Top Five - December 2011

Top 5 Posts
1. So-so Snowman Bento


2. An Open Letter to Santa
Where I send Santa MY wishlist this year...

photo credit

3. Kimmens Tree MTM
Where I manage to toss together a last-minute blogworthy lunch at home!

4. Checking out The Keeley McGuire blog!
Where I drool over someone else's skill post one of my reviews of other bento bloggers

photo credit

5. FunBites FUNdamentals!

Where I review FunBites and actually feed my child a real meal at home.

Top 5 Referring URLs

1. Family Fresh Cooking - Project Lunch Box
(Wow. Really? STILL one of my Top 5. From a post I linked up to in, like, September!)
2. EasyLunchBoxes Fan Sites
3. What's For Lunch at Our House - home of the What's for Lunch Wednesday bento link-up!
Really #3 was some weird site called domar.ru, but when I click the link it wants to load some spammy video... not sure how it's leading people to my site... I like these hits better!
4. Bento Blog Network
Squeaked into the top 5 right at the end... probably since I actually LINKED something later in the month! :)
5. BentOnBetterLunches
Because she has my button at the bottom of her page! Scooore! Thanks, Candy Girl! You can return the favor by reading my showcase of some of HER lunches and clicking links to go visit!

Top 5 Referring Sites
1. NetworkedBlogs
Some app that auto-publishes my posts for me on Facebook and Twitter. Woot!
2. Family Fresh Cooking
Again, from that ONE link-up I did way back when. Astounding!
3. EasyLunchBoxes.com
Mmmmm. I love being loved. Speaking of loved, check out my little Princess in the new photo slideshow on the ELB Home Page!
4. Bentolunch.net (What's for Lunch at Our House)
5. Bento Blog Network which JUST swept past Family Fresh Meals at the very last minute!

Some fun Search Keywords that helped people trip over my blog this month include:
macaroni and cheese in cupcake tin Okay. I can see someone looking for maybe little baked single-serve recipe ideas...
play doh bin with lid station that holds tools and play area Okay. No clue how that led to my blog though!
label turkey parts bird-pope's nose Hunh?

What Child is This? (Or: Oops, I Did it Again...)

Now that she's over a week old, I've decided that she's okay and maybe we'll keep her... Just kidding. After expensive scientific procedures (and loads of needle jabs!) to create her, and weathering through some potentially scary complications to keep her in there long enough, it would be a shame to trade her in now... although I would like a new car...

Behold, my daughter, Little E! Born 12/22/11, 7 pounds 5 ounces (one ounce above the estimated birth weight made by the very-expert ultrasound doctor on the 16th when we did an amniocentesis to see if her lungs would be mature enough for a 37-week C-section.) Which is good news, trust me! All the fun complications I had going on in there usually lead to lack of growth and lower birth weights, so we were very pleased with our Little Trooper's sudden last-minute growth spurt!

**Warning** The rest of this post involves pregnancy and newborn words and concepts, such as 'breastfeeding' and 'uterus.' Nothing really gross, just maybe TMI for some people. Proceed at your own risk.

Despite the complications in her uteran environment and my having to get an early C-section, the worst was not yet over! She was born with something they call 'tongue-tie' which is where the frenulum (the membrane that attaches the tongue to the floor of the mouth) is shorter than usual. This results in baby having difficulty in breastfeeding, and can result in speech issues later. Plus, since it restricts the tongue from stretching out, she wouldn't be able to lick her lips or lick an ice cream cone! There's an easy fix, where the pediatrician clips the frenulum, and baby is over it and ready to eat within minutes! Sadly, Little E has a tongue-tie that's 'posterior' or something, so the hospital pediatricians weren't comfortable trying to clip hers. We have to see a specialist... who is on vacation until the New Year. Yay.
That combined with my slow-to-arrive milk and low-milk supply have resulted in a painful and frustrating nursing experience. But we power on!

Next up, she also got jaundice! Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as Little Z had. She and I had a blood-type incompatibility, where my blood cells had transferred into her body via the umbilical cord and were attacking her blood cells. We spent weeks getting almost-daily blood tests, spending time under the blue lights at the NICU and at home, and finally stuffing her so full of formula that we finally got all the bilirubins out!
For E, her levels never got panic-high, like they did with Z, and we were proactive about having them test for jaundice and the blood-type incompatibility from the start. Her levels kept going up, but always stayed just under the worry-limit. But the hospital pediatrician offered to let us stay overnight Christmas Eve in Pediatrics with the blue lights, or we could take her home and get the less-effective home-light bilibed on Christmas Day. We opted to stay and try and fight it off aggressively NOW, rather than wait and potentially have it get worse at a time where most doctor's offices and labs would be closed! Plus I could stay at the hospital with her, while my husband could take Z to family Christmas activities, and I'd have nurses who could help me feed E and make sure she was doing okay. At home, I'd have been on my own!

The lights worked great, and we got discharged in time to have Christmas with my family at my mom's house. She still has a little bit of jaundice, and we've been having to feed her supplemental formula through a tube, on top of breastfeeding, but the docs are no longer concerned. They aren't even bothering with blood tests. Yay!

Now our only problem is that she wasn't 'thriving.' She'd lost 11% of her body weight by Day 3 (5-10% is considered normal, but they expect growth by Day 5.) By Day 5, she still hadn't gained any weight. And we'd been supplementing her feedings with formula to fight off the jaundice, so the doctor was a little concerned. Little Z had either been not thriving or barely thriving when she was a newborn, but I had been breastfeeding exclusively the first few weeks, and not making enough milk. But with the additional formula, we had expected some growth from E. But due to the jaundice, she was fairly lethargic and would go 4 hours between feedings if given a choice, and would fall asleep almost instantly upon being held in my arms. So we had to start being mean and waking her up and keeping her awake and forcing her to eat more and more supplemental formula.  Ugh.

We were just okay'd to switch from the tube to a bottle, which makes life a little easier, since I don't need my husband there at every feeding (he's in charge of the tube, which is inserted into her mouth while breastfeeding. It's hard to get it in there right, and we'd have to re-do it several times each time she needed a burp or let go with her mouth. Argh.) So now he can be gone during a feeding; spending time with Z, going to the store, etc. But then that means each feeding takes longer again, since before we had it perfected to around 30-minutes (15-minutes on each breast, plus one-ounce of formula via tube on each side during that 15-minutes.) Then use my electric pump to stimulate milk production. Now I nurse for 30-minutes, then feed the bottle. Then pump. (Unless hubby is available. Then he gives her the bottle while I pump.)

We did a follow-up weight check on Friday 12/30, at eight days old. Finally! She'd gained 3 ounces since the previous weight check on Day 5, for an average of an ounce a day weight gain, which is what she should be gaining. So all our hard work paid off! Whew! And her color is sooo much better! Only slightly yellow now, and not a raging orange.

So, no fancy lunches or posts lately! I've been busy with hospital, healing, holidays, and spending 30-60 minutes every three hours crammer-jammering as much formula as humanly possible into my little Jellybean.

December Bento/Fun Lunch Catch-Up

I didn't do a lot of 'beautiful lunches' this month. Mostly because I managed to weasel out of most of our morning activities, so we were able to eat at home. And I was just too physically fatigued to stand for long enough to really make a really 'fancy' meal.

Thursday, 12/1/11 - 

Since Thursdays is gym class followed by preschool, I kind of have to pack a lunch to eat in between. I used our EasyLunchBoxes because they fit all our food without any careful planning on my part, and they're the best I've found, size-wise, for eating in the car!

 [This post contains affiliate links.] 

Her lunch: PBHoney butterfly, string cheese nibblets,
carrot flowers, raspberries

My lunch: Onion bagel (toasted) w/cream cheese,
carrot flowers, 2/3 banana

Despite the cute bunny pick, she hardly touched the raspberries. She did polish off her butterfly sandwich, cheese nibblets (in butterfly cup) and most of the carrot flowers though.

I ate all of mine, and had eaten the 1/3rd banana that didn't fit before we left the house. :)

Monday, 12/5/11 - 
Packed as a snack for on the way to preschool, and for between school and swim, and possibly after swim. She hasn't been eating much lately, and has been just having a brunch then school snack, instead of breakfast and lunch AND school snack. But she ate a little earlier than usual this morning, so I wanted to be prepared.

Colby Jack cheese flowers (scraps tucked under,)
pretzel sticks, Phineas and Ferb fruit snacks w/pistachios,
strawberries and raspberries

Since I was going for a smaller serving, I chose my LunchBots Duo. Doesn't hold nearly as much as an EasyLunchBox, and she can't open it herself, and more likely to tip into her lap or slide onto the floor in the car, but I figured we'd give it a shot.

She didn't end up eating the raspberries, and very little of the pretzels, cheese or strawberries. But she polished off the butterfly cup filled with pistachios and froot snax. I ended up just replacing the pretzels (they were a tad soggy) and refilling the nuts/fruit snacks the next day and took it with us as we were out and about. I ended up eating most (if not all) of the cheese, raspberries and pretzels.

Monday, 12/12/11 - 

We had no plans for the day until swim class in the afternoon (her co-op preschool only has classes through the first full week in December, so no more until January.) She wanted mac-n-cheese for lunch. Okie-dokie.

Apples, carrot, cheese scraps, mac-n-cheese, Ranch

I know it's a little monochromatic, but it was quick and easy, and mostly healthy.
The cheese scraps were from her preschool snack gingerbread people cheeses the week before. The plate is a cute little melamine monkey divided plate... I think I got it from Target. Or maybe Safeway. It was a while ago. Blue fork from IKEA. (I love their plastic children's dishes! $1.99 for 6 plates, bowls or cups, OR for 6 EACH forks/knives/spoons! Microwave and dishwasher safe, and BPA-Free! We now have 2 or 3 sets of each, plus I got 2 sets for my sister, and we keep a set at my mom's house, for when the grandkids are visiting. I like that the forks are sharp, so she can actually use them to stab food. So they aren't for the littler kids, and are not safe for running around the house, or, say, holding while bouncing around on a Rody. Seriously, the Kids Museum near us has the Ikea dishes in their pretend-play area, and some mom was letting her brand-new walker toddle and fall around with this fork next to his eye, then she HELPED him bounce on the Rody, and I swear he was half an inch away from gouging his eye out a couple times. *shudder*)

Wednesday, 12/14/11 - 
I had my pre-op appointment at the hospital, followed by an OB appointment, then a break for lunch before the last swim class of the year. Since we were kind of in a hurry at breakfast, I made her a larger meal and packed it in an EasyLunchBox so we could take it on the go if she didn't finish in time. And then we'd also have a built-in snack or lunch if she was also hungry later.

Organic apple slices, pistachios, PBHoney sandwich 

Nothing fancy. She's been asking for PBHoney sandwiches for breakfast, and I figured they can't be less healthy than sugar cereal. Plus the honey helps her cough (that she's had since Halloween!!!) However I cleverly forgot to take a picture until she had hoovered most of the pistachios and was working on a sandwich triangle. Oh well.

I was kind of in a hurry so I didn't bother with a veggie or dairy. And this was more of a breakfast and snack, versus a real lunch. We ended up getting lunch at the hospital deli after my OB appointment (her office is in the hospital building,) and Z wanted a veggie tray and yogurt to eat, so we got those food groups taken care of!

   

Checking Out the "Competition" - Bento-logy

Caren from Bento-logy makes bento meals for her two children, H and A. Her blog name makes me think of the song Technologic by Daft Punk. "Cut it. Cute it.  Shape it. Smoosh it. Pick it. Poke it. Bend it. Box it. Bento-lo-gy. Bento-lo-gy."

Unlike me, she did about a zillion super cute holiday-themed bentos. It was hard to pick just one! But... Squeee! I totally wish I had thought of this Gingerbread House bento!

And who can resist an Angry Birds bento? Even though it makes me want to give up, since I'll never bother to put this much effort into anything be this good!

Little Z loves the game "Cut the Rope" app/game on our iPhones (although she calls it "feed the frog candy game.") So while I am filled with vile jealousy at Caren's free-hand cheese-cutting skills, I couldn't resist this little Cut the Rope cutie! I especially love the blueberry tucked into the raspberry! It helps distract me from my conflicting feelings over this bento (bitterness that it's so much better than anything I could do, and awe at its adorableness!)

Although this Autumn Leaves one is more my speed, skill- and effort-wise, lately! It's nice to know that she's still human too! :) And I love the layout! I don't use a lot of the little bento boxes for this very reason, since it takes a lot of planning and effort to get everything to fit!

Check out all of Caren's really cute and creative bento meals at Bento-logy or find her on Facebook!

Checking Out the "Competition" - BentOnBetterLunches

Candy Girl from BentOnBetterLunches makes super cute lunches and meals for her five kids: Beanstalk, Bella,  Pickle, Sprout and Birdie! Whew! And I can barely bother to make meals for just ONE kid! She shares her bento meals, Muffin Tin Meals, and even some recipes that look like maybe even *I* could do them without messing them up too badly! Like me, she uses a lot of EasyLunchBoxes, Lunch Punches and other sandwich and cookie cutters, and fun picks. Unlike me, she does it far more betterer.

While I hate bell peppers, I like these Flower Power lunches because of the visual appeal. And while it looks stunning, I could totally do this! If I could be bothered to actually choke down another slice of bell pepper in a fruitless attempt to get my kid to try them.

Candy Girl claims she is Nuts About Fall, and she clearly is! It was hard to pick just one of her gorgeous Fall-themed meals to show off. I chose this one because I liked the windmill cookie. And maybe if I stare at it hard enough, eventually I'll be able to figure out how to do the checkerboard apples that every other bento-er on the planet seems to be able to master effortlessly.

Here's some cute Teddy Bear Day fun! While not a bento, I like that she makes cute meals for the kiddos eating at home too. And I'm crazy jealous of her mad sprinkles-skeelz. I would have settled for a one-sprinkle-smile! :)

I love, love, LOVE her Sea, How Cute! bento, while at the same time I'm ragingly green with envy at how cute and flawless it looks. Mine would have more raggedy edges, and most likely be missing facial features! And maybe a few "I HATE YOU!!!" stab marks in all the food that thwarted me and my efforts. Which would be all of it, pretty much. Except the crackers. Hey. Even *I* can pour pre-made crackers into a dishy!

You can follow and subscribe to Candy Girl on her blog BentOnBetterLunches, of course, but also on Facebook and Twitter!

Kimmens Tree Muffin Tin Meal

Monday, 12/19/11 Lunch - With only a few days to go before my c-section, I hadn't planned on doing much of anything. Especially after the scary dizzy spell that morning while making pancakes (which is why there's no pictures or post about my awesome pancakes. I was trying to power-through and get her fed so I could go lie down!)

But at lunch she wanted a "pee-duh buddah-huddee samwich" (I love how she sounds when she's stuffed up!) I decided to make it cute with a cookie cutter, just for fun. And it all kind of exploded from there.

Kimmens Tree MTM

Apples, carrot sticks, PBHoney w/Ms, yogurt w/sprinkles,
pistachios w/Ms

The apples and carrots are fairly self-explanatory. I had some. I cut them. 'Nuff said.

The sandwich was cut using a special tree cutter from a cream-filled sandwich-cookie set I got on clearance at Target last year. It's a small cutter, and I managed to make both halves from one slice of bread. (The cutter is very shallow, so I cut the bread first.) The cutter is covered at the top, and has the three circles as a cut-out if you flip the cutter over. It's so you can see the yummy cream filling in the cookie sandwiches from the mix that came with the set. But really, I just bought it all for the cutter! Instead of leaving the PB and honey showing through, I fished out some green and red MandMs to stick in the holes.

I had originally planned on using a star-shaped cutter on some Colby Jack cheese, but found the holly and berries sprinkles while digging through my "Misc Xmas" supplies bin (it has the silicone liners, paper liners, picks, sprinkles, etc. Anything that's not a cookie cutter.) I decided to add them to some Green honey yogurt. The honey sweetens the yogurt plenty, but back when I first started getting the Greek yogurt, I had been getting plain and putting honey on it, so Little Miss seems to think that additional honey is a requirement for yogurt, unless I add in some unsweetened Kool-Aid powder for color and flavor, or add sprinkles!

Since I already had the Ms out for the tree, I tossed some in with her pistachios, as her 'treat.'

I got the cute silicone tree-shaped liners from a baking set on clearance at Target after Christmas last year (although Tovolo makes a cute set with some other holiday shapes. It's totally on my wishlist. Hint hint.) The tree pick came with some Reindeer cupcake liners also on clearance from Target last year. I put them all in some random Tupperware knock-off thing we have that I normally only use for transporting steak knifes or other short sharp utensils for my cooking classes or something. It's shallow, so virtually useless for storing a bunch of food. And it's kind of long, which makes it a pain to store in the fridge or freezer, since it takes up so much space and doesn't stack well. But for this, it made the perfect dish. Everything fit nicely without me having to worry about balancing it all on a plate, and it wasn't too deep for her to eat out of.

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First thing she did was grab the sandwich and pop the Ms off of it. When I asked her if she was enjoying her sandwich, she said "Oh. I thought it was a cookie," and put it back. Doh! But then she squealed with joy as she found the spoon.

And dug right into the sprinkles yogurt!

She ate the entire sandwich and asked for another (I just made a regular half-sandwich, rather than a fancy tree again.) She ate all her yogurt and apples and pistachios. She ate maybe half the carrot sticks. And no MandMs! She said she doesn't like them! *gasp!* But she asked for seconds on the pistachios too. And then saw the almost-empty bag of Pirate Booty on my desk and asked for some of that too. Which is how I got her to eat any of her carrots, to be honest. But whatever. She ate them!

Checking Out the "Competition" - Bentobloggy

Emily from Bentobloggy makes super cute bento meals for her daughter, E. And while Emily doesn't do as many cute shapes with her food as I do, she makes up for it with stunning presentation, an abundance of cute bento picks and accessories, and real food. You know. The kind that you cook. And make from ingredients.

Love this cute little Flower and Berry bento. Simple but visually appealing!

I like this Angry Birds one, since other than the actual cooked food, I could totally do this! Looks sooooo yummy!

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. Those are indeed heart-shaped ravioli! Amazingly adorable! (Apparently she found them at Costco! I want to go to there...!)

Super cute Hello Kitty (omigosh, do NOT show this to my daughter! Squee!)

I even managed to trip over a fun looking craft - making your own recycled plantable seed pucks!

She also shares recipes. Most of them are fancier than I'm comfortable attempting without adult supervision, but I wish I had seen her Leaf Chips recipe back when I had all that Rainbow Chard from my CSA!

You can find Emily and her amazing food on Bentobloggy of course, and also on Facebook!

So-so Snowman Bento

Lunch from 12/15/11 - Since I've been laying low and not doing anything in the mornings before school lately (due to excruciating pain in my rib area if I sit or stand for too long. Apparently I have an alien growing inside of me trying to ram her way out via my ribcage,) I haven't had the need to pack lunches. And I've been switching our Little Gym class from Thursdays before school to Fridays, with no school after. But since my amnio was scheduled for the Friday that week, we went to gym class at our regular time on Thursday. And since it would be probably the only holiday-themed bento she'd see this year her last day of school before the break, I wanted to make her lunch a little special.
The theme at school was still gingerbread men, but I was so over that, after doing class snack the week before. So I went with a snowman theme. Kind of.

So-so Snowman

Z's lunch: carrot candy, mandarin orange, PBHoney snowmen, Annie's Cheddar
Bunnies w/pistachios, CoJack w/mozzarella cheese bits, carrot w/snap peas

I made this as a combo breakfast/lunch, since I hadn't fed her yet. I used the EasyLunchBoxes. Because, you know. They're awesome.

The carrot thing is from a pack of 6 I got from the Dollar Tree at Easter. I got them to re-use as sprinkle containers, but so far she's managed to mangle all the ones I've let her eat so they are no longer usable. It's a little plastic carrot filled with flavored sugar powder stuff, kind of like a Pixy Stix. She had wanted to 'help' make the food, so she dragged out my Easter/Halloween/Random Holiday bin from my bento supply shelves. I was dreading the addition of a little candy bunny cupcake topper or something, but this at least I could pretend was a snowman nose, right? :)

I managed to squeeze out two snowmen from one whole peanut-butter-honey sandwich using some random plastic cutter that I either got at a thrift store or one of our childhood cutters I got from our mom. I had wanted to give the snowmen (or at least the one on top... since it's the one you guys can see!) some features. But as she was practically gnawing my leg off with hunger and impatience, I opted to leave them as-is.

She's been asking for oranges lately, so we got a bag of mandarins from Costco. I like them because they're easy to peel and small. I hate peeling, and I usually get stuck with the majority of a larger orange after she sucks out the juice and hands me her desiccated pulp. Yum. I used a snowman cupcake liner (turned inside out to show off the pattern) that I got from Target last year.

In the other liner, I made a 'snack mix' of Annie's Cheddar Bunnies (one of her current favorite snacks,) and pistachios (her other current favorite snack.) We got a big bag of pistachios at Costco, so I've been doling them out abundantly lately. I had been planning on just pistachios, but she requested the bunnies, and I like to accommodate her input when feasible. Even if it doesn't fit the theme...

The snowman pick came with the cupcake liners. I used my FunBites Cube It! to cut up the Colby Jack cheese (still have a few slices left after preschool snack the week before.) I also cut a stick of string cheese into nibblets, and arranged them in an alternating pattern on the pick, since she was studying AB patterns in preschool that week as well.

I had planned on cutting her carrot stub into sticks to go with the sugar snap peas, but she wanted it whole. O-o-okay. She said she didn't want the peas, but I told her she needed to eat more greens and she could choose either peas or broccoli. She chose peas. And mostly ate them.

My lunch: PBHoney, carrot sticks, apples

Between what she ate on the way to gym, on the way from gym to school, and after school, she ended up eating everything but one of the snowman sammies. She had mangled it beyond recognition giving it facial features by gouging... something... through it. I'm assuming it was the plastic carrot. The carrot frustrated her since the powder tends to clog up once it gets moist (ie: touches her face.) Once she discovered that she could loosen it by using her snowman pick, she was much appeased... until the toothpick part broke. Then I gave her a straw. I keep a stash of bendy straws in the car for use with the milk boxes I get at Costco (they come with a collapsing straw that tends to get lost inside the box!) and fast food drinks - the bendy parts makes them easier to use in the car without spilling. That worked until she dropped the straw. At that point I was fed up with the whole thing. But she had gotten most of the powder out, so we called it a wash.

Checking Out the "Competition" - Diana Rambles

Allow me to introduce you to Diana aka FreeStyleMama from Diana Rambles. She makes bento lunches (and fantastic theme birthday parties!!) for her daughter, Dori. (Her other two are older and less interested in taking embarrassing cute lunches to school...)
Diana also runs the Bento Blog Network site where I've been trying to participate in the Bento of the Week link-up! (When I had something to fit the theme, that is.) Plus a site (Link Rink) just for linking up link-up parties! AND she does custom blog page designs! *cough cough* points at own site's new-ish layout *cough*

What I love most about Diana's bentos is that they can be shamelessly copied done by mere mortals (aka: me.)
Well... maybe not ALL of her bentos...

No Puffin.... get it? No puffing? It's a No Smoking themed bento!

Super cute ladybug bento! Not that I'll probably ever try braving egg sheets...

This one is fun, since it shows a candy container re-purposed into a bento box!

Another cutie! So jealous! Love this flower lunch! [I sooo want that flower cutter!]

You can find her bento meals, recipes and other fun posts about her life and family at Diana Rambles and you can also find her on Twitter!

When I contacted Diana about giving my blog a makeover, her disclaimer states that she is not a mind reader! But I think she faked it pretty well, considering I went in with absolutely no idea what I wanted my blog to look like! As she showed me preliminary ideas and layouts, I was fairly useless, other than 'I like this font. And this one. And this one. Wow me.' or 'Hmm.. maybe too much pink?' and 'Can you scootch the jobber over a little?'

Lunches of Kimmens Past

I haven't even packed my bag for the hospital yet, and I'm due in 3 weeks (but having a scheduled c-section in just a few days!) So probably for similar reasons I haven't really been motivated/had time to make any fancy Winter- or Kimmens-themed meals this holiday season. Last year I went all out, and when I was sifting through my old posts, I am agog at the time and effort I put into them. Hopefully it's just the act of gestating that sucks all the oomph out of me. Hopefully I'll get my creative and motivated groove back soon!
So to make up for a lack of awesome this holiday season, I've put together a post showcasing my holiday meals of yesteryear. Specifically, last year. Since, you know. It's all I've got so far.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

March of the Pingus

Can't Catch Me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!

12 Days of Kimmens

Oh, Kimmens Tree

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Not too many holiday-themed meals. This year could have been so much more amazing, design-wise, since I got a ton of Christmassy cookie cutters, muffin tins, cupcake picks and papers, and sprinkles on clearance last year. Ah well. I hear it happens annually, so I'm sure I'll get the chance to use all my fun tools again!