids are way too honest sometimes. 

One day, it clicked. I was doing lunches wrong. Enough of the large sandwiches and whole fruit (apple, oranges, etc) ...I changed my formula, and started loving the packing process. It totally appealed to my childhood self to create meals in this new way... but more importantly- Sophie LOVED the changes, and was coming home happy with her lunches-- finally!

Here's what I realized: variety is huge for a kid. Chopping things to small sizes is almost always nicer for them. Small bites of good food, and having color and brightness involved are extra perks. My kiddos- thankfully- adore their fruit and veggies, so I include at least two per day in a small compartment. Sugary sweets aren't totally off-limits, but they're not recommended by the schools. That said, I like to include something for Sophie that is a nutritious sweet (her current favorite are these rasberry fig bars that check all the right boxes). Rolling lunch meat and adding a fun animal pick to secure them is a big win. The right crackers or a cheese stick can be added to round out the lunch, and we're all set!! 

Today, and probably monthly throughout the school year, I will share a few lunch ideas with you. It's something I love, it's something I'm given feedback on daily (thanks Soph!), and it's an area I really do enjoy these days.

Here are just three meals from our week that are incredibly simple to prep, and would generally be well-received by the little ones: 

Day 2:

• Salami rolled and secured with a pick.
• Crackers! These are brown rice crackers and I love them, but full disclosure: Sophie prefers wheat thins as her standard cracker. To each their own!
• Celery sticks! I often add hummus on the side of carrots or celery, but it definitely makes for more messes in the lunchbox.
• Rasberries. 
• Rasberry fig bar.

Day 1:

• Tiny triangle turkey sandwich with one roll of extra turkey meat, secured with a food pick.
• Nectarine, cut.
• Snap Pea Crisps (I always stock these! They're a favorite around here)
• Raisins-- WF sells a big box that lasts much longer than those tiny ones.
• Greek strawberry yogurt with a couple berries (for things that should be chilled, sticking them in the freezer for about 30 minutes before school can keep them cool until lunch!). OR these cute ice packs are great!

Day 3: (more of a traditional lunch, which is great once or twice a week to add variety)

• Ham sandwich (for school, I keep sandwiches to meat, cheese, and mayo or mustard. Lettuce and tomato make the bread soggy by lunch, so it's best to skip!)
• Rasberries... I stock at least one berry in bulk for the week because they're a favorite lunch staple, and I switch between blueberries, rasberries, and strawberries weekly.
• Terra Veggie Chips with Sea Salt. 

Whole Foods spoiled us with some fantastic snacks for us to try, and the CUTEST snack containers. They're collaborating with PBS kids to create adorable backpacks, lunch containers, lunch bags, and pencil box that are all made responsibly with the bright colors and patterns that kids adore. I let my girls pick their favorites and they were giggling with excitement to show their daddy when he got home. 

ALSO- they give great lunch ideas and recipes for kid-friendly meals for the family on their website.... it's definitely worth checking out if you're in a food funk. :) How did I never know this existed?? It's full of amazing options. 

Happy new school year!! Hope this helps the back-to-school process! 

xoxo

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Post is not sponsored. Whole Foods provided products and food for our family to enjoy... all opinions are my own. x

Home Sweet Home: Bedroom

I've shown bits and pieces of home throughout my time writing on this space, but never given any full visual of our home sweet home.

I love home designs, home blogs, home magazines. Because of all the gorgeous visuals I've seen of other homes, I find it difficult to share bits of my own home- why? Because I know it's imperfect. I am not Emily Henderson! ;) That said, I love our home!!! We have invested a ton of time and energy making our home "us," and I've decided it's going to be a regular thing to share it here. I get so excited to see the inside of friends' homes, so I will share the inside of our home more often-- so come on in-- to our bedroom!  

I think bedrooms always gets most neglected. It's the easy room to say "aaaa, there's company coming! Shove all the unfolded laundry in my room and shut that door, quick!" ....Just me? I think not. It took us the longest time to really invest any energy into creating a lovely space for us, because it's the least seen. It's in the back of our home, so unless guests make a conscious effort to get back there, it's the easiest to dismiss. 

The re-vamp of the bedroom started with a terrible, free "makeover" we received that had to be undone asap. While we were thankful for effort of a team to renovate our bedroom for the purpose of promoting their work, we were most thankful to donate every piece when they were done. Before the makeover, we had a cracked headboard from a bed we had purchased through Craigslist, and a broken dresser. We were not interested in setting either back in our room. The time was now- carpe diem! Our first ever grown-up (non hand-me-down or second-hand) beautiful new bed and dresser were purchased during a West Elm flash sale (be on the lookout when you're in the market for furniture! The deals make all the difference!!), and both made me positively giddy. We've had them for almost a year, and I'm still thrilled every time I go into my room and snuggle in cozy blankets, or open the drawers to place folded laundry. 

Everything else progressed slowly but surely. Only recently have I actually gotten FOCUSED on completing the room though (nesting will do that! I'm telling you-- having a new baby coming has been essential in getting this home in order ;)... We recently got- dun dun duuuuuun: ART! 

A room with nice furniture is great and all, but the things that really make a room homey are walls covered with beautiful images, and greenery to feed off of it all. Almost every piece in our bedroom is from Minted, and we could not be happier with it. 

Minted has endless options. Neutral colors, soft colors, and my personal preference: bolder colors. I'm SO in love with the gold foil U.S. map, and their frames are SIMPLE to hang (ohhh a complex or poorly frame is a nightmare... I'm looking at you- ikea Ribba frames!). I'm not a photographer, so I'm not quite sure how to fit the room properly into the camera frames, but for your reference, the bed is facing the dresser with the new Minted gallery wall. I have tweeked the objects on the dresser about 100x and will do so probably about 100 more times, because that's how I am, but I'm happy with the fullness and homey-ness we have in there for the time being. It's really become my favorite room to get some peaceful "me time." We love being able to have an area to enjoy our own grown-up space, sans toys and trinkets (though I love the toys and trinkets too!;)

On my wall: Pineapple Print, Twinkling Lights Print, & Bricks Print, US. Foil Map, Yellow Bricks

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Framed prints were provided for review. All opinions are our own! We love Minted!

The Making of Macarons

Macarons.

There's a hype, yes. When it comes to macarons created perfectly by The Sugar Studio, the hype is 100% justified. I've been eating Hilary's macarons for ages {and even had her sweets grace the tables on Sophie & Maggie's most recent birthday parties!!}, and it was high time for a macaron making lesson. Brian made my dream come true a couple months ago when we took an evening macaron making class... it was worth every penny. 

We arrived at The Sugar Studio around dinnertime, and though I probably would have thought it acceptable to have eaten macarons AS my dinner, Hilary had thoughtfully provided a spread of delicious for us all. Watermelon, mint, onion feta salad {similar recipe here} was incredible and I want to make it for everything now. She also had cheeses and bread like any perfect hostess. We mingled and sat in her pretty lounging area, and then got to work.

Macarons are delicate and following the recipe requires precision. I have a little OCD, and so does Hilary, so we're a good match. She made sure I mixed perfectly, and I made sure my circles were exactly the right size for the cookie sheet. We picked our own colors for the shells and filled them one of three flavors she offered. While the shells baked, we went back for seconds on the cheeses and watermelon. YES.

Voila! 

We only took about 100 home with us. Don't even ask how long it took for us to finish eating them... it was embarrassingly fast.

DO take the class, though. As a date, with friends, private parties, etc. It's the BEST. 

xoxo.

The Sugar Studio: 308 Alida Way, South San Francisco, CA 94080. 

Summary of a Nutritious Week

Today I put sugar in my coffee and rice in my chicken soup. 

It felt right.

I survived 6.75 days on the Whole30, and realized it's simply not for me in my lifestyle right now. I'm not lazy, but I also don't have or make the time it takes to get fresh groceries, and make all of my meals from scratch for breakfast, lunch and dinner for all of us daily. Super discouraging also when you check your almond milk carton when you get home, rather than remembering at the store, and then realizing it has a small amount of added sugar, and having to retrace back to the store, and then find out that only Whole Foods carries almond milk without sugar, and your children are crankier by the minute... 

Perhaps this is only my experience? 

I don't have the luxury of a car or a nanny or a chef, or a cleaning crew. It's just me and my little brigade of minis and I'm maxed out. So my almond milk has a little sugar, and so does the salmon glaze that I've added to dinner. I'm cool with that. Everything in moderation, eh? I'm moving on from all that. 

I have learned a bit from the near-week that I did follow the rules {mostly}. Ready for it? Okay, here you go:

• Almond butter with bananas is just as delicious as peanut butter and far healthier. In fact, it's an overall perfectly acceptable permanent substitute. Do try it!
• Sweet potato fries. YES. Baked, salt, olive oil, DONE. 
• Burgers without buns are also totally acceptable, as long as the condiments are there. I didn't miss the bread.
• Keeping good basics in the house is entirely more helpful than one would even think! It forces you to make better choices on the regular!
• To contrast, keeping chips and ultra-processed snacks around are a good way to maintain an unhealthy balance.
• There are bars that make healthy snacking a breeze and they're good to stock... my favs were select LunaBars, Trader Joe's all-fruit bars, and Nakd gluten free snacks {pictured at the bottom- they came c/o Nak'd and are gluten free, dairy free, no added sugar! Brilliant}.

Without further ado, may I present to you my proudest meals of Whole30. The first was actually my mom's crazy delicious salad, the second is grated zucchini and sweet potatoes, mixed with egg and seared in olive oil with another egg, tomato, lettuce and onion atop. It.was.good. The third was my favorite though: ceviche! Tons of lime juice, diced tomatoes, avocado, onion, and baby shrimp... I'll be making it on the regular {but now with tortilla chips on the side!}

One last tip! If you're going to do Whole30- and I commend you with my whole heart if you do- do yourself a favor and check the following hashtags on Instagram #whole30 #jennaswhole30. SO many beautiful recipes and a whole support system of people working toward the same goal! 

xoxo,

Kate

We Love Valentines

We made valentines! 

The ages of my children are perfect right now. You know how you go through phases as parents that you say "oh, I won't be bummed when she outgrows ____ ," but right now I'm at a point where I'm saying "Ohhh girls, don't grow up!! Stay little, my babies!" 

That being said, we made valentines this year and it was FUN. That's saying something. Last year, it was just messy. This year, we found the simplest and most adorable valentines on MerMag today, and got after it. Sometimes other people just have really, really good ideas, and there's no need to reinvent the wheel. 

Here are some others I'm LOVING around the good old web:

Camille Styles | Cakies | A Subtle Revelry

Cakies | The Alison Show | Hostess with the Mostess

Maison Cupcakes | How About Orange | Martha Stewart

Sooo have fun!!! Enjoy! And if you want to go back in time and see what I created last year for Valentine's day, HERE are a few ideas I gave The Honest Company blog. xo.