Spontaneous Hiking Trip ~ Poor Man's Banana Tree Leaf

Due to one of the kids telling us they had a birthday party invitation today, we took a spontaneous hiking trip, following dropping her off.  It was a perfect time to hike.  There were only a few people on the trail, and the leaves were absolutely breathtaking.  I love the reds, oranges, and yellows.  I could not help but bring a few leaves home and decorate the house with them.  I picked up the 15 inch Poor Man's Banana tree leaves for the kids.  They will make wonderful back feathers for a "Tom" turkey craft.  A good coat of wax paper should hold them through the fall season indoors.

During our hike, you could hear and see the acorns dropping from the tall trees.  We picked up a few of those to decorate for Christmas ornaments too.  Maybe we'll make a few painted singing angels with them.

Sandwich Bags

I had to laugh at my eight-year-old daughter the other day.  We try to use reuseable containers in their school lunch bags, but sometimes there isn't enough room for them.  We resort to plastic sandwich bags, but only to a minimum (the goal is to do away with them).

"Mom! How to you work this thing?" she said while handing me the sandwich bag.

We switched from ziploc type bags to fold over bags to save money.  We can get 3 times the amount of sandwich bags for the same price of zip style.  She had never used this type of bag and it's the style my mother always used to pack my lunch as a child.  It never dawned on me that times have changed that much, and so fast, for even little things like sandwich bags.