Breakfast for Lunch -Take 2

Today we had breakfast for lunch again!  The kids always love this.

Silk Soy yogurt with flower sprinkles (trying again!)

Canadian Bacon letters with the scraps under the Hashbrown patty

Banana

Fruitables juice (not shown)

Stonyfield Soy yogurt (which actually has milk in it so Maya can't eat it!) with flower sprinkles

Canadian Bacon letters with scraps under Pancake

Syrup in little bottle

Banana

Fruitables juice (not shown)

Look what I found!!!

It's a teeny, tiny soy sauce bottle that came in a packet of about 20.  I put syrup in it for Max's pancake and made sure he could open and CLOSE it.  We'll see if he comes home with a sticky lunch box!

 

I won't be able to squeeze ketchup into it I don't think, although I might try.  I have found a couple of ketchup bottle options on AllThingsForSale.com and from various friends (Thanks everyone!) but haven't gotten any yet. 

Thanks for reading!

Friday's lunches

Wow!  Is it Sunday night already?  It's been a very hectic weekend over here in the Mile High City.  Stressful and hectic. 

I have been fumbling around with the blog and trying to change up some stuff.  (Thanks Vivian!!)  It's still not exactly how I want it, but now I have a lot more tools under my belt to tweak it some more. 

On to Friday's lunches, before the new week begins!

First, I made a lunch very similar to last weeks Fry Day lunch to give to the Kindergarten teacher for Broncos Fry Day.  Unfortunately she was not in school on Friday.  So it is in her refrigerator at school waiting for her return on Monday.  I wonder how it will hold up.  Unfortunately I don't have any EasyLunchboxes so I made due with separate containers that I put into a grocery bag.  Here it is:

 Bronco's is two different flavors of fruit leather for blue and orange

Pita pocket filled with "Fries" - jicama, celery, carrot, cucumber, mozz & chedder cheeses, turkey

Fresh berries - strawberries, blackberries and raspberries

Hummus to dip the veggies.

Max's lunch was like the teachers and none of his pictures came out. :( 

Maya didn't want the Fry Day pocket but I had all those veggies already cut!  So she got a deconstructed version.

Pita triangles

Ham and under the ham are some mini pepperoni's 

Fresh mixed berries - Strawberries, Blackberries, Raspberries

Veggies - Carrot, cucumber and jicama

Broncos spelled out in fruit leather

hummus

She wasn't very impressed because she came home with most of her lunch still in the box.  :( This is my first failure since starting to Bento. I guess that's a pretty good track record.  One failure in ~5 weeks.  

On to the new week!  May it be brighter!

Thanks for reading!

Mini Pocket Sandwiches - Tutorial

 

The mini sandwich pockets are one of the coolest things I've found so far.  I got it from BentoUSA.com  This is what it looks like put together. 

You open it up and put in a slice of bread and then  make a slight impression in the bread by putting the lid back on and pressing down gently.  Put your fillings in the impressions.  Don't put too much!

Then you place a second slice of bread over the first and put the lid of the cutter on and press down HARD and evenly. 

 

 

 This is what you get:

Very little waste, even less than some of the cookie cutters I use.

 

Now you have four adorable little sealed pocket sandwiches.  Kind of like those Crustables you can buy at Costco in the freezer section. But fresh and you can fill them with whatever you like.  Obviously I used Sunbutter for Maya.  I have used it once before for Max filled with egg salad.  It's pretty cool!

Thanks for reading!

Johnny Appleseed Day

Did you know that today is Johnny Appleseed Day?  Did you know that Johnny Appleseed is actually a real person?  He was born on Sept 26, 1774.  He grew apple trees and gave them away.  He traveled west and planted apple trees as he went.  According to legend he led a simple life, rarely accepted money and often donated any money he received.  He lived his calling, which was to grow and provide apples and apple trees.  I think that's pretty cool.

Today we had a lunch to honor Johnny Appleseed. 

It's packed in our new Goodbyn lunch boxes that I found on clearance at Target.  Well, actually two Target's.  I found the blue one at Target when I was shopping with my son and told him they would share it.  Then I happened to be in another Target and found the pink one!  What luck!

Their lunches are the same (basically) but I wanted to show both boxes, cause I can. 

Carrots and Snap Peas (two layers)

Applesauce with fall candy sprinkles

Cucumber apples

PB&J mini sandwich pockets (Maya's is Sunbutter)

Apple slices

The container holding the applesauce is from our Laptop Lunches and has a lid.  I was surprised that it fit in the Goodbyn but it did fit perfectly.  

 

This was a pretty big lunch for my kiddos but they had an after school activity today so I told them to eat whatever was leftover for a snack.  When we got home their lunch boxes were empty so I guess it was a good amount for both meals.

Thanks for reading!

Late

Today I don't have to go to work until later than usual.  So I planned on riding bikes to school since it is supposed to be a beautiful day and then start getting cold tomorrow. 

What happens when you know you have extra time in the morning? 

When you are me, you end up staying up way too late reading a new-to-me Bento blog from start to current.  Then you end up accidentally turning off your alarm rather than hitting snooze so you get up late.  You throw on clothes and wake the kids, Hurry Hurry!  Then you have to rush through lunch making and breakfast eating and don't get to ride bikes to school because you will be late.  Then you make it to school with time to spare and wonder why you were so rushed. 

Then you come home and blog about it.  :)

Ham and Cheese Sun sandwich with cheese smile face

(Maya had ham only with ham smile face)

Fresh Mixed Berries with flower pick

Carrots and Cucumbers

(It seemed sparse so I added string cheese to Max's and a Z bar to Maya's)

Thanks for reading!

First Day of Fall

I am trying to figure out this whole blogging thing.  So since I know there is a Meatless Monday linky I thought I would try my hand at it. 

I wanted to do something really fun for the first full day of Fall but I was feeling less than inspired at lunch making time.  So today's lunches were not very exciting, but I'm still a beginner. 

Let me tell you - that whole carving images in the apple thing is HARD!  But it looks neat! 

Almond butter and honey sandwich cut into apple shape

Carrots cut into Acorn shape

Apple wedge with maple leaf etched in

Thanks for reading!

Obsessed

So, I am a little obsessed, already.
I have read several Bento blogs from their first post to their most recent.  Spending hours on the couch reading them.  I have spent a bunch of money on picks and cutters.  I've had to rearrange several cabinets to make room in an accessible location for all my stuff.

But I'm having fun!

It's a creative outlet!

The kids are coming home with empty, or almost empty, lunch boxes! 

They LOVE their new lunches!

So what if we are late to school because I need to put that last decorative pick in?

It's okay if I'm up til midnight cutting vegetables into cute shapes, right?  Who needs sleep anyway.

So, I've been packing fun lunches for 4 weeks now and taking pictures of them with my phone but since I just started my blog I have not yet posted many.  So I am going to post a few of my favorites here.  Most days the kids get the same or similar lunches so sometimes I'll just post one if the picture is better.  I need to find a better place to take pictures and probably use the camera instead of the phone.

1st Day of 1st Grade!

Turkey, Ham, Pepperoni, & Cheese Star shaped sandwich (name made out of cheese, by hand because I hadn't gotten my alphabet cutters yet)

Carrots & Snap Peas

Dried Apricots

Banana

A few Teddy Grahams

1st Day of 3rd Grade!

Turkey, Ham, Pepperoni & Salami Heart shaped sandwich (name made out of salami and turkey.  This was a pain to do by hand!)

Carrots & Snap Peas

Dried Apricots

Banana

Teddy Grahams in container

 Veggie pasta with grape tomatoes and a giraffe pick (cute!)

Silk soy yogurt with frozen mixed berries and granola to sprinkle

Carrots

Banana

spoon is a super cute one from Menchie's (a frozen yogurt place that always has a sorbet that Maya can have  :)   )

Ham roll ups on heart picks

Noosa yogurt with frozen mixed berries

Granola in the small container to sprinkle over the yogurt

Carrots, grape tomatoes and cucumber's shaped into acorns (the rest of the cucumber is under the veggies).

Lunchables (I've been doing this for years)

Triscuit thins

Ham, salami and pepperoni (they are all round so they cut into triangles when I cut them up. Perfect for the triangle Triscuit thins!)

Fruit mix (cantalope, pear, watermelon balls, and I think I threw in a cherry) with owl pick

Veggies (cucumber, carrots and radish - they didn't like the radish.  At least they tried it!)

Hummus

We love doing jigsaw puzzles in our house so when I saw these cutters I had to get them!  They are awesome!  Also, I am a Pediatric Physical Therapist so the Autism connection was not lost on me.

Almond butter and honey sandwich cut into puzzle pieces (this was Max's, Maya won't eat almonds.  She can, just won't. So her's was "chocolate spread" AKA Nutella)

Carrots

Red and Green grapes with bear pick

Teddy Grahams

I'm sure everyone knows about all the flooding Colorado got recently.  I made lunches in honor of that.

Sunbutter and Honey Umbrella sandwich

and Rain Drops (colored with edible pen)

Handle of Umbrella and other Rain Drops are fruit leather

Pear chunks, Cantelope, and Watermelon balls with flower pick

(rain makes the flowers grow, right?)

Rest of the fruit leather split between the two kids' boxes is tucked under the carrots and grape tomatoes.

THEY LOVED THIS LUNCH!!!

All time favorite!  "Borrowed" this idea from a blog I found: BentOnBetterLunches (I hope she doesn't mind!) SO FUN!!!

Every Friday during Football season the kindergarten teacher at school passes out candy to the kids that wear Bronco colors (Denver's football team)

Today was Broncos Fry Day!!!!

Pita Pockets with "fries" made from carrot, cucumber, celery, jicama, ham and apple.  (Max also had fries made from cheddar and mozzerella cheeses, Maya had extra ham and apple)

Letters and little football (sort of) were made from fruit leather

Strawberry jello

Hummus dip for the veggies and pita

I'd love any comments!

Thanks for reading!!

Breakfast for lunch!

Who doesn't love Breakfast for Dinner?  My kiddo's do!  So I asked them if they wanted Breakfast for Lunch and they were super excited.  I made sure to ask if they minded the food cold and they said no.  They do have access to a microwave at school but with only 20 minutes and long lines of kids they never use it.  When they came home I double checked and they said "Lunch was Great!".  And the lunch boxes were practically licked clean!  No after shots - I'll have to remember to do some of those on occasion.

Mini Van's Dairy Free/Egg Free Flax Waffles

Syrup is in the container

Fresh heart shaped strawberries (Max also got some blueberries on picks but Maya won't eat them)

Scramble of spinach, Canadian Bacon, grape tomatoes.  Max's had egg and cheese.  Maya's had shredded potatoes.  And I ate the leftovers. Yum!

Juice box (they get water bottles every day but occasionally I send a juice box for a treat)


Look how much cuter these lunches are with an umbrella pick!

My current quest is to find a good, mess free option to send the syrup in.  Max opens the containers just fine but doesn't really take the time to close them well.  So when he came home the entire lunch box was coated in syrup.  At least it stayed in the larger Laptop Lunches case and didn't seep out into the lunch bag.  But I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions! 

Thanks for reading!! 

1st Post!

Hello!

This is my first time blogging!  I am fairly new to the wonderful world of creative Bento-ing.  I live in the Mile High City of Denver, Colorado with my husband and our two kids.  Our daughter is 8 years old and now in 3rd grade.  She has some food allergies (dairy, egg, fish and peanut) so I have always made her lunches.  Thankfully none are life threatening, but still best to avoid any cross contamination.  Our son is 6 years old and in 1st grade.  He used to have a soy allergy but has outgrown it, but I still make his lunches because it's healthier and cheaper than school lunch!  Every once in a while he will buy school lunch as a treat.

So, I have been making school lunches for my kids for about 3 years.  We have been using the Laptop Lunches system all along but just starting making lunches fun this school year.  Lunch was getting boring so I started searching the internet.  I have been so inspired by all the blogs out there and have been having so much fun making lunches this month that I decided to try my hand at blogging too!  Now I just have to figure out what I am doing! 

In my daughter's words: Welcome to my journey from regular lunches to FANTASTIC LUNCHES!!!

Thanks for reading!