Today's Bento ...

... pretty much brought to you by Costco. Oh, and a whole lotta love. As you can see, I photographed it on my desk, hence our mouse pad, and also in utter darkness. Yes, winter is upon us and therefore no more sunlight. Alas.

CLOCKWISE STARTING AT TOP LEFT

· Beef and cheese sandwich on one of those thin/flat hamburger buns

· Asian pear slice

· Mini carrots

· Cucumber cars

· Grape tomatoes

· Mini ginger Christmas cookies

· A rainbow of mini sweet peppers

While not actually a heart-shaped sandwich, as with this bread it would just waste too much, I simply used a cookie cutter on the top piece for show. I wonder when Spud's going to get too old for hearts? Am I going to have to get some sort of death metal cookie cutter at some point?

Photo Friday #31

A FLASH FROM THE PAST  |  TRAVELS PRE-BABY

I've dredged up some oldies! And with our newly acquired scanner I thought I would start posting some of our past travel favourites. Here we are in the awe inspiring Afamia, Syria. Circa 1999.

Question of the week: would we take Spud to Afamia if we had the opportunity? Absolutely.

Sure, we've seen Roman column-lined streets before but this one is 2 kilometres. Stunning.

Look at these sweet little girls. We inadvertently interrupted their work — they were harvesting some sort of wild herb in the grass. They insisted we take their photo.

Well, actually, it went like this (excerpt from my travel journal): "... ran into a bunch of little girls who asked for  'stylos' (pens). Unfortunately we didn't have any on us. So they asked "bonbons?". Ah, the universal word for candy. But to no avail. Next they tried "baksheesh?". But the sheer number of them made this awkward. By this time they were exasperated with us. But very sweet. Finally they insisted we take their picture. And this seemed to be enough of a gift. I'm not sure why but I'm grateful for it."

I think about these little girls from time to time. Each 11 years older now. Maybe even mama's themselves. I still regret that we didn't have any candies.

Have some travel pics of your own you want to share? Maybe even from this decade? Or interested in looking at what other world travellers have captured lately? Check out Delicious Baby on Fridays.

wee love on wednesdays

1. Hyperactivitypography: An activity book for typographical geeks = love.

2. Painted rocks on Poppytalk. So simple. And so beautiful.

3. Lovely nested bowls at Pigeon Toe Ceramics via cielbleu.

4. These are just so crazy I have to try them: candy-coated-peanut-butter-Ritz-cracker sandwich cookies at Skip to My Lou.


(images: Hyperactivitypography, Poppytalk Handmade, Pigeon Toe Ceramics, and Skip to My Lou)

Two IKEA Towels Become Hooded Changing Towel

We took 2 IKEA Frajen Bath Sheets, at about $8 each, and turned them into a cozy, personal space in which Spud could change. Sure, you might think this is the wrong season for such a project. Wouldn't this be more useful during beach season? But Spud takes his swimming lessons in the winter, and when you have a boy as shy as he is (he doesn't even want to show his parents his belly button!) then you have to come up with something.

Originally I had big plans to include a carefully illustrated tutorial in this post. But things have been busy and now enough time has passed that I don't even remember all the details. But suffice it to say, we chopped off the bottom 17", or so, of each towel and used those pieces for pockets in the front and a hood. There was even a bit leftover to make little bags to hold flip flops or goggles.

The rest of the sewing is very straight forward ... leaving two arm holes and a neck hole ... and we embellished a bit here and there using some of my own fabric.

Features we like:
· Large arm holes make it easy for Spud to get his clothes inside to change into.
· The pockets in the front are large enough to hold the clothes he's changing into and then the clothes he's changing out of.
· The whole thing is long enough that he should be able to wear it for a few years. If he becomes too old for the robot, it'll come off easy enough.

And, yes, he loves it. I think he would live in it if we would let him.

"Drink it if You Dare"

Hubs and Spud were busy in the kitchen making potions, just now. "Mama, drink this and then you will become my house elf and do everything I say". A la Dobby from Harry Potter, no doubt. *Giggle*



They also tried to pop some corn without a lid on the pot just to see what would happen. Once it started though, neither of them could stand it, as the kernels began to fly about. Thankfully. And I reaped a few of the rewards of that experiment. Yum. But no brown goo chaser. Sorry Spud.

Photo Friday #30

REMEMBRANCE DAY CEREMONY  |  VANCOUVER, BC

Our little guy expressed a strong interest in participating in the traditional 2 minutes of silence at 11 o'clock (we cheated a bit and made it an easier 1 minute) for this year's Remembrance Day. He also wanted to witness one of the many ceremonies around town. It seemed like a good idea at the time — let's go down to the docks, an area of our home town we have yet to explore, to watch the 21 gun salute.

Is this the time to mention that I actually abhor guns? This 21 gun salute was actually 3 Howitzers, taking turns every minute for 21 minutes. Each time one went off, it pounded our chests so powerfully it made our hearts flutter past a few beats. I think I lost a couple of weeks of my life in that 21 minutes.

I see the value in conveying the Remembrance Day message to our son — that we must never forget the impact of war. And I think this experience brought home some of the realities of war, to me at least, a little bit. But I'm going to say "Tick. Done that." and look for a less dramatic, more peaceful way to remember next year. I wonder if there is such a thing as a Remembrance Yoga Class? More my speed I think. Hee.

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