Around Here

Having Jude and Indigo back in school has given more structure to our days, especially in comparison to the meandering pace of summer.  I feel like I have a little more space... room to exhale.  Rather than spending it on creative endeavors, I've instead wanted to put our house back together.  Which has, surprisingly, felt really good.

Despite/in spite of my recent creativity slump, I did make some reusable snack bags for the kids' lunches/snacks. 

We aim for a (mostly) plastic free lunch and have been loving these and these containers.  Yet I was surprised by how many ziplocs bags I was still using.  Reusable snack bags were in order.  After doing a little research I decided on this tutorial for 100% cotton bags that can be thrown in the wash.  The kids loved choosing the fabrics and I felt so thrifty busting those scraps!

And speaking of snacks, one of Evie and my favorite things to do while the kids are away at school is cook and bake together.  Here are some favorite recipes that we've been enjoying lately.

::  These pecan caramel rolls  - made dairy free with Earth Balance.  I could not stop thinking about them.

::  These oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, again made with Earth Balance and they were perfect.  We also doubled the amount of chocolate chips and nixed the walnuts.  

::  This basil-tomato-balsamic pasta, a staple around here lately.

::  This play dough recipe, made the best yet by reducing the amount of salt to 1/4 cup and doubling the amount of cream of tarter to 2 tsp.  It's super sticky at first so I just plop the gooey mess onto parchment paper.  But never fear - when it cools, it is perfection.

I take this picture so often, but, really, can you blame me?