Hanukkah lunches

Oy vey!  I am so behind in my blogging! 

I made a couple of cute Hanukkah lunches last week. 

 Star of David PB&J sandwiches

Heart strawberries

Celery and Carrot sticks

Ranch dip

Hanukkah shapes pasta with Parmesan cheese

Pear chunks

Menorah and Dreidel shaped crescent rolls

Pasta sauce

Dreidel shaped cucumber with carrot coins and a couple of grape tomatoes and cucumber chunks

Gelt (chocolate money)

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Thanksgiving Round Up

Life got extremely busy around here preparing for, and after, Thanksgiving.  I didn't have any time to blog, or do much of anything!  But, I did make some really fun lunches that I want to share so here's the round up:


Wednesday:

Cornucopia filled with chicken salad

Clementine flower with pomegranate center

Corn on the cob

Thursday:

 PB&J pockets to make turkey feathers

Face is crust with carrot beak and candy eyes

Broccoli grass

Carrot and radish turkeys

Raspberries

Gummies

Friday:

Fall shaped pasta with cheese turkey's

Meat/veggie sauce

Yellow and Red tomatoes

Cucumbers, radish and cheese turkey's

Grapes

My mom came out for Thanksgiving and to watch the kids for a couple of days while hubby and I worked before the holiday.  I made lunches for them on the days she was watching the kids, but only took pictures on Monday.  The kids' lunch:

Ham leaf sandwich

Veggie sticks

Cucumber leafs

Grapes

Lunch for Granny:

Clementines

Snap peas and grape tomatoes

Cucumber leafs

Roasted chicken sandwich

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgivakkah!!

 

The family (those that were here).  I'm so thankful for my family!:

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Pilgrims and Indians

Day 2 of week before Thanksgiving lunches.

Yesterday I forgot to put something in my blog about what I am thankful for.  So I'll do two things today.

1) I am extremely thankful for my job.  I am a Pediatric Physical Therapist working in Early Intervention seeing my clients in their homes.  I am so appreciative of the wonderful families that invite me into their homes and their lives so that I can do my best to help their most precious babies.  Recently some of my clients have made some phenomenal progress and this reminds me why I love what I do.  I am so proud of them.

2) Some of you may know that I have started making lunches for some friends' kids.  So every school day I am making lunch for my two kids and 2-3 other kids as well.  I am thinking of expanding this and making it a small business.  I am thankful for these friends who are giving me and this idea a chance.  I am hopeful that it will work out well.

Ok, enough of that and on to the lunches!

Maya's lunch

Ham and salami Native American sandwich with braided carrots for hair, salami headband and pepper feathers in the headband.  Candy eyes and food safe markers for the nose and mouth.

Apple chunks with a pilgrim pick

Snap peas, grape and sunsweet tomatoes, a cucumber turkey

Max's lunch

Ham and cheese Pilgrim sandwich with crust for hat with cheese and carrot band, candy eyes and food safe marker nose and mouth

Apple chunks with turkey pick

Snap peas, grape and sunsweet tomatoes, cucumber turkeys

I made two additional lunches today for sisters and they were the same

Ham and cheese Native American sandwich with carrot hair, ham headband and pepper feathers.  Candy eyes and food safe marker nose and mouth

Apple chunks with pilgrim pick

Snap peas hiding under grape and sunsweet tomatoes and cucumber turkeys

I even made lunch for me today!

Cucumber turkey reliefs

Clementine

Roasted chicken sandwich on Challah bread with mayo and lettuce (YUM!)

I also had a Starbucks Chai :)

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Movember lunch

One of the lunches I made last week was in honor of Movember.

For the uninformed, Movember is an annual, month-long event involving the growing of mustaches during the month of November to raise awareness of men's health issues, such as prostate and testicular cancers and mental health. 

My Movember lunch is supposed to be a guy with a mustache, but I don't have a mustache cutter so I used the mouth from a Jack-o-Lantern cutter set that I just got on the after Halloween clearance shelf at Target.  He looks more like a terrified frowny face.  But the kids liked him!  I also thought I had brown sprinkles but I didn't so I used my fall sprinkles.  Kinda like red hair, right?  Right?

Peanut/Sun butter sandwich using crust for hair, candy eyes and sprinkle mustache

Pretzel sticks

Orange quarters

Carrot sticks, cucumber rounds and pepper rings

I have to show you Max's too because of the hair:

The bread just came that way!  I think it looks like him with his morning bed head!  Hee hee!

Ok, men!  Now that you've had lunch, go see your doctor for a check up!

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Turkey fun!

Wow!  Did I not post any of my lunches from last week?  What a slacker! 

I guess I needed a little recuperation time from our visit to San Francisco.  I'll post some on another post but today is all about starting the Thanksgiving lunches!

Today is the first day of the last week of school before Thanksgiving break.  I decided to do fun Thanksgiving themed lunches this whole week.  We'll see if I actually keep to the plan!

Turkey shaped quesadilla with colored pepper feathers and waddle, eye and mouth drawn with food safe marker

I tucked in another quarter of quesadilla underneath for more food and to lift it up

Grass baran (Japanese food separator)

Raspberries and clementine pieces with dot pick

Black refried beans

Salsa

I linked up with a Thanksgiving Linky Party!  Click on the picture and you can check out some other awesome Thanksgiving themed lunches!

Stay tuned for more Thanksgiving lunches!

Thanks for reading!
Deb

Traveling Bento Style

Wow!  It's been a few days since I last posted.  What a whirlwind!

This last Monday was Veteran's Day and the kids were off school both Monday and Tuesday so we decided to head out to visit my sister in San Francisco for the long weekend.  (Hubby had to work so it was just me and the kids)

My one request: to go shopping in Japantown!

Maya, Max and their cousin Charlie in Japantown

My one complaint about Denver is that there are no good Bento shopping places.  I'm no longer complaining!  I think I am glad that I don't live near those stores because I would be completely broke!  I bought so many great things!  You'll be seeing them pop up in my future lunches!

Our flight out was leaving at 11:45 a.m. so I decided rather than buying yucky, expensive airport food I would make some lunch to take on the plane.

I didn't think to take a picture of the lunch itself but I packed a couple of tupperware containers full of sliced apples, sliced cheese, baby carrots, cucumber rounds, homemade hummus and pumpkin seeds.  The tupperware was the kind that you get lunch meat in and we have reused them a million times.  They were kinda old and nasty so I just threw them away when we were done.  Super easy!

I am sooooo very glad that I did pack the lunch because look at what the snacks were that they served:

Ritz bits cheese crackers and honey roasted peanuts....

Both of which Maya is allergic to!

I did ask the stewardess if they had anything without cheese or peanut for my food allergic daughter and they were able to find some pretzels and cookies left over from the last flight. 

Our flight home was also at lunch time and my wonderful sister packed us some yummy sandwiches and clementines and we also had some chips.  I didn't take a picture though.  

Saying goodbye!

For now.

Thanks for reading!

Deb

New cutters!

I found a sale on Lunch Punch cutters!  These cutters are so cute!  One of the first items I bought was their puzzle cutters.  Now I have their sweets and animals cutters too!

Peanut butter and apple butter sandwiches cut into ice cream cones

Greek yogurt with a colored greek yogurt frozen into a star

Blackberries and raspberries

Veggie salad - carrot coins, grape tomatoes, cucumber flowers, mozzarella circles

Maya had a difficult time opening the small dip container that came with the Planetbox and couldn't eat her pineapple yesterday.  So I can't pack her anything too juicy in this lunch box.  We still haven't found her Laptop Lunchbox. 

Pears

Veggie salad - carrot coins, cucumber with flowers cut out, grape tomatoes

Sunflower butter and apple butter "ice cream" sandwiches

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Lost

This week I have been making lunch for one of Maya's friends.

Spaghetti and meat sauce

Mixed veggies

Blackberries and Raspberries

Apple chunks

I gave Maya the assignment of bringing the friends lunch box back home with her.  She took this assignment very seriously. 

So seriously that she remembered to bring the friend's box home but not her own!  We have looked everywhere we can think of and cannot find Maya's lunch box.  This is the first time in 3+ years that she has lost a lunch box.  I guess that's a good track record. 

So today Maya took our new Planetbox Rover.

Roasted Pineapple bites

Grape tomatoes

Carrots and Cucumber flowers

Apple slices

Ham, Salami, and Pepperoni dolphin sandwiches

The Planetbox's come with magnets to decorate the outside that you choose from a bunch of options.  When I bought it I wanted something that would be good for any of us to use, but especially me!  So I chose these:

Makes me want to go places!

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Fall is in the air

November in Colorado ...

can only be described as bipolar.

Yesterday it was 67 degrees, sunny and I was hot in yoga pants and a t-shirt.

Today was 45 degrees, overcast and I was cold in wool socks, corduroy pants and a wool sweater.

Tomorrow it's supposed to snow.

And by Thursday we're back up to 60 degrees.

Like I said, bipolar.

Today I decided to make a lunch celebrating fall.

Almond butter Fairy sandwich cut with leaf cutter

Three extra leaves of just bread

Blackberries and raspberries with an apple pick

Cucumbers and multicolored peppers cut into leaves

Today I made lunch for a friend's daughter too.  Her Laptop Lunchbox is so cute!  I love the mix of colors hers has.  

Basically the same lunch but both she and Maya had Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut spread on the sandwich.

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Halloween lunch - finally!

Sorry I'm a little late posting our Halloween lunch!  Thank goodness I made most of it the night before because I woke up feeling a little queazy Oct 31 and if I hadn't had most of the lunch already made I probably wouldn't have done anything special.  Which would have been sad.

As it happens I have been feeling icky ever since.  Which super sucks since the hubby is super busy this weekend and pretty much not home at all.  And no I can't blame it on too much candy because I've barely eaten any.  Shocking, I know.

Maybe I got a poisoned one.

Last night I was so pathetic that the kids (8 and 6, remember) WASHED the bathtub and drew me a bath.  So sweet.

Still feeling yucky this morning, but better.

Anyway, here is lunch on Halloween:

Mummy Hamburgers (I shaped the burger long and lean)

Monster Pears

Broccoli grass

Macaroni and Cheese Brains (Maya had just macaroni)

Roasted pumpkin seeds and some Halloween jelly beans

Ketchup blood

On Friday I really was so awesome with lunches.  No, not really.  

As I said, I felt crummy, had to work and knew that hubby would be home very late.  

Maya had a field trip and needed to take a sack lunch.  I took a brown paper bag, threw in a juice box, a pear, a Clif Z bar, some carrots in a ziploc bag, and a ham sandwich in a ziploc bag.  So Eco friendly, I know.  And so fun too!  Not.  I did at least cut the sandwich with a leaf shaped cookie cutter.  

Max bought lunch.  

Seriously lacking in the running for Mother of the Year on Friday.  

I'm going back to bed.

Thanks for reading!

Deb

I see ghosts!

As I am trying to be super creative this last week of October I am realizing just how many tools I don't have yet.  I hope that I will be able to pick up a few new items in the clearance bins once Halloween is over to prepare for next year.

For example, I don't have a coffin cookie cutter.  What?!?!?  How can you not have a coffin cookie cutter!  I know.  Seriously lacking.  So I tried to make due.

2 stacked Coffin sandwiches (ham & cheese for Max, just ham for Maya)

Bacon "arms" sticking out

RIP in fruit leather

Blackberries are "dirt"

A few black grapes on ghost picks

Cucumbers on ghost pick

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Candy Corn and Pumpkins

I tried to make Candy Corn out of peppers but Becoming a Bentoholic  did it a whole lot better!  Take a look.

Maya had a Banana with 2 days (left til Halloween) etched in it

Candy Corn

4 types of roasted potatoes cut with pumpkin cutters - sweet, red, yellow and blue!

Cucumber slices cut with pumpkin cutters

Candy Corn made with yellow and orange sweet pepper and a cucumber tip

Tricolor grapes on pumpkin picks - red, black and green

Max's lunch is slightly different.  He doesn't like potatoes.  Who doesn't like potatoes?!?!  He is now tolerating sweet potatoes but only when they are smothered in butter and brown sugar.  So he got a sandwich!

Pumpkin shaped sandwich - peanut butter and apple butter

Candy Corn

Tricolor grapes on pumpkin picks

Banana - 2 days left!

Pumpkin shaped cucumber

Candy corn pepper with string cheese as the tip and the rest of the string cheese cut up

I thought I would share my lunch today too!  It's packed in our new Shuttle lunchbox from Planetbox.  

Cucumber slices

Red grapes

Max's sandwich looked so good I made myself the same! 

Peanut butter and apple butter - two halves stacked

Maya put in the pumpkin pick!

Yogurt and string cheese

I also bought the Rover lunch box.  Here's the picture of that from last Thursday.  This was one of the rare days that I could sit at a table to eat lunch during a meeting rather than in my car driving between appointments.

Apple chunks

Ham roll ups, grape tomatoes, cheddar cheese slices

Cucumber slices

Greek yogurt

2 of the little cookies I made in this post

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Bats and Vampires!

It's Monday of Halloween week!  I'm loving all the Halloween Bentos I've been seeing.  I decided that I am going to make fun Halloween Bentos every day until Halloween!

Today is Bats and Vampires!

Orange Bat pasta

(ok, it's actually veggie bowtie pasta but let's use our imaginations here people!)

Apple with cheese fangs

Dracula pick on carrots and rest of cheese stick

Pumpkin spice muffin with bat ring

"Bloody" pasta sauce

Bat Bread

Maya's is basically the same but she has pink plastic vampire teeth in the apple and she didn't want sauce.  I drew the closed eyes on both kids' apples but took Max's picture before I drew them. 

Today was also Max's day to bring snack for his class.  I try to always send fruit for the class.  Seeing as it's Halloween week I sent red, green and black grapes and I also made a treat!

Pumpkin spice muffins with spider web frosting

Of course Maya needed one in her lunch too!

Unfortunately this is not the one that made it into her lunch.  It must have still been a little warm or something when I packed it in her container last night.  In the morning the frosting had all melted and made a huge mess.  So the one in her lunchbox is just plain.  

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Witches!!

The other night I was teasing the kids about making them into Witches Stew.  As we were joking around ideas started forming in my head.  It's kinda crazy how a stray comment is now turned into a lunch idea.

I'm loving the Halloween Bentos!

Spaghetti hair

Homemade meatball for face

Candy eyes (totally forgot a mouth!)

Toast for a hat

Cucumber dress with Carrot arms

Asparagus broom

Apple slices

Chunky Veggie pasta sauce

5 Halloween jelly beans

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Floods and Pumpkins!!!

Not much happened today.  Just a minor emergency.  We came home to a horribly foul stench only to find that the hose to the water heater burst and the sump pump didn't go on so the basement floor was covered in water and it was like a sauna down there so all the pipes were dripping water.  Thankfully the flooded area is primarily concrete so we didn't have to rip up carpet or anything.  But we do have quite a mess.

My wonderful hubby cleaned up the basement, went to the hardware store three times, ran around to friends' houses to pick up fans and a wet/dry vac (Thank you friends!), and finally fixed the hose.

All in A Day in the Life....   

As for lunch:
Today was a Halloweeny Bento!

Pumpkin shaped sandwiches

A bed of greenery (cucumber rind) with mini cucumber pumpkins sprouting

grapes on pumpkin picks

Pumpkin Oatmeal muffins with flax seed (shhh!)

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Fun Bites Review

I am so excited to share this review with you!

Bobbie from FunBites was kind enough to send me a FunBites Cube It to review!

What is FunBites?  It is an amazingly versatile cutter that cuts your food into fun, bite sized squares.  The company also has Hearts and Triangles cutters.

FunBites is a company that was started by a mom, dad and their kids.  They appeal to picky eaters everywhere!  To make parents happy they are BPA free, made in the USA, and dishwasher safe!


Instructions:
Step 1: Place cutter on top of food.  Remove popper top and set to the side.

Step 2: Grab cutter handles on both sides, press down firmly and rock 5-6 times to cut through the food.

Step 3: Lift the cutter up, insert popper top and pop out the bite-sized pieces!

Yummy bite-sized sandwiches:

I wanted to try something a little different with my FunBites cutter.

Bite-sized COOKIES!!!

Maya using the cutter like a pro!

Nice big handles for gripping!

Pop out perfectly!

Separate and decorate!  The kids loved this part!

Perfect bite-sized cookies for a small treat in a nice rainbow of colors!  

How do they stack up?

Four cookies fit perfectly in the smallest Laptop Lunches container for a sweet treat.  

Overall I really like this cutter.  It's fun and easy to use, sturdy, versatile, easy to clean.  I might just have to get the triangles and hearts!  It took a few trials to get the hang of it, but maybe that's because I'm, ahem, old.  Maya figured it out on the first try!  

The biggest drawback is that I now have a million bite-sized sugar cookies in my house!  

Thanks for reading!

Deb

Want one?  Use the link on the right side margin to go to the FunBites website.

Disclosure: I am a FunBites affiliate and may receive a commission on any items purchased via this link.  All opinions expressed are my own.