Goodbyns: Best Lunchboxes EVER!

After posting this really cute pictures of my boys on their first day of school yesterday...

I got more than a few questions about their lunchboxes. I actually posted about them when we first bought them a few years ago {you can check it out HERE}, but I figured since so many people were interested I would share again and include a little update on them.

THE GOODBYN
I don't really remember how I stumbled upon their website more than a year ago, but it has made packing lunches for my boys so much easier and more fun!

Besides the cool factor {because if you get one of these people will constantly be telling you how cool your kid's lunchbox is}, my favorite part about the Goodbyn is that it makes packing healthy lunches quick and easy. For the first part of Kindergarten Henry had a regular old insulated lunch bag....and I was constantly throwing in prepackaged stuff. Not only is that way more expensive and not as healthy, it is also terrible for the environment! Since getting our Goodbyns my boys almost always have at least one serving of fruit and one serving of veggies in their lunchboxes...and very little trash to throw away after lunch!

I also love, love, love that the Goodbyn is dishwasher safe. I always wondered if I was really getting that little insulated bag of Henry's clean, but there is no question that your Goodbyn is clean after a run through the dishwasher:) I don't actually wash ours in the dishwasher every night though. Most nights I either rinse it out with warm soapy water or simply wipe it out with a wet rag if the boys didn't have anything messy for lunch that day.

After more than a year of use our Goodbyns are still going strong. We have had a few stickers fall off here and there, but that is to be expected when the boys take their lunch to school almost every day! That is also easily fixed with the extra stickers that I put somewhere that I can't remember in safe place to use when we needed them.

My only real complaint about our Goodbyns is that our cute drink holders aren't usable anymore...but that is mostly my fault. I accidentally left the boys drink bottles un-rinsed on the counter in our kitchen during one of the long weekends last year and some fun green stuff started growing in them. I tried cleaning them, but there was still some stubborn stuff stuck to the bottom. So instead of water or juice in their bottles, the last few months of school last year they took juice boxes instead. Not a big deal, but it does add to the trash factor and make packing lunches a little more expensive. I checked into buying new bottles, but back when I looked that wasn't an option on the Goodbyn website. Now they have the bottles for only $6.00 so I may be buying new bottles for my boys soon:)
***
I would definitely recommend the Goodbyn to anyone who is looking for a new lunchbox for their kiddos as the new school year start! The Original Goodbyn sells for around $26 and in my opinion is a really great deal. Henry used his Goodbyn for half of Kindergarten and all of 1st grade and I'm pretty sure I won't be buying him a new lunchbox until after 3rd or 4th grade! They also have a smaller version called the Goodbyn Bynto Kit that sells for around $17...though in my opinion the Original is your best bet for kiddos because you can pack a variety of things in their lunch....and none of the food touches:)

{The opinions in this post are my own. I was not compensated for this post, I just really love this product and wanted to share it with you since so many people asked about it! However if the people at Goodbyn would like to send over some new bottles for my boys or sponsor a giveaway for my readers I would be SUPER excited!}

Wordless Wednesday: 1st Day of School

The Long Saturday

Last week I told you all that we were trying to enjoy summer before it ends....well we did just that this weekend. After a few hours of working hard in the yard, we headed out for our last Saturday of fun before school starts.

 Our first stop was the beach. The boys played football and Frisbee and got a little too wet considering they weren't wearing their bathing suits:) The played in the sand and even got to check out a crab or two!

 Our next stop was Putt Putt. Always a hit with my golf loving boys. Eli was a trip....he would hit the ball, wait for it to stop, then pick it up and move it two inches from the hole. Needless to say he got a 2 on almost every hole:) Grant {the master golfer} even managed to get a hole in one!

 After a bite to eat, we headed out for a walk over a really big bridge.

 The boys posed for a few pictures, but mostly just ran and raced up the bridge...and then back down.

I got one pretty good shot of all three boys...

 ....then we watched the sun set.

We finished the night off with yummy milkshakes and three tired boys who fell asleep before we made it home:)

Just a Little Thank You

For the past few years, I have been the preschool director at our church's VBS. That basically means I am the organizer and that I have a ton of great volunteers {lots of moms, one dad, adults, and youth from our church} that work with me to make VBS a success. At the end of a  long week of working with cute {but sometimes unruly} preschoolers, I like to let my volunteers know how much I appreciate their help by giving them a little happy! I usually make some yummy cookies, but after my Fluffer Nutter cookie fail I wasn't up to baking any more this week. So when I saw these really cute little hand sanitizers in the school supply section of Target, I knew they would make a great Thank You for my volunteers!

 These little bottles are the perfect size to toss in your purse, backpack, or car but they were just a little too plain.

 I decided to add each of my volunteers' monogram to the front of the bottles just to dress them up a little. I started by pulling off the front sticker of each bottle, then I sprayed them down with this lovely stuff. I've never used Goo Gone before, but after it removed the sticky residue from 40 little bottles in less than half an hour....I am in love!

Then I used my Silhouette to cut out all the letters that I needed out of white contact paper. If you've never tried to use contact paper instead of vinyl in your craft cutter, I highly recommend it. A huge roll of contact paper cost around $6, and it cuts perfectly with most any craft cutter {I've used it with my old Cricut and my Silhouette}! After about an hour of peeling and sticking letters,  I ended up with an army of cute monogrammed hand sanitizers!

 And I even managed to make on for myself:)

Now all my volunteers will know how much I appreciate them, and they will have clean hands!

Cookie Fail!

A few months ago I made these really yummy Fluffer Nutter Cupcakes:

The combination of peanut butter, marshmallow, and chocolate was so yummy that I started playing around with the idea of using those same ingredients in a cookie. I decided on a peanut butter cookie with mini marshmallows mixed in the dough then drizzled with melted chocolate after they were baked.  I used my trusty Peanut Butter Cookie recipe and simply mixed in about a cup of marshmallows at the end.

The dough looked promising, but unfortunately the marshmallows did what marshmallows always do when they are heated up...they melted everywhere. Some of the cookies turned out okay, but the majority of them were weird shaped from the marshmallow melting out the sides of the cookie. Plus a lot of them ended up sticking to the pan too because marshmallows are sticky! They still tasted pretty good, but the marshmallow flavor wasn't as strong as I would have liked, and  I ended up not even trying the chocolate drizzle because I wasn't happy with the cookies.

So now it's back to the drawing board kitchen to figure out another way to make Fluffer Nutter Cookies work...maybe marshmallow creme instead of the mini marshmallows or maybe some kind of sandwich with two cookies?!?

Have you ever had a cookie {or any kind of recipe} fail in your kitchen?