CumberFest Blog

We enjoyed a long weekend celebrating Valentine’s Day and President’s Day. Sydney has finally recovered from her double ear infections, although it was a long week last week with Jim out of town. Luckily we had some down time over the weekend to relax a bit. We did some celebrating of Valentine’s day, first at a daycare party and then we hosted a little party for some friends from my Mom’s group. We also got in a ride on the merry-go-round which Sydney loved!

Since watermelon is Sydney’s favorite food, I made heart-shaped watermelon “pops” for the V-day party at daycare. The kids really enjoyed them – even Lauren ate TWO and she doesn’t usually like watermelon!

Watermelon Pops for daycare party

We had plans to head downtown to visit the aquarium on Saturday, but by the time Sydney got up from her morning nap, it was a bit late. So we headed to the mall where they have a merry-go-round and took Sydney for a ride. (Well, Daddy did. I took the pictures.) She was unsure of it at first, but quickly warmed up and spent the ride smiling ear to ear!

On the Merry-go-Round with Daddy

Can you believe I get to play with this whole pan?!

Sunday morning, Daddy made these pancakes for Sydney. The plan was to make pigs, but we think they look more like foxes or dogs! She didn’t seem to mind though.

Oink, Oink!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend too!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Sydney had her 15 month check-up last night. She is growing like a weed! Her stats:

50th % for head size
70th % for weight (23.7 lbs)
80th % for height (30 inches)

She shot up from the 70th% for height at her last check up – which explains why her pants are all getting too short for her!

During the course of the exam, the doctor noted that she has double ear infections – no surprise there because:

1. She has had a bad cold the past week and has never once had a cold without getting an ear infection (or two) later
2. She has been a cranky-pants the last days and waking several times at night
3. Jim is out of town again and as we all know in my house, bad things happen when Daddy is out of town!

She also has a streppy rash of bumps all over her bum and is cutting a molar on the top. Poor thing.

She seems to be doing much better today though after some antibiotics and rash cream. Too bad I can’t say the same for the little boy she bit at daycare this morning. Grrr. Hopefully it is just because of the teething…

We have managed to survive our first week of no restaurants.  In some ways, it has been very difficult, but in other ways, very easy.  We started on Super Bowl Sunday and the following work week was fairly easy.  We usually do pretty well at eating at home on weeknights, with the occasional pizza ordered in or take-out Chinese food.  I had planned out meals fairly well and the house was stocked.  Our dinners for last week consisted of homemade pizza, cheese manicotti, braised pork chops, corn chowder and more!  

The hard part was the weekend.  We met some friends for a kids theater show on Saturday and it was hard not to meet for lunch before or for a snack afterwards.  Kate and I also went to movies with friends over the week and it was painful not to be able to buy popcorn. Thankfully we have nice friends who let us mooch off of them!  Saturday night was a dinner party in the city, which was good.  We were all supposed to bring something made with bacon so thankfully we could still attend.  Had they all gone out to eat at a restaurant, we could not have joined them.  So clearly the social aspect of eating together is the toughest part of this challenge.

A few people have asked me why in the world we are doing this. Is it for health reasons or money reasons they ask.  I think it’s mostly just to see if we can do it.  It is also to break us of the habit of getting so much fast food and of spending so much money on food in general.  I will admit that I don’t think we will save too much this month.  We’re spending much more on groceries than I normally do.  Part of that is because John has gotten into making bentos as well, and he’s spending a lot of money on supplies.  Could he just take leftovers or a sandwich to work every day like I’ve been doing? Yes.  Does he want to? No.  He says if he cannot go out to lunch he has to make a super great lunch so he doesn’t feel deprived. So that part is kind of defeating some of the purpose of this.  He used to spend $50/week on lunches out and this week alone he spent $80 on lunch supplies. Hopefully that number will go down over the month.  But if, at the end of the month, we are broken of the habit of eating out so much, it’s probably best for us in the long run, both financially and health-wise.

But that doesn’t mean I am not still craving a Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuit breakfast like crazy in the mornings.  Next time I do this, hopefully I won’t be pregnant!

Inspired by another WALL-E bento I saw online:

Body is made of a turkey and mayo sandwich topped with a slice of cheese.  ”Legs” are crusts of whole grain bread.  Eyes are also sandwiches cut into ovals topped with black olives.  He also has goldfish, letter crackers from TJs and mixed fruit (strawberries, pineapple and blackberries).  He ate this entire thing, I was impressed!  Lauren had no idea who this was when I showed it to her even though she has seen the movie. Guess I was not too close to the original!

Happy Birthday to a very special lady in Denver. We cannot wait to see you in August when you come see the new baby. Hope today is wonderful and that Gramps treats you like a queen!

Love,

Leslie, John, Lauren and James

Kate and I are not football fans.  Or really any organized sports fans.  It’s just not our cup of tea. So usually every Superbowl Sunday we go to the movies and see a really girlie movie or take advantage of the empty malls and do some shopping.  The only problem is that I love to make “game food”.  When else do you have an excuse to make totally fattening, cheesy and delicious food?!

So on Sunday night at 5 PM, we decided last minute to throw our own little Superbowl party just without the football!  We looked at what we each had at home and threw together a nice little spread.  We ate at 6:15 and even I was impressed with what we came up with so quickly.  (It helped that we’d both gone shopping earlier and stocked up for our month-long eat-in challenge!).

Buffalo Chicken Cheese Balls

RECIPE: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aaron-mccargo,-jr./buffalo-chicken-cheese-balls-recipe/index.html 

Kate made these for the first time ever and they turned out fairly well.  The sauce was not so tasty and we both thought they would be better dipped in buffalo sauce.  But they were crunchy and cheesy, always a good thing!

Potato Skins

RECIPE: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Baked-Potato-Skins/Detail.aspx

These were super quick to throw together as I had 4 small leftover baked potatoes already in the fridge!

Alton Brown’s Mini Man Burgers

RECIPE: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/mini-man-burgers-recipe/index.html

This was John’s contribution. I love the name, Mini Man Burgers!  They are baked in a large square in the oven and then cut down into small squares just the right size for the potato buns.  Very fast and easy!

Pepperoni Pizza Bites

RECIPE: http://www.pillsbury.com/Recipes/ShowRecipe.aspx?rid=17703

These have been a favorite of ours for ages now! You just close a small square of pizza dough around some cheese and pepperoni and bake them off. Serve with jarred pizza sauce. Easy!  I was rushing so they aren’t too pretty but they tasted great.

Spinach Artichoke Dip

RECIPE: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Hot-Spinach-and-Artichoke-Dip/Detail.aspx

Yes, everyone has a recipe for this.  I like this particular one as it includes Boursin cheese and give it a little extra “kick”.

So there you have it, our Superbowl Sunday “party”.  The kids seemed to enjoy eating a non-dinner  (even if they mostly just ate the fruit!) and we finished off the night by watching a few episodes of Gilmore Girls.  Way better than football!

Les has not been feeling great with her pregnancy and I thought I would give her a little time to rest and relax a bit. So I took Jamie and Lauren for the weekend (or for a “two-night sleepover” as Jamie called it). We had a lot of fun, but I think she will have her hands full with three kiddos in the fall. I am wiped out from just one weekend of taking care of three!

Since it was cold and still icy outside, we did a lot of indoor “actibities” as Lauren says. First we made some heart shaped rice krispie treats and decorated them for Valentine’s Day. Sydney was not sure what to do at first, but quickly learned that sprinkles + frosting = YUM!

Yum!

We played with some Play Dough as well – all three of them loved that. So did I come to think of it because everyone was *quiet* for a long time!

Fun for all ages!

I had found a big Lego Bionicle set on Clearance at Target after Christmas and gave it to Jamie. He spent HOURS playing with it.

Jamie's new toy

While Jamie did Lego, Lauren and Sydney enjoyed playing with some dried beans on the floor. They both really got into it, as you can see from the video below.

Playing with Beans from Kate Forte on Vimeo.

I will be cleaning up beans for ages.

They also both followed poor Peyton around the house trying to hug him over and over:

Save me!

It was a fun weekend spending time with all the kids, which ended in a nice visit to Leslie’s to NOT watch the Super Bowl and enjoy some yummy party food. Oh and a really sound night’s sleep for me!

More weekend pix.

I caught an interesting episode of Oprah last month.  She had Suzie Orman on and they were discussing America’s financial situation and what we could all be doing better in this tight economy.  Suzie challenged America to do 3 things:

1. Don’t spend money for an entire day.
2. Don’t use any credit cards for an entire week.
3. Don’t eat out at a restaurant for an entire month.

Thankfully we are blessed to do fairly well financially but John and I really thought about the 3 things she had outlined. The first two are no brainers and we did them the following week.  But the 3rd is really hard for us.  I try and plan meals as best as I can but we do tend to eat out at least 2 times a week for dinner and a few other times on the weekends.  John buys his lunch almost every day which can really add up!  We are fortunate to have a subsidized cafeteria at my work so me buying lunch for $3/day isn’t too bad.  But we can certainly do better!

So we decided to take the plunge.  So starting yesterday, February 1, we will only be eating meals at/from home.  I know for some people this is a normal thing and eating out is a rare treat. But not for us.  So bye bye Starbucks, Chick-Fil-A or Chipotle.  Hello brown bag lunches, yogurt and fruit for breakfast and homemade pizza.   We can still eat away from the house as long as we pack our own food (good thing I am adept at making bentos!). And if someone else wants to BUY us food at a restaurant, that’s OK, too.  But no spending our own money on food besides what I buy at the grocery store.  This should be interesting…

And yes, it is no coincidence we picked the shortest month of the year for this!

No, I haven’t stopped making bentos for James. Are you kidding me, that boy loves him some bentos!  I’ve just had to make more boring ones lately due to my extreme exhaustion at the end of the day (thanks a lot, Baby #3!).  But I thought I’d share a few quick ones that I’ve managed to make recently:

PB sandwich with a cheese and raisin gingerbread man, wheat thins, Gerber baby puffs, strawberries and carrots.

Pineapple butterflies, PB pretzels, grape and raspberry kebabs, lima beans, cheese quesadilla butterflies, banana bread topped with a butterfly butter pat and meat sticks.

The fox is made of peanut butter, bread, raisin eye, apricot ears, a banana and a red grape nose. He also has more grapes, strawberries, raisins and 2 types of pretzels.

Caterpillar is made of bananas, peanut butter and pretzels (and chocolate chip eyes).  James went CRAZY over the caterpillar for some reason!  He also has some strawberry stars, homemade caramel popcorn with chocolate coated sunflower seeds, lima beans and veggie booty and Annie’s natural spaghettios topped with a cheese flower.

The ladybugs are made of strawberries, chocolate chips and grapes. He also has black olive kebabs, yogurt with granola and cranberies on top, meat sticks and star shaped carrots topped with a cheese tulip, more grapes and pretzel sticks.

This last one was actually one by John!  I was really sick one night and just couldn’t stand to be around food. Jamie had a great day and was begging for a bento. So John made this one. I think he did a GREAT job for his first ever bento! No idea what kind of sandwich this is.  The BE GREEN in cheese refers to him getting a green behavior day.  Those white things are marshmallows. And he has grapes and applesauce.

So there you have it, a bento round up.  I start my 2nd trimester next week and am hoping this all-day nausea and fatigue let up and I have more energy to make fun bentos again!

If you want a closer view of an of these, they are in my Flickr bento collection.

We *finally* got some snow in Virginia this week.  I think we halted all snow production last year by obtaining a snow blower from Jim’s family!

Jim and I both rushed home after work to take Sydney out to experience the snow. Of course I first had to dress her for the weather – something I had not really planned for. Luckily Leslie had given me an 18-months snowsuit that our sister-in-law had passed along to her.  And I had a pair of Lauren’s old boots that were, oh.. two sizes too big for Sydney! Needless to say she wasn’t able to walk around very well in the get up, but it did the trick!

Oops - I fell over in all these clothes!

I had planned ahead on the sled part though and had picked up a few toddler sleds at a garage sale over the summer. We strapped Sydney in and took her for a ride around the yard and driveway. She wasn’t sure about it at first but soon loved it!

 

Faster, Daddy!

She also enjoyed eating the snow!

This stuff tastes good!

Of course the best part of the evening occurred when Leslie showed up with Jamie and Lauren to sled on our hill. As we were all playing, Jamie says “Hey look at our car, Mom – cool!”.  We all look over to see it sliding backwards by itself down my driveway! It slid right into our neighbors yard and hit the cable pole, where it came to a halt before we could get to it. Good times! Luckily the cable pole was only bent and no one in the neighborhood had any service interruption – now that would have been a disaster!