Gobble Gobble

Even though we have had a difficult weekend/week with the tragic death of our bird I still think it is important to find things you are thankful for, especially around Thanksgiving.  And while it is a lot easier for me right now to say "nothing" there is always something you can be thankful for. I am thankful for my life--that I am alive and healthy and well.  I am thankful for my amazing husband, David, who is so caring and always thinking of me. I am thankful for our daughter Eliana who is a ray of sunshine in my life.  She lights up my world. And if I think harder there a lot more things to be thankful for.  It's always difficult to think of good things when you are in difficult times. But maybe it is when you are in difficult times it is even more important to remind yourself of the things you are thankful for...


Now onto food.  Last week I made two different turkey themed sandwiches for Eliana.  She loved them and they were super easy to make!

This is "Sally".  Whenever you ask Eliana to name an animal she will name it Sally. She usually just would say "bear" if it is a bear, or "cat" if it is a cat.  But if I really ask her to think of a name she will say Sally.  So we named this turkey shaped sandwich Sally.

This was very easy to make.  I made a grilled cheese sandwich and cut it into a circle with a cookie cutter.  I cut another circle out of whole wheat bread and made the face out of edible eye candies, carrot nose and a red pepper googly gobbly thing (what is that called?!).  I cut out feathers from red orange and yellow bell peppers.  I cut the feet out of carrot.  And I put some leaf sprinkles on the the plate.

Eliana loved it and ate it all up. Which I love. Win-Win. I also made another turkey sandwich.

Mini Turkey

On Mondays and Fridays I babysit a cute almost two year old (Sophia) and Eliana always comes with me.  I always make our lunches to go and since we still had peppers left over I wanted to make her a smaller turkey sandwich last Friday.  Again--so easy! I just made a jelly sandwich with whole wheat bread and cut it into a circle.  Carrot nose and carrot legs.  Bell pepper feathers and gobbly thingy.  I then cut out a few cheese pumpkins and drew on them with edible marker.  


This was by no means bento perfection.  This container is just a sandwich container and I usually make Eliana small cute lunches to go in it.  Eventually I will have to get her an actual bento container that will hold her food better--so it doesn't move around while traveling. Or I need to "glue" things in place with honey or something. When we reached our destination I had to rearrange her lunch because she was upset the feathers weren't all in place :)  Both of these lunches would be an awesome way to use up leftover turkey in a fun way! :)

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving :)

Here is what I used to make these lunches:

 
I Link up.

Goodbye Kiwi

This post has nothing to do with food. So i apologize for that.  I will post some of my newest creations tomorrow.


I write this post with a heavy heart. Two days after I put up my last post and we celebrated five years of having Kiwi he was suddenly taken away from us.  Like I mentioned before we have always let Kiwi have his flying wings and ever since we have been in MA he had a normal flight path from the dining room where his cage was to the kitchen, where he would normally fly right to either David's or my shoulder.  


On Saturday we had only left the dining room for a mere second. We heard Kiwi scream and we ran over.  Kiwi had landed on my parent's parrot's (Baby) cage. Baby had mortally bit Kiwi. We rushed him to the animal emergency hospital but they confirmed what we already knew deep down inside: there was nothing they could do.  We were devastated.


The sudden shock of this violent death of our beloved bird has been very difficult for us.  Kiwi was unlike your normal bird.  He was trained.  He could do tricks, and even was poop potty trained (if thats what you call it for birds). He was always on our shoulder whenever we were home.  We always left the cage open so he could fly to us.  He loved for me to hold him close to my chest and scratch his head.  When I scratched his head he would close his eyes and just rest with me. He would cry for us whenever we left the room.  He liked to snuggle against my neck or inside my bathrobe when he was cold... Like I said. Not your normal bird.  


We loved him very much, and he very much became a part of our family.  Even if you don't like birds you can understand if you imagine your pet suddenly died in a violent way.  Green Cheek Conures can live up to 25 years of age.  We were expecting Kiwi to meet all of our potential kids and be a part of our family for a long time.  Kiwi has been such a constant part of our lives.  In the past five years we have moved to four different states, had different jobs, Eliana was born, I started grad school... Throughout all those years we always had him.  I have never had to do a paper for school without him on my shoulder and his death has really shown me how much he really meant to us.


It was such a freak accident and it is such a complicated situation since Baby is also a part of my family.  My parents got Baby before I was even born. So this situation is very delicate, complex and layered.  It has been a very difficult weekend for us and I know it will take time for us to feel better. I know I will have to get used to the silence.  It has been very quiet since Kiwi is now gone.  He was always chirping in our ears since he loved to snuggle on our necks, next to our ears.  He also loved to "talk" exactly when we were talking... I miss that.. :'(


Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul, 
And sings the tune without words, 
And never stops at all. 
Emily Dickinson


RIP Kiwi 06/01/2006- 11/19/2011

Meet Kiwi, our Green Cheek Conure

So five years today my husband David and I got a bird. It was the cutest bird in the pet store.. for days I would just go to the store and play with him through the glass. I looked up all the information I could get on Green Cheek Conures (GCC) and I learned everything there was to know. I even named him before we bought him (oops?). I named him Kiwi. And apparently that is what made my husband make up his mind to get him. So I guess lesson learned? Name the animal you want and your family members will want to get it for you ;) 


All kidding aside I love my Kiwi.  He loves for me to scratch his head, he cries when we leave the room, he loves to sit on my shoulder or to hide in my bathrobe when it is cold, he repeatedly says "I want some" whenever I am eating, regardless of what it is and he LOVES to shower in the sink (he'll shower in the shower too but he prefers the sink!)  All in all he has been such a wonderful bird who is playful, cute, and really not high maintenance (unless you consider the fact that you can't do dishes without him flying over to you and trying to jump into the sink high maintenance lol).  We decided to let his feathers grow so that he can fly.  And he actually has learned to figure out which room in the house we are in and can fly to us and land on our shoulder which can catch you by surprise if you didn't remember you left the cage open! 


This is a picture of Kiwi the day we got him (11/17/2006)

5 month old Kiwi

Kiwi was born in June of 2006.  My husband and I had just gotten married that June.  So of course I thought Kiwi was destined to be ours! Now Kiwi is 5 and my husband and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary this past June. This is my most current picture of Kiwi. This is also Kiwi's way of telling me "I want a shower!" He flew to the kitchen sink faucet:

5 year old Kiwi

Alright enough about my bird ;) Now onto food! In June I decided to make a cool lunch for Eliana to celebrate Kiwi's birthday. Sorry for the poor quality in advance.  It was taken with my phone and it was dark that day! 

Happy 5th Birthday Kiwi! :)

I made the parrot sandwich out of a spinach tortilla filled with ham and cheese cut with a parrot cookie cutter.  I cut some of the beak out the spinach tortilla and use a food safe marker to color the cheese underneath to make it look like a beak. For the maroon colored belly I cut out the shape with fruit leather.


The "perch" is a bread crust


The cupcake was cheese that I cut with a small cookie cutter and then decorated it with food safe markers.


"Kiwi" was cut out with cheese with alphabet cutters


I added some raspberries and blueberries for the border


This lunch was fun to do and Eliana loved it! Next time I try to make a sandwich like Kiwi I may want to try to add more colorful tail feathers, but for a first try I was really happy with it.

Flower Soup

Eliana has been sick since last Saturday...needless to say we have been exhausted over here..  Sleepless nights, interrupted sleep, runny nose, cough along with a side of being irritable and not wanting to eat.  It is never fun when your little one comes down with a cold.  I'm so thankful Eliana likes soup! Since she hasn't been eating as well soup is great way to get some good nutrition in.  However having soup every day for lunch can get boring.. so I decided to present today's soup in a creative way: as a muffin tin meal!

Flower Soup

Eliana actually asked for soup and cracker refills and told me she likes her soup better in the flowers than in bowls! This was a very simple lunch, but very creative! 


I put her chicken noodle soup in two flower silicone cups  [use homemade soup or canned...  if you happen to be running on a week of not-so-good sleep I would go with canned ;) ]


I then put crackers in the last flower silicone cup.  I also cut some green peppers for some "leaves".

Easy as pie. Or soup.