Indulge......

One of my new favorite blogs is by Sande Chase over at A Gift Wrapped Life. Beyond her blog though she has an online store that is to die for. I have mothers day and a birthday coming up and I know where Joe will be sent to shop. Sande, a former interior designer offers beautiful gift box ensembles for every occasion and I mean EVERY occasion and all can be customized. I have to say though forget about whats in the package....it's the presentation, the wrapping, the colors....so opulent and luxurious looking that they have me wanting one. I think I'd order an empty box just to be able to sit and look at the wrapping. I want to sit salivating to find out whats inside but be unable to bring myself to undo all the beautiful work that went in to wrapping my precious gift.
On her blog she does offer tips on how to create such wrappings yourself but I know I could never do it as well. To get to the best part though Sande is doing a giveaway of one of her fabulous gift boxes just click here for the details. So hope on over girls for your chance to indulge....

To thine own self be true.....

Today through the magic of blogdom I found myself hitting what I like to call the blog jackpot......blogs about my favorite thing in the whole world (except of course for my children) France!! Anyone who knows me knows that ever since I was little I have had a love and lust for anything French. How I ended up here in the US instead of France is not unknown......I fell in love with an American. I will admit I still long to be there. I love the language, the food, the culture, the people, and most of al the smell in the air. I love walks along the Seine, a picknick near Notre Dame, Antibes, Vence, Amelie, Toile, Marie Antoinette (and yes I read the book before there was ever talk of a movie). I have never much spoken about my love of all things French, I was shy, afraid no one would 'get it'. No more, I am shouting from the roof tops I LOVE FRANCE and I have discovered a whole legion of people out there who share my passion and many off them surpass me.....finally.

The only place in my home, besides my cookbook shelf, that bears witness to my love affair is my bathroom.
It's nothing too fancy as we do have plans to overhaul the whole room and bring it up to date but, for now it's my little piece of France. The place I go with my glass of wine and my music and dream of days in Paris and along the French Riviera. To reminisce about walking down those steps, standing in awe at the Eiffel tower and the magnificent view from the top.....cafe and fresh baguette for breakfast....oh the memories.

I am lucky that my husband appreciates my love and treated me last Christmas to a French holiday with all my gifts having something "French" about them. One of these gifts was an amazing cookbook The Country Cooking of France by Anne Willan. It is a great book with wonderful pictures and descriptions of French life. To celebrate my discovery of fellow Francophiles I opened my cookbook, which admittedly I had not done since prior to becoming pregnant, and I made a delicious Gratinee Lyonnaise or French Onion Soup served up with sausage, a crispy fresh Boule from whole foods, a salad, some serious stinky cheese and of course a glass of Bordeaux. Rustic France at it's best!

I am very lucky though that my daughter attends the French American School and so I do get my daily dose of Joie de Vivre particularly in the evenings at bath time. Keeva has officially named bath time French time, a time when I am no longer Mammy but I become Maman and all conversation is in French. I am amazed how much she speaks and understands and her perfect pronunciation melts my heart.

So from now on I will no longer hide my passion. From now on along with stories of our sometimes boring, sometimes crazy life here in RI and Bento boxed lunches for Keeva I will be posting my passion for La Vie Francaise!

A new Bento Box....

On Saturday Keeva received a package in the mail. It was ripped open with all the excitement a five year old receiving a package in the mail can contain. Inside was a beautiful new princess Bento box sent to her from Lisa at Maisie Eats Bento. Thank you Lisa it was very sweet of you. Dinner that evening for Keeva was served in her new and vary favorite Bento box.

At last somewhere to send those bottle caps.



It always bothered me that you had to remove the plastic bottle top before putting your plastic bottle in the recycle bin. It's plastic why can't it be recycled too......well now thanks to the Aveda company it can. Someone at last has taken steps to remove these little plastics menaces from the landfills. Thanks to Aveda not only will these little caps be lessened in landfills around the country but they will lessen the danger to wildlife and ocean animals as these caps often make there way into the rivers and oceans causing great harm and death to the beautiful and, innocent creatures that live there. How it took so long for someone to finally realize the harm they do and their recycling potential I don't understand. Even Keeva at 4 years old was aware without promting of the danger they caused to sealife. Last year when we were at Dolphin Cove in the Bahamas Keeva, when walking on the walkway over the water to get on our boat back to the main Island dropped, accidentally, her bottle cap through the space in the decking. She was devastated and traumatized for a long time about how the Dolphins were going to eat it and get sick. A 4 year old was aware of the tragic consequences of something that happened accidentally but every time we throw a bottle cap in the trash we are purposefully partaking in the potential death of one of the Earths beautiful creatures. So come on people gather your hard plastic bottle caps of every kind, soda, toothpaste, peanut butter and take them to your nearest Aveda store or salon. Check here for a store/salon near you it's just another simple step in helping Mother Earth who has been so good to us.

She does belong at RISD

Many of you know I am not too fond of living her in little Rhody......it is a strange little place.....but there are some benefits like Keeva's school. We couldn't ask for a better education or community of people. One of the other benefits is the great art school we have in the city, RISD, they offer such great classes one of which is photography which someday yes, someday I will find the time and the money to participate in. The other thing they offer are great art classes for kids. Last semester Keeva took a class called Art Safari. They visited the natural history museum and then took what they saw and interpreted it into an art piece, they looked at nature and did the same. The pieces she brought home where amazing. This semester she is in a class called Playing with Imagination.....which is just that...stories made into art then they tell their own stories. I love the end of this class when they sit in a circle and get to explain their piece and ask question and critic the other childrens work. It really brings them out of themselves and helps them look at their work beyond just paper and glue but more as a creation with meaning. Keeva just loves going there and if anyone mentions RISD she is so proud to go to her 'other school' there. Well I don't know if she has been watching the actual RISD students..........who are definitely colorful and creative....as we pass through the campus on the way to school everyday.....but I had laid out Keevas clothes for her for Tuessday as I always do but when she came downstairs she wasn't wearing what I had laid out. Instead she had this outfit on..........which doesn't look bad but, the thing about it is she had gone into the basement and pulled out this dress, yes it is a dress, that Pauline our Brazilian exchange student had given her when she was just two. Keeva decided it would look great as a top......I have to agree. Very imaginative and hey it recycling (hmmm......wonder if I can find anymore like it down there?). So when I saw her I said without thinking you do belong at RISD....her response "of course I do I'm an Artist...don't you know I'm going to be a photographer art teacher".......

Bento #6

Yesterday was our first "official" Bento lunch day........the excitement was uncontainable. I'm sure sweet dreams of cheesy bears and tulip sandwiches were had on Tuesday night. I really wanted to do a great job and surprise her when she opened her Bento at lunch time but my imaginative juices were not flowing too well. So we settled on butterfly jam sandwiches, tulip apples with morning dew (purple sprinkles), oranges, grapes, cheese stick and a candy egg for good meaure. When Keeva got up on Wednesday morning and saw that the Bento Box even had a little bag to get carried in well that was just the icing on the cake. I was a bit of a mean Mummy though and wouldn't let her have a peek at what was in it before going to school...I told her she would have to wait until lunch but Joe, who is being a husband of the year this week is driving her to school as I am working on getting Dillon into a routine, left her at early drop off.....playtime in the cafeteria before school. Elvire, the teachers asisstant in Keeva's class was supervising and aparantly when Keeva told her she had a 'special' lunch that day they both took a peek.....Keeva was so excited to let me know that she had been 'naughty' and found out what she had before lunch....the telling of this was just to darn cute.

Too Cute

Party Overload

This weekend Keeva had two parties in one day!! The first was a backyard party with animals. I thought cute cuddly animals......what was I thinking. Yeah, there was a rabbit, a chinchilla, the cutest little hedgehog. There were turtles of all sizes...cute. Then there were the snakes, little snakes, I was breathing until he took out the Boa. That thing was eyeing up the kids....O.M.G...I was having heart failure. There the guy was holding the snake maybe three feet from the kids circled around him, and Mr Boa was weaving back and forward looking at the kids and who was dead center in his sites......KEEVA. Now I know Boa's are not poisonous but when those eyes are looking at your daughter and the head is bobbing infront of her that doesn't matter.....it's a snake dammit! As if that wasn't bad enough then he takes an ALLIGATOR out and he has it just sitting on his lap...not holding it tight with it's jaw clamped as I would have liked...no just sitting resting. He causually commented how he'd had him for several years and he'd never bitten him.....Yeah well I had my dog for 8 years before he snapped at me.....clamp that jaw down buddy!!

She's all dressed up and ready to party
the littlest Turtle in the world...isn't that adorable

this guy is cute too

Keeva was soooo happy when she was told she could hold the Chinchilla

Then I turned around and she was holding a snake.....she doesn't look too sure about it
now she's getting a bit too comfortable for my liking....I'm just happy she didn't want to hold the Boa

Thankfully I didn't see her patting this guy...hold that mouth closed man

oh thank goodness back to the cuddly critters....phew!

Our second party was in the evening and was much more relaxing. Our friends live in an apartment in a converted mill and they were throwing a PJ & a movie Pajama party. The building they live in has this cool little media room with a large screen comfy chairs and the kids could make as much noise and mess as they wanted it was great. The party was done with a movie theater team.....the cupcakes were frosted to look like popcorn...they were adorable. The movie was really interesting too....Kirikou and the Sorceress. It was a very interesting movie...not your typical glossy kids movie. It opens with a woman in an African village giving birth to a baby...a liitle boy who can already speak and walk......Kirikou. His mother tells him how an evil sorceress has dried up their spring and eaten all males of the village except of one, his Uncle. Kirikou decides, he will go withhis Uncle to the sorceress and help him. And so the story goes....when it started I really thought the kids would not be too interesed....I was wrong. Keeva loved it...who would have thought.

Bento #5


This Bento biz is starting to challenge my imagination. Missy Keeva wants something new and exciting everyday....there is only so much I can do with her limited taste buds....although today you may notice lettuce underneath....well guess what she requested it there. Now, she didn't eat it but she did ask for it. I consider that progress....next step a bite then, who knows, maybe a whole leaf!! I need some new ideas though. I must ask Maisies Mum how she makes those ham and cheese flowers...hmm!!

Bento #4

We're really getting into this Bento lunch.....I'm just so happy that she is eating all her food with excitment and she is snacking less for the rest of the day. I'm not looking forward to next week when she goes back to school. I told her she could take a lunch with her one day a week but I know it's going to be a fight....she'll want it every day. I'll feel bad as she does enjoy the Bento lunch so much but she does get a four course luch at school which has been paid for through the rest of the year. Anyway, that's a fight that's a few days away so for today we had peanut butter finger sandwiches topped with teddy bear cheese with Hagel Slag faces (Austrian choclate sprinkles), chicken breast pieces, ketchup in a teddy bear sauce bottle and grapes.....again not a morsel left

Bento #3



Keeva woke this morning and all she wanted to do was make her "Bentum" lunch. She could not wait for lunch time to get here. I've never seen her get so excited about food.....cannot wait until she starts eating new foods. Today she had shells with real aged cheddar and rabbit ham topping, heart shaped cantaloupe, strawberries, teddy bear jello and a bunny cookie she had made for Easter. She ate the whole thing.

Little boy in a Big tub

I decided to surprise Keeva by putting Dillon in the tub with Keeva. I just expected to dangle his feet in as he hates having a bath, or at least he does in his little tub. He loved being in the tub with Keeva. I couldn't believe it. He was kicking his feet and lauging. He watched every move his big sister made and cried when I took him out. i think this will be a regular tub time happening from now on.

I didn't mind the tickling the toes bit......
I'm not too sure about this leaning back thing though

No wait.....I love this.....
!!Isn't that smile precious!!

"Well then I'll get it myself"

Yesterday was one of those days when Keeva is just hungry, hungry hungry. After cereal, cheese stick, yogurt and goodness knows what else I said "No you can't have a peanut butter sandwich, dinner will be ready soon". So Little Miss I don't know how decided that she was big enough to make her own sandwich. I couldn't believe she got out the bread and peanut butter and lo and behold made herself a sandwich. I just had to get this on camera.

Pavement Picasso

Julian Beaver is an artist who is famous for his anamorphic art which can be seen on pavements in England, France, Germany, USA, Austrailia and Belgium. In his art he creates an amazing illusion when viewed from the right angle so that the renderings appear to be be 3D rather than flat as they actually are. If you can believe it...some people actually see his work as graffiti. Check out his site for more. There is even one in which people are actually avoiding a hole in the ground.......
I'd love to see some of these in real life!

BENTO BOOTY.....it"s here

I am sooooo excited.....our BENTO booty arrived today. Keeva is over the moon. She did always like playing with food...coookie cutter sandwiches are not new around here but all this fancy smancy other stuff is. Now to figure out how to work some of it.....hmm.

Of course we had to give it a whirl today....couldn't just let it sit there while we had a boring nondescript lunch so toady.........we had 'tulip' jam sandwiches, chopped up cheese stick, ham 'teddy bears', 'checkered' apple and strawberries. I wish I had been able to get a photo of her or even a video as she was hilarious......she even made up a song for the occasion, but my battery run out after this shot so that one will have to be filed in my memory box.

Dillon's first Easter.......

in his little suit....I couldn't resist when I saw it at the store....doesn't he look like a little man...actually reminds me of someone at a weeding in Ireland after a few pints


What she just say.......Mum!!!!


Me & my handsome boy.....

Bad Bunny, Bad, Bad Bunny!

The Easter bunny was not a good bunny this year.....but then it was not the Easter bunnies fault. Unknown to poor mister floppy ears Keeva and Daddy had played Easter bunny a few weeks ago and filled eggs with candies. So when Keeva found the eggs that Mr Bunny had left yesterday she was sure Mummy had set the egg hunt up and used the eggs her and Daddy had been playing with. It took some convincing but I did it mainly because Nana and Grandad had set a hunt up at their house with stuffed toys, creme eggs, lovely gift boxes filled with hershy kisses so the mystery of the tall fluffy guy with floppy ears was saved....PHEW!!
The joy before the hunt....better loot here she's been told

A beuatiful bag full of shiny stuff and it's pink too

A Cadburys Creme Egg, a cadburys creme egg....I can't look at the camera I'm too excited

Okay it's getting cold out here....I've had enough take me inside

Why is it so cold out...there's more out there I just know there is

Help the cheerios have her!!!

I came home form leaving Keeva to school this morning and was greeted by a very loud barking snowball then I saw what he was barking about. Piccola had raided the cheerio box and......well..... I guess she got stuck! Thankfully she mustn't have been in the bag too long as she was still breathing....prehaps she won't try that again.

This laughing thing can wear you out!!

This laughing thing is great and sounds come with it too......it's cool
and the more I do it the more I want to....ahh I can't stop

Oh wait it makes me pretty tired....oh yawn

Oh man what a workout.....I'm wiped

Her Royal Pickyness

In my attempts to get Keeva to be more adventurous with food I have become a 'BENTO' girl, even though I have only made one luch so far and it did contain the 'Usual Suspects'. I always knew, well I knew since she decided to become one, that Keeva was a picky eater and I thought she ate much the same as other picky eaters. I swear as a younger child she ate everything , now her tastes are very limited. Since finding Maisies BENTOblog and have looked at what other so called picky eaters were chomping down on. I was amazed Keeva eats nothing in comparison. So......I made this list last night of what she will actually eat it's not very broad and I have to remeber that she will only eat these foods certain ways so dressing them up dosen't help. Ican't put broccoli on pizza, in pasta sauce....it has to be plain broccoli on the side. Meats can't have anything on them or be in anything, except for stewing beef in stew.

Breads
Wheat
Italian
English muffin (must be warmed not toasted)

Meats/Seafood
Chicken
Beef
Pork
Shrimp

Vegetables
Broccoli
Sweet Peas
Carrots (only when mashed in stew)
Mashed potatoes (but only mine)

Fruits
Watermelon
Cantaloupe
Strawberries
Grapes
Apples

Pastas/Grains
Penne w/marinara
Shells w/white cheddar
Mac n'cheese Yogurt
Rice (only from our indian take out place)
Plain cheese pizza
Blueberry muffin
Pancakes, plain

Dairy
Milk
Soy Milk
Cheese (she will try any except blue)

I forgot Peanut Butter or Nutella sandwiches.......a staple around here for snack but not allowed at school.
This list is not exclusive and can have no variations!
So.............my goal in BENTOing is to introduce a funky new food all dressed up and attractive. You know like in the movies when they take the geek, give them a makeover and suddenly everyone falls in love with them and forgets they were ever a geek to start with........yep hoping for the same effect.........don't think I'll ever get to this point though as much as I'd lovev to be able to do it and see her eat it!!