BentOnBetterLunches

Lunch looks Seussalicious!

2012-03-02T04:07:00.000-08:00

I made those Seuss-inspired lunches some time ago, but never got around to posting them ... Apples for "The Cat in the Hat", goldfish crackers & gummy fish for "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish", and green scrambled eggs & honey ham for "Green Eggs and Ham" in Birdie & Sprout's Sassy boxes. Bella doesn't like eggs cold so had green plastic ones from last Easter filled with shredded cheese & almonds for her salad instead. Beanstalk doesn't like eggs at all so he got a Clif Z Bar in his Lock & Lock.

No better day than today to finally share them!

Beanstalk and Bella will also be sharing Dr. Seuss pencils with their classmates in honour of the beloved author's birthday. Pickle already handed some out his class on his birthday last Friday.

We love Dr. Seuss! Who doesn't?! And what a Seussful week we've had so far! I did repeat many of the themes, but there are some new things too :)

In case you missed it, Monday I made Birdie & Sprout a Seussilicious muffin tin meal with "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" goldfish grahams & gummy fish, a Gala apple & mozzarella "Cat in the Hat" hat, three cheese trees with 3 chocolate sprinkle fleas, from "Fox in Socks", scrambled & dyed "Green Eggs and Ham", strawberry, mozzarella & cream cheese "Thing 1 and Thing 2", and green tapioca pudding "Oobleck":

Yesterday, I made Bella a Seussified bento:

"Green eggs & ham" grapes, and ham :) "Cat in the Hat" cracker stack, and some mozzarella string cheese, "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" goldfish grahams & gummy fish, & another "Cat in the Hat"-inspired snack of skewered strawberry fruit leather and mini marshmallows.

And finally,

Today's Seuss-inspired lunchboxes:

Beanstalk's PlanetBox is pretty plain and simple, the way he likes it. He has a "Star Belly Sneetch egg" peanut butter sandwich, "Cat in the Hat" striped Cheez-it crackers (spicy & white cheddar), egg-shaped Granny Smith apples & skewered applewood smoked ham for "Green Eggs & Ham", and a couple of green foil-wrapped chocolate eggs just to be sweet :)

Pickle wanted me to take a photo of his sandwich using his iPod's Dr. Seuss Birthday camera app. I used it for Dr. Seuss' photo above too. It's fun!

I've learned that Pickle doesn't like his sandwiches to look too much like characters he loves, or he doesn't want to eat them (remember my Angry Birds sandwich? I had to keep it in the freezer for him to look at for weeks) - which works in my favor anyways considering my lack of artistic ability :) The Cat in the Hat's hat is a much easier sandwich to make than the Cat in the Hat! So that's what he got, with yogurt and a couple of chocolate green eggs:

Bella's class is having a Read Across America pizza party today so I was told she didn't need a lunch, but just in case she wanted something healthy to go with her pizza, I packed her a little snack inspired by :

Nothing much, just a pair of celery "pants" and an apple wedge "moon", from the last story in the book, What was I Scared of? I also added some lime gelatin "Oobleck" and a honeycrisp apple "Cat in the Hat" hat, just because :)

Poor empty pants

With nothing inside them.

That particular story reminds me of my Bella. She would totally feel sorry for and hug the poor lonely pants :)

Lunchtime Update:

A last-minute bento for ME! Cucumber "Green Eggs & Ham", "Cat in the Hat" striped radishes, crackers, cheese & potato, broccoli & cheddar Seuss - yum!

This post is part of a Dr. Seuss Birthday Bento Blog Hop! If that's what brought you here, thanks for hopping by! And before you hop over to Bento for Kidlet to see what cheese artiste extraordinaire Jenn has made for her lucky Kidlet, if you haven't already, why not take a moment to read this terrific Seussian poem written especially for our bento blog Seusstravaganza by Karen of What's in John's Lunch Bag and What's in Mom's Lunch Bag? :

Now, Happy Hopping! → This Way to Bento for Kidlet

Leap Into Spring

2012-02-29T12:45:00.000-08:00

Happy Leap Day! My sproutlets didn't care much that today is leap day, it didn't mean much to them - but they did find it amusing when I told them that if Pickle had been born on this date instead 5 days earlier, this year it would only be his 2nd birthday :) "Whoa, close one!" said Beanstalk.

Bella wanted "a bunch of little things" in her lunch, so I made her a Spring-y assortment of fruit, veggies, cheese, and rice cakes ✿

Birdie & Sprout shared a Nibble Tray. They had Annie's Homegrown Fruity Bunnies cereal and some alphabet cookies I found in the Safeway bakery, honey oat bran muffin, grapes, carrots, and cheddar-mozzarella flowers.

The mini muffin was Birdie's; Sprout got a bigger one, just like Pickle's, pictured below. Muffins fit perfectly in the little Tupperware snack cups. Pickle also got a Frog Prince peanut butter sandwich made with a Lunch Punch.
A Leap frog :)

Beanstalk has a new lunch box, a PlanetBox! He is so thrilled with it :)
The stainless steel is very cool...

His PlanetBox contains a honey oat bran mini muffin, raisins, grapes, Cheez-its, carrots, an orange, and a gummy fish treat. The many separated sections are perfect for my picky boy who doesn't like his foods to touch.

Stuff I used to make these lunches:

Cute picks All Things For Sale

Do You Like Green Eggs & Ham?

2012-02-27T15:25:00.000-08:00

Would you try them in a muffin tin? Would you eat them with a grin?
Sprout did! She ate them with a grin.
Her Seuss inspired green eggs & ham were a win!

Muffin Tin Monday! I decided to participate in the unofficial Dr. Seuss theme. Here is Sprout's Seussilicious muffin tin meal:

Goldfish grahams with a couple of gummy fish represent One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. The Cat in the Hat's iconic red & white striped hat is made of mozarella & gala apple slices. The 3 cheese trees are from Fox in Socks, they even have chocolate sprinkles for fleas :)

The Cat in the Hat's Thing 1 and Thing 2 are made of strawberries with mozzarella heads and chocolate sprinkle faces, topped with cream cheese (coloured blue) for their crazy hair.

Sprout had to have Green Eggs (scrambled of course, that's how she prefers her eggies - fine with me, it's much easier to colour scrambled eggs!) and Ham (dyed green by soaking it in a dish of water and food colouring while the eggs cooked). And green tapioca Oobleck, ew!

And just like the Yink, they had pink ink to drink (strawberry milk).

Here's Sprout eating her green eggs & ham :)

Happy (early) Birthday Dr. Seuss!

This was such a fun tin to make! Birdie & Sprout knew right away what the theme was. They loved the tin as a whole, they just weren't completely keen on everything in it. Even though I assured them that the Oobleck was just pudding with food colouring, they wouldn't touch it ... but I have to admit it didn't look very appetizing... The thing that I thought they wouldn't like - the green ham - Sprout gobbled up with without hesitation - go figure! Birdie didn't get any ham, she's gone off meat again - but she did eat all her egg :)

Peekaboo!

2012-02-26T20:54:00.000-08:00

Peekaboo mummy! Dat my lunch?

I don't usually make bento lunches on the weekends, but I do sometimes make something cute. Yesterday I made Birdie a mama & daddy goldfish grilled cheese with goldfish cracker babies:

This was a lesson lunch - I learned not to use a sandwich cutter on grilled cheese until it has cooled off quite a bit, or the cheese will ooze out!

One of the goldfish crackers shifted when I set the plate down and stuck to the cheddar oozing from one of the grilled cheese goldfish - I guess it was the mama one - because Birdie pointed to the goldfish cracker and said "dat baby one is eating his moot". Moot = mama's milk, her word for it. Cute :)

Happy Birthday!

2012-02-24T14:22:00.000-08:00

Today is my Pickle's 8th birthday! I made him a peanut butter sandwich cake:

It *just* fit in his sandwich box. The letters did get squished down a little bit when I put the lid on, but I took it off again to check and they are still readable: Happy Birthday :) And doesn't it look like a smile through the lid? The air bubbles in the bread are in just the right places!

Pickle was so excited to take Dr. Seuss pencils to school to share with his class in lieu of cupcakes! Just in time for Dr. Seuss Week too :)

AND

I forgot to post Birdie's birthday bento! She turned 3 just over a week ago:

Birdie loves elephants and asked for an elephant birthday so that was her party theme :) Here's her elephant birthday lunch:

She had elephant cookies, elephant shaped cheese embellished with sprinkles, strawberries and grapes with elephant picks, and a peanut butter and nutella birthday cake sandwich, made with a Lunch Punch from the Sweet set. The candles have gobs of peanut butter for flames :)

The elephant cookies sure are hard to make out! I really had to squint to be sure I had an elephant and not a buffalo - all the animal cookies just looked like pink and white blobs to me :)

Me and my silly 3 year old girl ♥ at her party at Grandma & Grandpa's:

And some of her elephant cupcakes:

Happy Birthdays Pickle & Birdie!

Stuff I used for these lunches:

ALPHABET FOOD PICKS

from All Things For Sale

100th Day of School

2012-02-23T11:55:00.000-08:00

Today's the 100th day of school for my sproutlets! It's a little later in the year than originally planned due to a week of snow days :)

Pickle began his day reading the book 100th Day Worries while eating his breakfast - then it went into his backpack to share with his 2nd grade class.

In the book, a little girl is worried that she won't be able to find 100 things to bring to school for her 100th day. The book was from one of Bella's first Scholastic book orders in kindergarten, and inspired her lunch today :)

I was so pleased with myself for puzzling 10 little cups into her EasyLunchbox!

Bella has exactly 100 bites of lunch! 10 each of grape tomatoes, black grapes, mozzarella, cheddar, ham, turkey, golden globe tomatoes, "Mystic" grapes, cheddar Cheez-Its, and white cheddar Cheez-Its. I cut the ham & turkey using my FunBites Luv it! cutter, because it's quick & easy - and makes exactly 10 pieces :) For snack, I gave her one of those 100 calorie packs of yogurt covered pretzels, relabeled 100th day of school pack :

Beanstalk has 100 bites in his Lock & Lock bento box too - they just aren't in multiples of 10. He has 10 cheddar Cheez-Its, 10 white cheddar Cheez-Its, 18 graham squares, 5 "Mystic" grapes, 5 black grapes, 5 ham rolls, 5 apple slices, and 42 yogurt raisins. There were 45 in the box so I ate 3 :)

Pickle has 100 love bites :) I strung 100 bits of Quaker Whole Hearts heart-shaped oat cereal on a red cord - his favourite colour. It frames his usual peanut butter sandwich, with 100 DAYS cut out and stamped into it:

I also gave him a package of 100 calorie Oreo snacks - a real treat! At the beginning of the year a note was sent home asking me not to send him Oreo cookies because he makes too much mess with them :( He doesn't mean to, he just really enjoys them, and turns them into a sensory experience. Unfortunately the school does not have time for a mess like that, so Oreos have been a home snack for my Pickle ever since... then this week I noticed these Oreo wafers at the store - hopefully the eats them neatly!

Pickle usually gets a small Snapware container of yogurt, but I ran out so he got one of his Dad's individual yogurt cups. He loves peeling the foil cap :) And Beanstalk got a 100 calorie snack pack just like Bella's.

Each one got a Lunchbox Love too. Bella says one of the lunchroom ladies likes all the trivia on the flip side of the sentiments :)

Happy 100th Day of School to my sproutlets!

Stuff I used today:

Crock-Pot Cheesy Pierogi Lasagne

2012-02-22T19:47:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is not really lunch - but it could be - it makes yummy leftovers! :)

So good to come home to! This savoury casserole's layers of pasta, potatoes & cheese are reminiscent of pierogies, mmm. It goes great with polish sausage - or with breakfast sausage - you can make it the night before to wake up to :)

Ingredients:
	6-12 potatoes, peeled & quartered Pasta - I like farfalle because it has the wiggly edges like lasagne noodles 1 lb shredded cheese(s) of choice 1 cup milk (or cream) 1 lb butter, divided 1-2 onions, chopped
Suggested potato add-ins:	more shredded cheese, minced garlic, grated parmesan, bacon bits, sour cream, herbs of choice, salt & pepper

Directions:

1 - Boil potatoes & pasta.

2 - While they cook, sautée onions in ½ lb butter, until golden, and set aside.

3 - Drain & rinse pasta, set aside.

4 - Drain potatoes, mash with milk (or cream) and remaining ½ lb butter.

5 - If desired, add other potato add-ins of choice. I add minced garlic, salt & pepper, grated parmesan and a handful of shredded sharp cheddar.

6 - Beginning with pasta, layer ingredients in crock-pot. You can also layer more potato add-ins if desired - I threw in some Tastefully Simple soy bacon bits atop each layer of potatoes.

7 - Finish with a layer of cheese. A sprinkling of grated parmesan is good too :)

8 - Top with the sautéed onions & butter.

9 - Cover and cook on low all day or on high if you tend to start late, like me :)

10 - Done when the cheese & onion topping is hot & bubbly!

Bon Apétit!

Oven Option

Layer ingredients in deep dish lasagne pan or casserole dish, lightly sprayed with cooking oil. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for about 30 minutes or until top is as browned as you like :) - OR - Refrigerate until ready to bake. Cover with foil. (To prevent sticking, spray foil with cooking spray, or make sure it does not touch the cheese.) Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for about 30 minutes, remove foil, and bake an additional 15-30 minutes.

Like my Recipe?
Click the Bunny & Vote for it!

Mardi Gras Mélange

2012-02-21T12:13:00.000-08:00

Sailor Boy & I lived in New Orleans some years back, until shortly after we had our first sproutlet ... wow, I guess that would be 10 years back then! Doesn't seem that long ago... The people we met, the experiences we had, and that colourful city itself - it's all still quite vivid in my mind - and Mardi Gras there is unforgettable! Beanstalk was born in the Crescent City, the only one of the 5 sproutlets not born here in Washington State. He's proud of that difference, and considers Mardi Gras a sort of personal special day, so he was pleased to see King Cake on the breakfast table this morning. I didn't take a picture before they each had a piece, but here's what's left :)

It wasn't a real King Cake - I know I've mentioned before how baking challenged I am - I cheated with Pillsbury cinnamon rolls from the can, a little extra frosting, and coloured sugar crystals :) So much easier!

The sproutlets have a mélange of Mardi Gras colours in their lunches:

My NOLA ~~baby~~ boy was thrilled to see his bento full of purple, green & gold. He has white cheddar popcorn - Smartpop, his favourite, a treat to have in his lunchbox - as well as some Mardi Gras yogurt pretzels - 2 treats today, lucky boy! Purple, green (and red) grapes, and a mandarin orange (orange is sort of gold) which he'll hopefully eat before the sweets - riiiiight :)

The pretzels were an easy treat - I heated several on a plate in the microwave for 20 second increments until the coating began to look shiny (melty), quickly sprinkled on the coloured sugar, then popped them in the fridge for 5 minutes before packing them in the lunches. I bought a rainbow assortment sugar shaker yesterday - I could do this for every holiday!

Bella 's EasyLunchbox is also filled with purple, green & gold goodness. She has cucumber "doubloons", cheddar crowns, a little salad (including a new like, spinach leaves!), golden globe tomatoes, purple grapes, and green grapes - a little reminiscent of Mardi Gras beads? - and sugared yogurt pretzels.

It's Tuesday, breakfast for lunch day at school. Pickle loves having the pancake hot lunch on Tuesdays, and today was no different, but he also wanted a Mardi Gras lunch, so he asked me to make him a "home lunch" as well. I made him a "King" sandwich and packed it in a gold sandwich box :)

The pancake hot lunch includes sausage and fruit, which he never eats, but he does eat the Yami yogurt cup that also comes with it (he loves those little individual cups with the peel-off lids) so with the addition of the PB sandwich, he'll have a pretty full tummy today!

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

For more Fat Tuesday Fun, visit:

Stuff I used for today's lunches :

Happy Holiday Monday!

2012-02-20T14:33:00.001-08:00

It's Family Day in many provinces of Canada - although my home province of British Columbia won't officially observe it until 2013 - so Happy Family Day to my fellow Canadians! Lucky for me, it's also a holiday here in the USA - it's President's Day - so I get to spend Family Day with my family :)

I made patriotic lunches for some of my little American sproutlets. Pickle had a peanut butter sandwich, & yogurt (not shown). I tried to make his sandwich look like the American flag did when the first president of the United States, George Washington, was in office. 13 stars & 13 stripes - sort of :

Good thing I consulted Wikipedia because Pickle asked how I knew that's what the flag looked like, and then he asked to see proof! He counted too :)

The little girls had heart and star muffin tin meals :

Mozzarella string cheese stripes, red grapes on blue heart picks, hard-cooked eggs shaped with heart & star egg molds, little peanut butter sandwiches, strawberries, and yogurt with red & blue cupcake sprinkles.

Sprout and Birdie had been playing fancy dress-up just before lunch :) Watch the sleeve of your wedding gown in your yogurt Bean Sprout!

#77 & #78

2012-02-18T23:58:00.000-08:00

I'm more than ¾ of the way to my goal of 101 peanut butter sandwiches!

Today was a 2 peanut butter sandwiches day.

Pickle was very pleased to to be eating #77 & #78 :)

See them all here.

Too Cute To Eat

2012-02-18T13:34:00.000-08:00

I made sweet little Hello Kitty bentos for the little girls' lunches yesterday:

Hello Kitty is a hard-cooked egg, cutified with a pink Hello Kitty egg mold, and embellished with food markers. Her little friends atop the strawberries are picks available from All Things For Sale, as are the cutters used for the cheese. I turned a muffin cup inside out for the applesauce - it makes more of a bowl shape that is easier to scoop a spoon against the side of. The applesauce is topped with a slice of strawberry, and surrounded by seedless red grapes. A few berry rice cakes are in there too :)

Well, Sprout wouldn't eat her egg. She didn't want to eat Hello Kitty! "I want to save her!" she told me and insisted I put Hello Kitty eggie in the fridge. Birdie made an angry face when she saw the applesauce. "I hate applesauce!" she told me in a tone that said I should have known that, crossed her arms, and wouldn't even sit down in her chair until I removed the offending fruit cup from the bento. Birdie had no qualms about biting into her Kitty-faced egg though!

Later, while the girls were having an afternoon snack, I was on the phone, and Sprout overheard me telling my friend that she wouldn't eat her Hello Kitty egg, "I suppose she doesn't like to eat food with faces" I said. "No!" piped up Sprout, "It's because it's cute, so I want to keep it! But see! I can eat a face!" and she arranged her snack like so:

I stand corrected :)

Stuff I used:

Spring is NOT in the air today...

2012-02-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

... but it IS in Bella's bento... a little bit :)

Bella has cheddar flowers, Spring print Ritz crackers, grapes (there's a 2nd layer under the flower cup), tomatoes topped with ham tulips, carrot tulips, & celery. The carrot had a split in it so just had to make a 2nd split for the tulips. I attached the ham tulips to the tomatoes with cute little tulip picks from AllThingsForSale, and secured the cheese stack with a bunny pick from Daiso. A pretty Spring-y lunch to brighten this gloomy rainy day - I hope :)

Nothing cutesy for Beanstalk - he was less than thrilled about his Valentine's Day hearts bento. I did still sneak a little sunshine in - Sun-Maid raisins (made from grapes & sunshine, right?) and Spring print Ritz - but only the ones with the sunshine, not the flowers or butterflies :)

To answer Jenn of Bento for Kidlet's question from the other day, "where do you take your lunch pictures?", I take mine on our front porch too! The light is best there in the mornings, although on gloomy days like today, the "best" light still isn't very good! :)

Pickle wanted pancakes. Fortunately for him (because I am not good at making them), when Sailor Boy makes pancakes, he makes lots so we have extra to freeze - so I only had to reach into the bag in the freezer :) He has separate spoons for the yogurt and the peanut butter cup - he likes a fresh spoon - and a dipping cup of maple syrup, covered in Glad Press'n Seal.

Stuff I used today:

The Missing Piece Sandwich

2012-02-15T14:09:00.000-08:00

Pickle's sandwich today was inspired by 2 things, Keitha's Storybook Lunches, (seriously awesome, every day she makes her little man a bento lunch based on their bedtime story from the night before) and a Shel Silverstein quote recently shared with me by Sarah of Bentoriffic (another superb bento lunch blogger). Pickle loves Shel Silverstein.

I made this badge with the quote*, so I can put it in the sidebar of my blog.
Help yourself if you like it :)

*The quote is an excerpt from a 1963 interview with Aardvark magazine. The full article is here.

February 14th Brunch

2012-02-14T23:15:00.000-08:00

What a mean mama I am, I didn't make special school lunches for Valentine's Day! Nah, it's okay, I had already made the sproutlets Valentine-y school lunches yesterday, for the Valentine themed blog hop ♥ and Bella & Pickle wanted the school's hot lunch today :) It's breakfast for lunch on Tuesdays, and today they were serving cinnamon french toast & pancakes, and sausages. And since I was up way late making chocolatey pretzel snacks for their classroom festivities, I was quite happy to let the school make them brunch! I'd done my mama duty making lots and lots of these yummy treats:

Pretzels are kind of heart-shaped to begin with. I drizzled a pound of them with half a pound of chocolate - both semisweet and white (coloured pink) - and divided the salty sweet snack between Beanstalk & Bella to share with their classes. Except I did keep this small plate full, for me & the little girls to munch:

I decided to make the little girls and myself brunch as well. We had strawberries, ham, and pink heart-shaped mini omelettes. I cooked the egg & mozzarella omelettes in the microwave in my heart-shaped silicone muffin pan. I wish I'd taken some pics of them cooking! Birdie & Sprout loved watching them puff up out of the pan as they cooked - they looked like they would explode and make a huge mess - but when the microwave stopped, they deflated into perfect proper heart shapes :)

Come to think of it, Beanstalk did get a Valentine's Day lunch today! He took the lunch I made him yesterday, but that he didn't eat because he wasn't feeling well. He felt better today :) Here it is again - or you can click here to see all of yesterday's Valentine's Day themed lunches, and follow the blog hop to see the other 10 lovely Valentine's lunch posts.

♥ I hope you all had a lovely Love Day! ♥

Hoppy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-13T11:45:00.000-08:00

No, that's not a typo, I'm being silly :) This post is part of a Valentine-themed blog hop, whee! So after you admire my sproutlets' love-ly lunches, you get to hop around my circle of bento blogger friends ♥

This is also a 2 for 1 Valentine Lunch Deal - I never posted Friday's school lunches, so am squeezing them in with today's :)

Bella's EasyLunchbox is full of love, she even has a Lunchbox Love note stuck to the lid. Inside she has cranberry gelatin, with a little cup of Valentine candy corn nestled into it, grapes and grape tomatoes on new heart picks from Daiso, turkey and cheese pinwheels on a heart-shaped bed of baby spinach, and a few carrot and cheese hearts. I used my FunBites Luv it! cutter for the little carrot hearts since it's much sturdier than a cookie cutter (I've broken them cutting carrots in the past).

Her Friday lunch was yogurt craisins, mozzarella hearts, spiced almonds - in a pink container hiding under the pastry heart - fruit leather hearts, berry rice cakes, grape tomatoes, and mixed grapes :)

Beanstalk's lunch, made before he woke with flu symptoms, is also full of hearts, so maybe it's just as well he's home sick - he probably would have been mad at me for making it so cute :)

He would have had ham hearts & bites, made with a FunBites Luv it! cutter, a Gala apple half, Quaker Whole Hearts oat cereal with a couple of chocolate Teddy Grahams, raisins, and yogurt craisins - and a Lunchbox Love note stuck on the lid of his Lock&Lock bento box:

His Friday lunch was grapes, berry rice cakes, Whole Hearts cereal and a heart-shaped pastry, in a Sistema Klip-it container.

Pickle has peanut butter sandwich valentines, a little container of pink & red candy corn (with heart stickers on the lid) and a special yogurt - I coloured a little bit with food coloring, set a heart cookie cutter on the surface, filled the center of the heart with the pink yogurt, then topped it up with more plain yogurt before carefully removing the cookie cutter. It came out great!

His Friday lunch was plain yogurt and a pair of heart peanut butter sandwiches cut with a Sweet Bytes.

And last but not least, Birdie & Sprout's Valentine's Heart Treat Box!

I made one for each of them, using the box and lid from a chocolates box from last Valentine's Day (courtesy of my sentimental Bella who saves everything!) and mini cupcake liners turned inside out (so the red polka dot side shows):

They have berry mini rice cakes, apple hearts, teddy grahams, yogurt craisins, red grapes, ham hearts, yogurt covered pretzel rings, Quaker Whole Hearts oat cereal, mozzarella cheese hearts, strawberry fruit leather hearts, and a fresh strawberry. They're going to love it!

♥ Please check out Keeley of Keeley McGuire Blog's lunch full of love by clicking here ~ ♥ ~ Then follow the hop on her page (and so on and so on ) for even more lovely lunch ideas! ♥

Saturday Evening Post: Here we go again...

2012-02-11T11:59:00.000-08:00

Another lucky reader wins a prize! The first winner of my Today I Ate A Rainbow giveaway didn't contact me to claim their prize... so I've drawn a 2nd chance winner... But first, a comic. Sailor Boy clipped this from the paper back in November - he said it made him think of me :) We love Baby Blues, we see ourselves in it almost every week. I meant to share this one, but forgot until now. It's still funny though :

And now, the second chance winner of the Rainbow Kit ... Lucky #13!

Congratulations Melody Pugh of The Parisian Cupcake! Yours was the 13th entry that included a way for me to contact you. An email has been sent to you with instructions for claiming your prize :)

So, why am I so late with my Saturday Evening Post?

We're visiting my family in Canada for Birdie's 3rd birthday. It just so happens that there's a really big Daiso in my hometown, and tonight my parents watched the kids so hubby and I could go!

So many cute cutters, molds and picks to choose from:

Me. Kid in a candy store :)

I kept it to one shopping bag though :)

I even found some elephant print chopsticks for Birdie! She and Sprout love eating noodles with chopsticks. I got Sprout some with little strawberries on them. I'll have to make another asian lunch for them sometime soon :)

A Berry Cute Snack

2012-02-10T15:34:00.000-08:00

My sproutlets and I received some happy mail the other day, a package from LearningZoneXpress! One of the items inside was LANA's Fruit & Vegetable Snack Recipes cookbook, from the LANA Preschool Program. It's a step by step picture cookbook for preschoolers and caregivers to use together. The recipes are simple, adorable, and nutritious, and the instructions even suggest which steps the child can do. I love that the pages are sturdy and laminated, no worries about my messy little helpers handling it :) We love it!

My Sprout picked out the Strawberry Mini-Mouse Nibbles snack recipe right away, strawberries are her favourite.

The recipe calls for graham crackers, strawberries, berry cream cheese, mozzarella string cheese, and sliced almonds. We didn't have any graham crackers (I thought we did, but it turns out we had an empty graham cracker box... I'm sure other parents with older kids are familiar with that sort of discovery) but we had everything else.

And we did have berry rice cakes, they'd make a yummy substitute :)

Sprout enjoyed spreading the cream cheese. She spread quite a bit on her tongue too! And only 2 of the 4 mice actually survived the snack's preparation, the other 2 were eaten in the process :)

Aren't they adorable?! Easy and fun too :)

Thanks LANA & LearningZoneXpress ♥

Happy Friday!

Some normal lunches :)

2012-02-10T09:31:00.000-08:00

Took some lunch to Sailor Boy and his shipmates:

The fruit & veggies, egg & cheese in the Klip-It tray in the middle was just for my guy, but the rest was to share - egg salad wraps, and buffalo chicken dip with blue corn chips. I had made egg salad sandwiches for him to take in to work for a pot luck the day before, and I made way too much. I was told it was very good egg salad (I wouldn't know, can't stand the stuff myself!) so I figured they'd like it a 2nd day :) Want the recipe? It's at the end of the post ↓

Bella's school lunch wasn't anything special, no cute theme ... but her EasyLunchbox was filled with things she likes... and get this - another student made fun of it! Yes, a girl in her class teased her because her lunch was all vegetables, and why didn't she ever have a normal lunch? My sweet Bella took it to heart too, and lost her appetite :(

She did finish it after school on the drive home - but only after I assured her that there was nothing wrong with her lunch, and this other girl just didn't know what was what - she certainly wasn't the authority on normal lunches. "And besides, your healthy lunch is making you strong, smart, and beautiful, " I told her "You eat a rainbow every day, how cool is that?!" This made her smile and she finished her carrot sticks.

Pickle got playful puppy peanut butter sandwiches. The puppy in the house was made with a Lunch Punch, the rest, cookie cutters. We made up a little dialogue to go with them. The first puppy says "Hey puppy pal, I got a new ball, come out and play!" The second puppy says "Can't dude, have to stay home and guard my bone" and then they argue and argue all day long "woof woof woof woof woof' until there's no more time to play anyways. Silly puppies.

After we dropped off Pickle, Beanstalk, and Bella at their respective schools, Sprout & Birdie & I went to buy some fresh strawberries and made a few impulse buys - so they got a treat with their lunch - berry rice cakes:

Birdie's egg looks small, like a quail's egg, but it's a regular egg - I forgot to salt the water when I cooked it, so when I peeled it, much of the white stuck to the shell, leaving a smaller egg - Birdie thought it was cute :)

Here's the recipe for the egg salad that all the sailor boys loved :

Egg Salad That Bites Back

Ingredients:

12 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and chopped
½ cup light mayonnaise
½ cup low-fat sour cream
¼ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons mustard
2 heaping tablespoons prepared horseradish
½ cup bacon bits (I use Tastefully Simple Bacon Bacon, which is soy)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Shell eggs, separate yolks from whites
2. Chop whites
3. Crumble yolks with fork, add all ingredients, mix until well-combined.
4. Stir in chopped egg whites.
5. Refrigerate or serve :)

Here's the Buffalo Chicken Dip printed on the Frank's® RedHot® sauce bottle, as I made it - everyone loved it :)

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Ingredients:
8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
½ cup blue cheese salad dressing
¾ cup FRANK'S® REDHOT® Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce
½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese
2 cans (12.5 oz. each) SWANSON® White Premium Chunk Chicken Breast in Water, drained

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Place cream cheese into deep baking dish. Stir until smooth.
2. Mix in salad dressing, Frank's RedHot Sauce and cheese. Stir in chicken.
3. Bake 20 min. or until mixture is heated through; stir & serve.

Dino Love & A Bento To Go

2012-02-08T09:23:00.000-08:00

Birdie and Sprout wanted peanut butter sandwiches yesterday. Birdie chose a dinosaur cookie cutter and Sprout chose a heart. Birdie then picked out a smaller heart and said her dinosaur wanted some love too :)

I made the sandwiches they wanted and added some cheese and fruit leather hearts too. Birdie's dinosaur got his love :)

The sproutlets & I delivered this bento to a friend's little boy who's the same age as Birdie. He likes vehicles so I went with a transportation theme for him:

I packed him a Sassy box containing:

a ham and cheese sandwich train - using a Train Bytes cutter - with carrot slice wheels
a cheddar cheese airplane, using a Wilton cookie cutter
a hard-cooked egg, made car-shaped with an egg mold
green grapes
grape tomatoes
a celery stick

This little guy's mom likes him to have his crusts, so they went in the bento as tracks - her idea, love it!

Vote for this lunch!

Spring is in the air... I think :)

2012-02-06T16:43:00.000-08:00

Birdie actually chirped when she saw her muffin tin meal today. Then cooed "Oooh, beautiful lunch!" ♥ She had cheddar butterflies, pasta butterflies, and a hard-cooked egg cloud, in sky blue cups, and a little nutella flower sandwich with celery leaves, a grape & carrot flower, and strawberry flowers, in flower cups. Sprout had the same in an orange muffin tin.

Today was just gorgeous (after the morning frost melted); sunshine, blue skies, birds chirping - maybe the groundhog was wrong... it felt very spring-like, and inspired me to make a colourful spring-like lunch for the little girls. I knew we had some leftover farfalline pasta - butterflies! - and the rest of the garden grew up around them. I remembered the strawberry flowers from a Muffin Tin Mom post last Spring.

The egg clouds were made using large eggs in the star mold instead of extra-large. I cut them in half, added little carrot blossoms and stuck them back together. Birdie gasped and squeaked with delight when she discovered the flower surprise in her "eggie" cloud :)

Beanstalk (when he saw this photo after school) said "Sorry, not to hurt your feelings but that (pointing to the sandwich flower) didn't turn out so well, it's kind of block-y" then quickly added "but it probly [sic] still tasted good!"

Heheh, he's right, it is kind of blockish - but I didn't have a medium sized flower cutter, so I cut a circle then cut notches out of it with the point of the butterfly cutter's wing. I was behind schedule, and not about to waste bread on a 2nd try, so, c'est la vie! Birdie & Sprout didn't mind a bit :)

The sproutlets are playing in the yard as I am composing this post on our back porch picnic table - it's that nice out. Welcome Spring?

Nutella Day & Rainbow Kit Winner!

2012-02-06T12:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was World Nutella Day. I had never heard of it until I read about it on Lunches Fit For a Kid's facebook page, but thought it sounded like a great idea - I would make my sproutlets Nutella sandwich treats in their Monday lunches, for World Nutella Day - except, I somehow got the day wrong...
They still count though, because I made them Sunday night :)

Bella's pretty in pink lunch has celery sticks by request, with peanut butter for dipping - in the little pink container, with a fruit leather heart on the lid - green grapes, Granny Smith apple hearts, and a little Nutella sandwich heart.

Beanstalk has ham, fruit leather roll-ups (I sliced one into 3 pieces), apple stars and bars, and 2 sandwich "cookies" - 1 Nutella, 1 peanut butter.

I am trying out one of the divided trays from our new Lock & Lock square box in our good old 4 square box. I like how the divider comes right up to the lid.

Pickle declined a Nutella sandwich. I made him a bunch of peanut butter sandwich shapes to go with the geometry he's been learning about at school. He also got some yogurt and lemonade.

Today I Ate A Rainbow! Giveaway Time!

Today's the day someone wins my Giveaway of a Rainbow Kit from Today I Ate A Rainbow! Wow, there were so many entries, with so many great comments! Thanks to everyone who followed my Rainbow Week! I hope you enjoyed it. Making colour-themed lunches was fun, but I am glad to go back to doing anything goes lunches - sticking to one colour was more difficult than I thought it would be! The list of fruits & vegetables in each colour of the rainbow on the Today I Ate A Rainbow! chart was a big help though :) Okay, it's time to announce the winner!

~~The winning comment is #57!~~

Update: Sadly, the winner neither contacted me to claim her prize, nor provided any contact information for me to reach her, so I will be drawing and announcing a new winner this Saturday, February 11th.

And to answer one of the questions asked in the giveaway post comments, yes I do think it could work with an older child. It's been working with my 10 year old... he's been extremely picky his whole life. You might be interested in my recent post: Eating Real Food. We have been using it as an incentive for him to earn video game privileges, and he's been trying things. He still hasn't liked much - but he's willing to try something before saying he doesn't like it now, and that's all I can ask.

Thank you all who entered! I'll be doing another review & giveaway, of another fun healthy eating tool, within the next couple of weeks, so keep visiting :)

Pickle's Pizza Sandwich!

2012-02-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

No, you didn't read that wrong, and I didn't make a mistake, I meant to say Pickle. My picky Mister Peanut Butter Sandwiches :)

I've mentioned that he's shown an interest in trying new things since his siblings have been using the Today I Ate A Rainbow! chart and trying more vegetables, well, last weekend he came up to me as I was getting lunch ready and asked "What can I try?" A conversation about veggies and how some of them are in things he already knows he likes (like tomatoes, in ketchup, & pizza) led to him asking if I could make him a pizza sandwich. Well, why not?

We didn't have any mozzarella but we had provolone, which is the same colour. Pickle had to sniff it to see if it was okay:

I spread pizza sauce on whole wheat bread, and topped it with a slice of provolone with a heart shape cut out - just for fun, and because Birdie asked for some cheese, so I gave her the heart. Pickle added the slice he sniffed.

Yes, he is wearing nail polish :)

I heated the pizza sandwich a few seconds so the cheese would get melty, then presented it to my brave little man. He checked it out thoroughly to make sure it was all right to eat.

"I like the heart," he told me. "You made a heart because you love me. I love pizza. Will I love pizza sandwich?" he asked. "Try it and see," I told him.

And he took did! I had my camera on the manual setting, which I am not accustomed to using, so these pics are blurry...
He took a bite, chewed a bit, then nodded his head to say he liked it ! Hooray!

I left him alone to eat his lunch without a camera in his face - and he did :)

This wasn't a one-off either, he has had another pizza sandwich since, and even tried a pizza quesadilla (which he didn't care for - but he tried it!) Parents of super picky kids or kids with autism will understand my joy at him breaking his routine and braving new foods :)

♪ ♫ Happy happy joy joy ♪ ♫

Rainbow Week : Blue & Indigo + Read.Explore.Learn.

2012-02-03T14:30:00.000-08:00

We've reached the end of our Rainbow Week! I'm cheating a little and combining Blue and Indigo - since there are only 5 school days... and there just aren't that many truly blue foods :) We did have some delicious blue potatoes with dinner last night though, love their colour, so fun!

Blue & Indigo

Bella's blue lunch contains the word blue cut from white cheddar, blue corn chips and salsa (in the container under the cheese), purple grapes with blue seal picks, and grape jelly roll-ups for "dessert". Bella suddenly claims she no longer likes blueberries (no reason why, she just doesn't) but blueberry-pomegranate fruit leather is still okay... (okay, whatever... silly sproutlet) so that's what she has for snack.

Lunch for the man. We've decided that the blue-lidded Easy Lunchboxes are his so he knows which lunch he can take, since sometimes I make Bella's the night before too and most of the time he leaves for work before I wake.

I had various leftover meats in our fridge, so Sailor Boy has pork tenderloin and a sausage kebab, atop a salad with purple cabbage, a little cup of raspberry vinaigrette (lid off for photo), blueberries, and leftover cooked purple cabbage. I like to make kebabs of his meats when I give him a salad - that way if he doesn't want to eat them in the salad, or wants to heat them up, he only has to pick out a couple of skewers rather than a dozen or so little pieces. He also has a blueberry yogurt, and a Lunchbox Love note ♥

We had more cabbage to use up so I cooked it last night and made a leftovers bento for my lunch. Blue potatoes, chicken, and purple cabbage:

My cabbage is a much more vibrant purple than the cabbage in Sailor Boy's lunch! That cabbage was cooked in the wok, on the stove, with red wine vinegar. Mine was cooked in the microwave with a little water. It came out really bright! Check out the water left in the bowl!

Rainbow
Read. Explore. Learn.

This morning I prepared the girls a Nibble Tray for snack later. I planned to offer the snack after we read The Rainbow Bunch - which is all about eating a rainbow of healthy fruits and veggies - so I took a picture of them together.

Birdie grabbed a blueberry as I was taking the pic of the book cover...

... I was about to tell her the snack was for later - but she didn't want to eat it, she just wanted to match each colour food to the corresponding Rainbow Kid :)

The Rainbow Bunch

by Kia Robertson

This isn't the first time we've read The Rainbow Bunch - it came with our Rainbow Kit, and of course they wanted to read it as soon as we opened that - but it's the first time this week :) The Rainbow Bunch starts out "There once were five kids... who didn't eat right" and tells about how those kids want to learn and play and grow, but they are too tired and sick - because they eat junk food instead of fruits & veggies - and how they learn about how fruits and vegetables can make them healthy, and how they begin to feel good and have fun once they start eating their rainbow. My little girls really love seeing their Today I Ate a Rainbow! chart in the story. They like to shout "Hey, we have that!" and usually ask for a healthy snack for their rainbow ♥ Today I'm all set with their rainbow nibble tray :)

And to go with our rainbow reading and rainbow snack...

More Rainbow Fun!

Recycled Crayon Craft

I saw this craft last year in Little Birdie Secrets and knew we had to do it one day. It's one of the ways I justified to hubby my purchasing a bunch of shaped silicone muffin pans - restoring to usefulness all our broken crayons :)

Step 1: Peel any paper from your crayon pieces. My little Birdie loves to peel the paper from crayons most of our crayons are already "naked" - so we got to skip that step! Step 2: Arrange your crayon pieces in a silicone muffin pan, breaking them more if needed, until each cup is at least 2/3 full. Birdie liked this part, being allowed to break crayons :)

Step 3: Bake in 200 degree oven for about half an hour, or until everything looks completely melted. Step 4: Carefully remove from oven and allow to cool on a flat surface, out of the reach of children.

Step 5: Once they are completely cool and solid, pop them out of the molds!

Ta-dah! New crayons :)

We made these ones as a birthday gift for Birdie's little preschool friend, and packaged them up in a waxed paper lined wooden box from a Melissa & Doug toy we got years ago, that I saved because "you never know when you might need a cute little wooden box". See, Sailor Boy? ;)

Bundled with a big package of construction paper and tied with a rainbow ribbon, I think they make a lovely gift for a 3 year old.

Rainbow Lunch Love

Here are some rainbow lunches by some of my lunch blogger friends:

Astrid of Lunches Fit For A Kid also did a Rainbow Week with a fabulous variety of colourful and healthy lunches. And she makes the most amazing Rainbow bread!

Ludicrous Mama of Biting The Hand That Feeds You has heaps of examples of eating a rainbow - click her lovely rainbow bento below to see them all!

A rainbow & a smile :)

Chef Corey of Family Fresh Meals turns lunch into art with her colourful and nutritious bentos, like this one:

Delicious!

I hope you've enjoyed my Rainbow Week! I know my sproutlets have ♥

If you haven't yet, check out my review of Today I Ate A Rainbow! and enter to win a Rainbow Kit of your own!

Rainbow Week - Green Day!

2012-02-02T13:31:00.000-08:00

Our Rainbow Week continues with my favourite colour:

Green

Bella's Green Day lunch is a green salad with striped cucumbers, diagonal sliced mozzarella, a striped Granny Smith apple, and green grapes. This one was easy since she likes most greens! But sadly, not kiwi.

It's Groundhog Day! Sailor Boy's groundhog saw his shadow, so went back to sleep in his bed of lettuce...

6 more weeks of winter... I thought so. I made this lunch last night, but I had a feeling winter wasn't over yet, so I cut a snowflake out of a Babybel cheese - my first embellished Babybel :) In the main compartment of his Easy Lunchbox Sailor boy gets chicken kebabs again - this time atop a green salad, and with mandarin oranges. The small green container is filled with salad dressing - and that's a Light My Fire spork, they're great. Mister Groundhog is made of refried beans, with dried chile features and provolone teeth.

Pickle got frog prince & fairy princess peanut butter sandwiches made with sandwich cutters from the Lunch Punch Sand*wishes set.

Rainbow

Birdie & Sprout's Green Day rainbow muffin tin meal was a yogurt & fruit bar!

I set out plain yogurt and a flower muffin tin filled with mango, banana, kiwi, strawberry & blueberry stir-ins, and a graham crumb & milled flaxseed "cookie crumble" topping. I gave them each a bowl and spoon and let them scoop their own yogurt and add their own fruit.

They loved it! They were totally digging the "cookie crumble" too, and I was feeling pretty smug about sneaking the flaxseed in there :) Both girls were munching as much fruit as they were putting into their bowls, and still ate what was in the bowl when they finished filling it. They got yogurt and fruit all over, so I did have to put my camera up and sit at the table with them to assist. It was messy but fun.

I did take a quick snap of Birdie's bowl - second helping! Look at that messy mixture - both their bowls looked like that - and they ate it up! Now, if I had served them something that looked like that, they would have declared it "yuck" and refused it, but since they made it themselves... :)

I was all excited to see Birdie add some kiwi, that was one of the 2 fruits I was almost certain they wouldn't touch. But if she actually ate any, it was by accident - she picked that big chunk back out. Ah well, she gobbled up everything else in her bowl, even the mango, which was the other fruit I didn't think they'd eat, yay! I'm definitely going to let them do this again... but next time, they'll be wearing smocks :)

It's not easy being Green...

I wish any of my kids liked kiwi, so I could make them kiwi guys like Melissa of Another Lunch! Well, no, I'm sure mine wouldn't be anything like hers, she's a kiwi artiste extraordinaire, and I'm green with envy :)
Just look at this kiwi Kermit the Frog!

All her kiwi guys are fantastic, see for yourself!

Love this rainbow bento she did for St. Patrick's Day:

Too cute! Now I have rainbow Sassy box envy too :)

More Rainbow Fun!

Did you read my review of the Rainbow Kit?
I didn't mention that there's a Today I Ate A Rainbow Song!
Birdie & Sprout will sing it for you:

Isn't it cute?! Want to hear it again? Visit The Today I Ate A Rainbow Song Page! to see it performed by Hannah, rainbow eating daughter of Kia, who created Today I Ate A Rainbow! My Sprout wanted to sing it solo too:

Enter my Today I Ate A Rainbow! giveaway

for a chance to win your own Rainbow Kit!

Rainbow Week : Yellow

2012-02-01T15:45:00.000-08:00

We're halfway through our Rainbow Week! Today's colour is

Yellow

Bella's yellow lunch was inspired by Beatles songs ! Beneath the celery sticks and cheese, she has a turkey & cheese sandwich, yellow peppers, and on the side, slices of golden delicious apples, and some plain pasta (with a Thermos Funtainer of hot cheese sauce to pour over it at lunch - not pictured). Do you know which 4 songs are represented? ♪ ♫

♫ Yellow Submarine, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Golden Slumbers & Give Peace A Chance ♪

Beanstalk didn't eat the snack I packed him yesterday, so he got it again today, plus an organic Clif Z Bar. Pickle got a cute beehive and bee peanut butter sandwich. The cutter for this was a surprise gift from a friend, and this is the first time we've used it. Pickle loves it, thank you Linli!

Sailor Boy has pineapple teriyaki chicken kebabs, yellow pepper slices, sharp white cheddar cheese, and grapes in his Easy Lunchbox. I also scratched a little love note on the peel of a banana and sneaked it into his lunch tote ♥
By the time he opened his lunch the message would have been really dark :)

No pic of the banana, he leaves before the sun rises, too early for me! I also wrote a banana note for Birdie though, if you want to see an example :

She can't read yet so I just drew pictures :)

Rainbow

I saw these rainbow fruit kebabs on the MOMables facebook page way back in August, just before the popular lunch menu plan officially launched, and have wanted to make some ever since. It took me a while, but I finally got around to making some for my sproutlets! I made these ahead of time for Sprout & Birdie's snack. Two each, and a yogurt cloud to dip in :)

They still don't like pineapple. More for me :)

We were out all day, so no muffin tin meals, then brought one of Sprout's little friends home with us this afternoon, so Birdie and I made muffins together while they played. Banana muffins! She really liked mashing the bananas:

I almost forgot to get a picture of the banana muffins before the 3 little girls ate them all - and by the time I remembered, there were only 3 left! They were really good muffins, and so cute in their flower muffin cups :)

There's nothing rainbow about them - but they are yellow :)

Now these muffins, made by the talented Kris

of In the Kitchen with Audrey, are Rainbow!

And healthy too! Click the Rainbow Mom button to see more from Kris, Audrey, & little sister Maurene too!

Thanks for following our Rainbow Week! Don't forget to read my review of Today I Ate A Rainbow! and enter to win a Rainbow Kit of your own!

Rainbow Week : Orange

2012-01-31T15:00:00.000-08:00

Day 2 of Rainbow Week ! Today is Beanstalk's favourite colour...

Orange

Bella's orange lunch contains a ham & cheese sandwich on whole wheat bagel thins, with the bagel top underneath it - she can put the top on herself after the pepper flower makes her smile :)

Bagel thins are Bella's new favourite sandwich bread, they don't make her too full. I like them too, they fit the largest section of her Easy Lunchbox perfectly, and since they're thinner than a regular bagel, even with a sandwich stacked full I can still get the lid on. On the side she has mandarin oranges, and baby carrots arranged around a sweet potato star (made with an egg mold).

★

Beanstalk stayed home this morning, but was feeling better just before lunch. He got his own late breakfast (brunch?) of cereal, then I took him to school in time for his usual lunch period, with a snack of golden delicious apples and orange slices in his smaller Lock&Lock:

Rainbow

For my little sproutlet girls, I made rainbow muffin cup meals. They really do like this kind of nibbly meal best. Red strawberries, Orange carrots, Yellow parmesan cheese, Green spinach rotini, & Blue (ok Purple) grapes. Plus a White hardboiled egg cloud :)

I only have one round orange muffin tin, the other one is pumpkin shaped.

My 5 year old Sprout was sweet, she let her little sister have the round one :)

Birdie loved the "eggie" cloud. I used my star star egg mold, which needs an extra-large or jumbo egg to make a star - if you use a smaller egg it doesn't fill the mold, so you end up with a rounded star, which looks more like a flower to me and my girls - or a cloud :)

I wasn't really expecting Sprout to eat the spinach pasta, she has refused it several times in the past, but hoped the cup of parmesan and the spoon to sprinkle it on herself might get her to at least try it - and it worked! She covered it in parmesan and ate it all up! Even asked for seconds - which she ate without any fresh parmesan :) Today's Rainbow meal was a big success!

More Rainbow Fun!

Pickle wanted to be in on the rainbow fun too,
but without actually eating a rainbow of fruits or vegetables...
so I made him a rainbow peanut butter sandwich - kind of:

If only he'd let me colour on his sandwiches... I'll just have to admire the talented Caren of Bento-logy's beautiful and colourful Rainbow Smiles sandwich instead ♥

Gorgeous and inspiring, just like all her bentos!

One last thing!

Yesterday I reviewed The Rainbow Kit by from Today I Ate A Rainbow, but I didn't mention their fantastic website, http://www.todayiatearainbow.com/ & blog! You'll find great tips & ideas for picky eaters, suggestions for using the chart, meal ideas, fun rainbow cooking videos, there's even a Kid's Zone with fun activities and colouring pages! Even if you don't have a Today I Ate A Rainbow! chart, it's a great resource, don't miss it!

And don't miss my Rainbow Kit Giveaway!

Rainbow Week : Red + Today I Ate A Rainbow

2012-01-30T16:00:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of Rainbow Week for my sproutlets!
Throughout this school week we'll go through the colours of the rainbow with a school lunch featuring foods in that colour, rainbow lunches for the little girls at home, some of my favourite rainbow bentos from other blogs, maybe even a rainbow craft. And a Review and Giveaway of The Rainbow Kit from Today I Ate A Rainbow! So here we go, beginning with Pickle's favourite colour:

Red

Bella's red lunch contains grape tomatoes, a Red Rome apple, strawberries, and veggie pasta made with beets & tomatoes. I packed marinara sauce in a Thermos (not pictured) for her to pour over the pasta. Lots of red. Even her Easy Lunchbox lid is red :) I cut RED out of a heart-shaped slice of white cheddar and skewered the letters with a little heart food pick.

Rainbow

Birdie & Sprout's heart muffin tins hold a rainbow of heart-shaped fruits & veggies - strawberries, carrots, banana, grapes, raisins + a heart-shaped whole wheat peanut butter sandwich ball. Sprout loves eating raisins ever since she learned that they are purple grapes kissed by the sun!

More Rainbow Fun!

Rainbow Kit Review & Giveaway!

When I first received our Rainbow Kit from Today I Ate A Rainbow, just before Christmas, I put it aside to open after the holidays, because even though I was excited to try it and hopeful that it would encourage my sproutlets to eat more fruits and veggies, I was a little apprehensive too - what if they didn't want to try it, what if it didn't work for us? I decided to wait until after Christmas to do my review - give them a chance to eat all the candy in their stockings :)

What is The Rainbow Kit ?

It's a rainbow-themed nutritional chart that encourages your child to "eat a rainbow" - a serving of fruit or veg in each of the 5 colours on the chart - marking them with magnets as they do, so they actively try to get the 5 servings of fruits & vegetables they need each day. It's much more than a nutritional chart! It's a game, a challenge, an incentive... and it's fun!

We've been using it about a month now, and I can emphatically tell you that I love it! It has been working for us! Within the first week Birdie & Sprout started asking for fruits & veggies to try to get all their colours! Bella, already an adventurous eater by our standards, was also inspired by it... she even tried the dreaded brussels sprouts to "get her green". Every day after supper they ask if they can have just a little of any colour they are missing... !

Now, there's rarely a day when the 3 girls don't "eat a rainbow", or come close. I'm even using it to motivate my ultra picky Beanstalk to eat real food! Sailor Boy is amazed and impressed by it too - I think he was the most skeptical, and most pleasantly surprised when last week, both our boys willingly tried new foods - yes, even Pickle! He isn't trying vegetables yet, but he's been inspired by his siblings getting so much enjoyment and positive attention for eating better to ask to try things he hasn't before. It's really wonderful :)

What's in The Rainbow Kit ?

1 Today I Ate A Rainbow! chart
4 sets of coloured magnets
4 achievement magnets
2 fridge magnet strips
(to secure your chart to your fridge)
1 colour-coded shopping list
The Rainbow Bunch Book
& a Rainbow Bookmark

Tip : The magnets come on sheets - after you pop them out, you can cut up some of the leftover magnetic bits to glue or tape to the back of the grocery list, or the chart :)

You want your own Rainbow Kit, don't you?

Thanks to the generosity of the amazing Kia, creator of the Today I Ate A Rainbow! chart & kit, and author of The Rainbow Bunch, one lucky reader will win a Rainbow Kit of their own! I'm so pleased to be able to share the Today I Ate A Rainbow! love ♥

All you have to do is leave ONE comment on this post!

If you like, share what fruits or veggies your little one won't eat that you hope a Rainbow Kit might help with - or just say hi - anything you like - it just makes reading the comments more fun :)

I'd also love it if you would visit the Today I Ate A Rainbow Facebook Page and Like them, even tell them I sent you! But not everyone has a Facebook account (It's true!) so I'm not going to make that a requirement. And if you want to Like my Facebook Page or follow my blog the buttons are there for you over on the right ♥

The winner will be chosen (by comment # using Random.org) and announced on Monday morning, February 6th, sometime between when I get home from taking my sproutlets to school, and lunch. Good luck!

Don't forget - I need a way to contact you! If I can't contact you to get your information to give to Today I Ate A Rainbow, they can't send you your prize. So make sure your comment either includes a way to contact you or links to a profile with one. Thank you :)

Disclosure: I received a Rainbow Kit from Today I Ate A Rainbow! to review. No other compensation or payment was given. All opinions & descriptions are my own.

The giveaway is now closed. Winner will be posted soon :)

Thank you for entering!

Have a heart!

2012-01-30T11:15:00.000-08:00

Whether you want one or not, sweetie :)

There's just something about plump red strawberries that inspires me to make things heart-shaped ♥

Heheh, my poor Sailor Boy, he'll probably get teased if anyone sees all these hearts in his Easy Lunchbox. Maybe he'll be quick to pull the heart pick from the hard-boiled eggs - and I did put the top on the bagel sandwich after I took the photo, so nobody will know about the ham, pepper-jack and pepperoni hearts inside... unless they follow my blog ;)

It's not surprising I have hearts on my mind - Valentine's Day is fast approaching, yesterday I went to the dollar store for Valentine goodies and made a Valentine-themed preschool snack, and I just did a some yummy heart lunches for my FunBites Luv it! tangram heart cutter giveaway...

... so who won the FunBites Luv it!?

Comment #31!

Peggy C.

Knock knock
Who's there?
Olive
Olive who?
Olive you!

:)

Congratulations Peggy!

An email has been sent to you with instructions for claiming your prize!

Thank you to everyone who entered for your lovely comments! If you weren't the winner but still really want your own Luv it!, you might like to take advantage of this special Valentine's coupon code: WithLove
Enter it at checkout on the Funbites website to save 15% off all orders ♥

Got the Preschool Snack Rules Blues?

2012-01-29T23:59:00.000-08:00

If you have a kidlet in a preschool, daycare, or kindergarten with strict rules for snack days, you know what I'm talking about. Your little one wants to bring in something fun. You want to bring in something fun and healthy. But what you are allowed to bring in must be store-bought, in it's original packaging, meet nutritional guidelines, and allergy-safe...

For the record, I'm not complaining - I understand why some schools have these rules, and I'm glad they are concerned about the nutrition and safety of our children - I'm just admitting it's bit of a bummer to not be able to make cute homemade food for my kids to share with their friends, especially with all the adorable ideas on Pinterest! :)

That said, it's a very minor bummer compared to the bummer it is to have to tell a child they may NOT have any of the cute snack at school because they don't know for certain if it is SAFE for them to eat... so... Hooray for storebought, packaged, allergy-safe food!

So, how can I make it fun? Individual packets are fun for my kids, a treat since they rarely get them, and they seem to love miniature versions of anything. Single serving snacks aren't the most economical or environmental, but for special occasions they are okay with me (and if your 5 year old is like mine, a snack day is most definitely a special occasion!)

These kid-friendly snacks are all on our Safe List*

There are heaps of crafty and creative ways to decorate packaged snacks, but if you're a busy parent like me, you might not have time to individually embellish each juice box and string cheese... that's OK, dollar store to the rescue! You can usually find printed plastic (or paper) treat bags for every occasion, plus ribbons and stickers galore to make things even more festive :)

So for less than $5 more than the cost of the snacks themselves, and very little time and effort, you can easily put together cute, fun, somewhat nutritious, allergy-safe snacks for your kidlet to share with their class - like these ones I made with some of the above ingredients and supplies:

In each bag I put an applesauce & spoon, or a box of raisins, 4 oz juice box, string cheese, and graham snack. I took the staple out of the curly bows and used the curled pieces of ribbon to tie each bag with a half-knot, then covered the knot with the sticker to secure it. All the kids need to do is pull the sticker off and the knot will untie with it :)

Happy snack days!

*Check with your child's school or daycare about what is & isn't on their Safe List

Valentines

Saturday Evening Post: Pickle's Pick + Uforya Giveaway Winner

2012-01-28T20:30:00.000-08:00

I was totally going to post about something else this evening, but I forgot I had plans and wouldn't be home to make a post, so, this is actually a Saturday Night Post, and I didn't get around to doing what I was going to post about, BUT it does happen to be lunch-related, so maybe I'll post it tomorrow.
Drop by and see :)

Anyways... earlier today Pickle asked me: "What about my supper express?"

Me: "Your supper what?"

Pickle, exasperatedly: "My supper express! You know! Remember!"

Me: "Hmmm, I think I might need more of a hint to remember..."

Pickle: "Mamaaaaa - you know, that you made me, with a dessert car! Did you post it on your Better Lunches website?"

Me, remembering: "Oh, that! No, not yet..."

Pickle: "Come ON, just do it! You can do it, I know you can. You just have to try harder."

It's so funny hearing him repeat the things we say to him. And cute.

This is what he's talking about:

New Year's Day, he went with his dad and siblings over to our neighbour's for football and black-eyed peas. Except, Pickle would never not ever eat black-eyed peas :) So I packed him an Easy Lunchbox to take with him, with a familiar peanut butter sandwich, yogurt and oatmeal cookie.
I cut the sandwich into a train shape with my Train Bytes, and just for fun, wrote on the lid with a dry erase marker, above each section : "Super Supper Express" "Dessert Car" and "Yogurt Side Car". Pickle insisted I take it's picture - this is him holding it up:

He was so pleased with that supper! "Yesssss! My Super Supper Express!"

I can't believe I forgot about it. I told him I would post the pictures soon. He wanted to know when. I told him tonight. "Yes! You are going to post my pick!" So, here's a blurry shot of him with his Super Supper Express, that he picked for me to post. If you leave a comment on this post, please say hi to my Pickle, he will be asking me to see it when he wakes up tomorrow :)

Now, who won the Uforýa Giveaway?

Comment #15 was made by KB: "Chocolate covered strawberries body butter,,, yum!" Congratulations KB! An e-mail has been sent to you with instructions for claiming your prize :)

Thank you to everyone who entered, for visiting my blog, and checking out my friend's most excellent products! If you didn't win but would still like some Uforýa bath salts or body butter of your own, visit the West Road Candles & Uforýa website on February 1st, which is the day the new catalog launches! I don't have any details yet but I know there will be a Sale :)

A Bunch of Lunches...

2012-01-27T22:04:00.000-08:00

.... with nothing in common but the orange paper beneath them :

Handwiches for my Pickle. Did I really just type that? That's terrible :)

Bella's lunch is all green & yellow, with golden delicious apple slices, sweet yellow peppers, celery sticks, and peace sign macaroni & cheese. I packed the noodles in the EasyLunchbox and the cheese sauce in her Thermos to keep warm until lunch time.

I'm so proud of my Beanstalk! He finally "ate his rainbow" of 5 fruits and vegetables all in one day, for the first time since he was a spoon-fed baby - thanks in large part to Today I Ate A Rainbow!

I gave him the oranges he wanted yesterday, ham roll-ups, Clif Z Bar cut in half, and an apple carved with a lightning bolt - for my Harry Potter fan :)

These are yesterday's lunches - I forgot to publish them!

There are still a little over 24 hours left to enter my Uforýa Giveaway - don't miss it, this is good stuff! My FunBites Luv it! Giveaway will be open until Monday morning. Happy week-end :)

Heart to heart to heart...

2012-01-27T12:25:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday! It's a beautiful sunshiny day today, and I woke up feeling happy and rested and ready to tackle the day - what a great way to start the weekend! I hope my sproutlets have a happy school day... in any case their lunches should bring smiles to their faces ♥

Bella's hearty bagel lunch especially makes ME smile... it's where the title of the post comes from: My lunch was inspired by the one below, by my fellow bento maker, Chef Corey of Family Fresh Meals, who was herself inspired by the one below hers, by our friend Keeley of Keeley McGuire Blog ...

and not only did we all use FunBites, but I copied Chef Corey's switched up apple, Corey and Keeley both have a heart-topped spinach salad, Keeley and I both have a ham FunBites heart and smaller ham and carrot hearts, and Corey and I both have purple cabbage in our salads...

You know the saying, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? ... well, I hope both Corey and Keeley are flattered by my ~~copy of~~ tribute to theirs :)

Oh, and Family Fresh Meals and I are both doing FunBites giveaways this week - so if you hurry (hers closes tonight at midnight) you can double up your chances of winning!

Click here to enter Family Fresh Meals' FunBites Luv it! Giveaway

Click here to enter MY FunBites Luv it! Giveaway!

Okay, back to my family's lunches :)

Beanstalk's Lock & Lock bento box contains parmesan goldfish, raisins, ham and an orange. I've mentioned before that he doesn't like me to make his lunch cute... well, I snuck a heart in there today, heheh... but only if you know to look for it, and maybe not even then, maybe only I can see it because I know it's there :) Leave a comment if you can see it too!

Pickle has FunBites Luv it! heart shaped peanut butter sandwiches. And to make sure they make it to lunch still in the shape of a heart, the bottom slices of bread are solid hearts spread with PB, with the tangram heart pieces stuck on top like stickers :)

No love for Sailor Boy! Well, no hearts anyways...

His EasyLunchbox contains spiced almonds, kiwifruit, and spicy chicken & mandarin kebabs.

That's all folks! No pic of MY lunch - but if you're curious - I'll be having a salad full of all the scraps from these :)

Have a great weekend, and don't forget to enter my Uforýa Giveaway, ending tomorrow night, and my FunBites Luv it! Giveaway, ending Monday morning.

A Hearty Snack, Sticker Fun & A FunBites Giveaway - You'll Luv it! for Valentine's Day

2012-01-26T01:00:00.000-08:00

"Roses are red, violets are blue,
FunBites make fun lunches easy to do!"

A hearty thank you to the lovely Bobbie from FunBites, who generously offered me this opportunity to share the FunBites love with one lucky BentOnBetterLunches reader, with a Luv it! giveaway ♥ Just in time for Valentine's Day too! What could make Valentine's Day themed lunches and snacks more simple than the heart-shaped Luv it! cutter from FunBites?

With a Luv it! you can make an ordinary sandwich much more loveable ♥

All you need is 1 or 2 slices of bread, depending on size, toothpicks & sandwich filling. I used ham & white cheddar - because they are pink & white :) And if you want to decorate yours like I did, some stickers for the ends of the toothpicks. And a Luv it! of course!

♥ Cut 2 Luv it! hearts from your bread, and if necessary, your sandwich filling. I was able to cut both top and bottom from 1 slice of my large loaf of whole wheat. If you are using a spread, you could make the sandwich before cutting it to save time, but you'll end up with a much neater, prettier pieces if you cut the bread out first, then spread.
♥ Stack or spread your filling(s) on each piece of 1 of the hearts, top with a matching piece from the 2nd heart, and secure the stacks with a pick.
♥ Sticker Fun! If you don't have fancy party picks, only ordinary toothpicks, you can turn them into party picks with stickers! Let the kids help! All you need is stickers that are mirror images, so they are the same size & shape and line up exactly when you stick them together back to back on the end of a toothpick. Easy peasy! You could even use paper and a glue stick if you don't have stickers. I got a big bag of heart shaped foam sticker from the dollar store, and since they are foam, I can surface clean them and re-use them :)

See how how festive my Sprout's ham & cheese sandwich looks!

She was pretty pleased with it ♥

Luv it! for fruit leather! I also used the Luv it! and a sheet of fruit leather roll-up to add some extra sweetness to an otherwise pretty plain snack in a plastic Snapware container, by decorating the inside of the lid with the sticky fruit leather heart pieces to make an edible mosaic window ♥

It's a great way to send fruit leather roll-up to preschool, since Birdie needs assistance opening and unrolling it. If it's already unrolled, cut into bite-size pieces and stuck to the inside of the lid of her lunch container, she doesn't need to wait for help. If you didn't see my first FunBites review, here's another example, also using the Luv it! cutter, but arranging the pieces to make a garden scene rather than a heart:

Visit www.funbites.com for more information about FunBites, to see how they work, or if you just can't wait for a giveaway and want to BUY FunBites NOW! If that's the case, I'm pleased to be able to share a special Valentine's coupon code with you! Enter WithLove at checkout on the Funbites website to save 15% off all orders ♥

Want to win your own Luv it! from FunBites?

All you have to do is leave ONE Valentine-y comment on this post. Share your favourite Valentine's Day treat, a Valentine's Day joke or trivia, the sweetest Valentine you ever got, or a fun idea for a Valentine's craft - anything you like - it will make reading the comments fun for everyone ♥

I'd also love it if you would visit FunBites on Facebook and Like them. Even tell them I sent you! But not everyone has a Facebook account (It's true!) so I'm not going to make that a requirement. And if you want to Like me or follow my blog the buttons are there for you over on the right ♥

The winner will be chosen (by comment # using Random.org) and announced on Monday morning, January 30th, after I get home from taking my sproutlets to school. Good luck!

Oh, I almost forgot - don't YOU forget - I need a way to contact you! If can't contact you to get your information to give to FunBites and they can't send you your prize. So make sure your comment either includes a way to contact you or links to a profile with one. Thank you :)

Disclosure: I received a FunBites Luv it! to review. No other compensation or payment was given. All opinions, descriptions and photos are my own.

The FunBites Giveaway is now Closed. Thank you to all who entered!

Elephants On Parade

2012-01-25T12:54:00.000-08:00

Lots of elephants in today's lunches! Birdie has a birthday coming up, and last weekend I asked her what kind of party she wanted to have. She said "a elephant one". She told her grandma the same thing on the phone last night too. Elephants huh? She's such a funny kid. I expected to hear "princess" or "LaLaLoopsy" or "Tangled"... elephants is great though, and will be fun to think up games!

I packed her an elephants Sassy box for lunch:

An Elephant Mama & Baby Lunch Punch peanut butter sandwich,

white cheddar elephant, grapes, and peanut shaped carrots :)

Bella got elephants too, 2 little elephant pics stuck in her red grapes, and a couple cut from ham. Under the ham are 2 wedges of cheese quesadilla. In the flower cup are cucumber slices, and she also has carrot peanuts.

Pickle got an elephant mama & baby peanut butter sandwich as well but I used too much peanut butter and made kind of a mess of it. He won't care! Not pictured is his usual yogurt and oatmeal cookie :)

No elephants for Beanstalk. He doesn't like things too cute. I'm just so happy he's asking me to make him lunches lately instead of just grabbing a Clif bar and a Boost. He actually asked for an orange as well but the ones I bought weren't ripe, boo. So I gave him a bagel cut to fit his Lock&Lock box.

Beanstalk was a little disappointed about not getting an orange, he's trying to "eat his rainbow". His Dad and I are so impressed with the Today I Ate A Rainbow! Kit - I even overheard my husband talking about it to someone on the phone last night, about how brilliant it is :) I'll be doing a review and Giveaway of one next week, don't miss it!

Take-n-Make Taco Salad

2012-01-24T23:11:00.000-08:00

Taco meat salad for Sailor Boy, some assembly required. I packed the leftover taco seasoned ground beef separately so he could microwave it before adding it to the salad in the Easy Lunchbox, then top it with the shredded cheese. Yum! Kiwi & blueberries for dessert :)

I just had to add a little touch of love to this leftovers lunch - I sliced one of the tomatoes in half diagonally then put them back together with a party pick (same way I made these carrot hearts) to make a teensy tomato heart ♥

All Star Lunches

2012-01-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

All my school age sproutlets have stars in their lunchboxes today :)

Granny Smith apple with Bella's first initial, grape tomatoes,

peppered turkey & sharp cheddar on a whole wheat bagel.

Honey ham roll-ups, Granny Smith apple,

raisins and whole wheat bagel for Beanstalk.

Pickle has a round sandwich with a star

and a star sandwich with his first initial.

I hope all my little stars have an all-around good day :)

It's their Daddy's birthday today! He'll get to be the star this evening, with cake! Birdie & Sprout said he should have a chocolate cake with pink frosting, and what a nice Daddy, he said that's what he's always wanted. So the little girls and I will be baking and frosting today, and getting all chocolatey and pink ♥

Don't forget to enter my Uforya Giveaway!

Hip To Be Square

2012-01-23T13:15:00.000-08:00

Still waiting for my camera to come back from the repair shop. Pickle's iPod takes decent pictures when the light is good and my hand is steady, but conditions weren't ideal today - the sun hid behind the clouds and Birdie was climbing my back as I snapped this. Ah well, mediocre photo for a mediocre muffin tin meal... I just wasn't feeling inspired today... ho hum... sigh... think I have a bad case of The Mondays (=_=)

Both Sprout & Birdie ate all morning - they had apples, cereal & yogurt for breakfast, then over the next few hours they polished off an entire basket of strawberries - so I just did a light lunch. Half a banana - since they asked for something to "get their yellow" for their Today I Ate A Rainbow! chart, the other half of the breakfast apple, white & yellow cheddar, and whole wheat bread, all cubed. Sprout didn't get her yellow though, she said the banana looked yucky. *sigh* Birdie ate her banana as well as Sprout's share :)

Heheh - their lunch matches my blog background. That wasn't intentional!
It made me smile when I previewed my post :-D

Saturday Evening Post : My Friend Makes Stuff

2012-01-21T17:00:00.000-08:00

Really yummy smelling stuff, some of which you might think smells or looks good enough to eat - but it isn't, it's not food :)

Nope, sorry, this post is not about food. It's not a school day, and Sailor Boy made lunch. And I've been thinking... sometimes I want to post about something that just doesn't fit in with the theme of my blog... but I want to share it anyways. So I decided to save those things for one day a week only, and do an anything goes Saturday Evening Post. And since I don't have my camera back yet, might as well start this evening! So, if you're only interested in reading about lunches, here's your heads up: you might want to skip my Saturday Evening Posts. But then again, I might post a recipe, or rave about my new favourite food blog... :)

But not this Saturday. This Saturday I'm making a shameless plug for my friend Cary's home-based businesses, West Road Soy Candles & Uforýa Body Care, because she's awesome and I love her stuff, everything I've tried of hers is fantastic, and more people ought to find that out!

Cary makes everything herself just 2 doors down from lucky me :) Her Uforýa body care products are made from rich unrefined shea butter, avocado, hazelnut, rice bran and jojoba oils, and are paraben free. Her West Road Candles are made from creamy soy wax, which is made from soybeans, a renewable energy source. She focuses on using renewable energy sources and recycleable products to minimize their effect on the environment. Her glass jars and tins are recyclable or reusable. And all the scented candles and creams smell sooooo good, but don't aggravate my sinuses like some scented items do.

Here's some of my own Uforýa and West Road Candles stuff that I gathered up from around my home and snapped with Pickle's iPod:

The Fall Foliage layered candle is one of my favourites, and the only reason I haven't lit it yet is because it's a seasonal one and my last, so I am savouring just catching a whiff as I pass by it - I'll light it one day when I really need a pick-me-up. Body Butters, in the tubs, which are great this time of year when the air is so dry, and my hands aren't greasy after applying it. And they smell delish! Body Dew, in the pump, is like a thinner body butter - handy for keeping by the sink for after doing the dishes. Dead Sea Bath Salts are in the corked jar and the smaller jar next to it . Best of all, none of it gives me eczema!

The unlabeled items are samples I get to test out, lucky me! I have sensitive skin, and am allergic to many perfumes, so I get to try things out and give her feedback - so far so good on everything I think! Pictured is some lip balm, Ageless Eye Gel (in the pump) and tubs of green tea facial cleanser & exfoliating scrub (still in testing).

Here's a closer look at the Dead Sea Bath Salts.

This one's Sandalwood, mmm, bathing bliss in a jar. Love the cork lid and attached wooden scoop, so cute in the bathroom. (Want one? Keep reading.)
I really like that all the containers and labels are simple and attractive, I can leave my Uforýa products out on the counter and they look good there!

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading my rave about my friend's awesome aromatherapy & body care stuff! And if you're still miffed that this post isn't about a bento lunch or even about food (you're entitled, that IS why you follow my blog) I'm going to try to make it up to you with a Giveaway!
You can win your own jar of bath salts! Or, if baths aren't your thing, you can opt for a tub of body butter instead :)

How to Enter:

Visit the Uforýa website, look at the bath salts and/or body butter scent selection, then come back here and leave a comment stating which product & scent you would like if you win. For a bonus 2nd entry, Like Uforýa on Facebook and then post a 2nd comment saying you did :)

The winner will be chosen (by comment number using Random.org) and announced next Saturday evening, January 28th, around ~~5:ish~~ <-- oops, forgot I won't be home from a friend's until later than that, so --> 8:ish.*

Disclosure: I wrote this post of my own accord and asked my friend to contribute product for a Giveaway. No compensation or payment was given to me - unless you count that I get free stuff when I test it for her :)
* I need a way to contact you. If you enter as Anonymous, with no contact information, I can't contact you and you can't get your prize. So make sure your comment includes a way to contact you :)

The Giveaway is now Closed. Thank you for entering!

Baby Love

2012-01-17T23:11:00.000-08:00

A couple of my favourite "lunch ladies" have recently welcomed some sweet new wee mouths to feed ♥ Congratulations to Ludicrous Mama of Biting The Hand That Feeds You, on the Christmas-time arrival of her adorable daughter Little E, and to Super Glue Mom Laura of MOMables, on the birth of her sweet son, born yesterday!

Last night I thought it would be fun to say Congratulations to Laura and Welcome to the World to her little man on the MOMables Facebook Wall with a cute little snack made in their honour... but it turned out to be another one of those things that looked better in my head :) See for yourself:

Sailor Boy said it looked a little creepy... so of course I had to eat it in front of him - I think he flinched when I bit into it, heheh. It's just half a mozzarella string cheese stick wrapped in a piece of ham for a blanket, with cupcake sprinkles for eyes and a mouth, yummy, but I had to admit he was right, it didn't seem right for posting on anyone else's wall :)

I've made baby bundle snacks before... I made "Babies in Blankets" - turkey Lit'l Smokies in crescent roll swaddling blankets - for our Labour Day Lunch, that looked cute and not at all creepy... I don't think. Maybe I should have skipped the sprinkle face.

Anyways... Welcome to the world new little babies! You picked some good families to be born into - and you've got some great meals to look forward to!

Eating Real Food

2012-01-13T11:24:00.000-08:00

First off, here's the apple & grape car snack I made yesterday morning and posted on Facebook, that some of you wanted to be able to pin on Pinterest:

Basically, slice apples into wedges, slice grapes in half, and put them all together to look like little cars :) I used plastic food picks, but toothpicks would work the same - maybe break them in half. If your kidlets are a bit young to have toothpicks in their food, uncooked linguine or spaghetti noodles might be better, if the pasta was thick enough to not break in the process. Push the pick/pasta through the sliced side of one grape half, then through the apple, then finish with the other grape half, sliced side out.

Some great suggestions were made on Facebook too - using pears with cucumber wheels, or carrot slices as wheels on a cucumber car - there are plenty of possibilities for this simple but fun snack!

Now, on to my post about talking to my 10 year old son about real food:

Yesterday, Beanstalk, my 5th grader, came home from school with some carrots in his bento box - but I hadn't packed him carrots, (he says) he doesn't like them. When I asked him about them, he said his teacher gave them to him, because she didn't think his lunch was very nutritious.

Now, my first reaction was to feel miffed and defensive. But then, I thought about what was in his lunch that day and how it might have looked to her. I don't have a pic, but it was a Lock&Lock 4 square bento box, packed with Granny Smith apple slices, white cheddar popcorn, and an organic Clif Kid Z Bar - but the Clif bar was cut in half in one of the little squares - I bet it looked like a brownie to her! Now that I've thought about it more, I'm thankful that she cares about his nutrition :) Here's something close to yesterday's lunch - only he had popcorn in place of the bread and ham (which we were out of):

I was happy he asked for popcorn in his lunch instead of bread or crackers! I'm happy anytime he wants to try something not part of his usual repertoire :) The Clif bar does look like a brownie.

A little backstory: Beanstalk is very picky - always has been since he was a baby - and slow to gain, with little appetite. We actually got Pediasure by the case free when he was a toddler because his doctor prescribed it. He just doesn't have much interest in eating. So, I am glad when he lets me pack him a lunch and put anything into it other than a nutrition bar (like Power bar or Clif bar) and a Boost drink.

Anyways, his teacher criticizing his lunch gave me an opportunity to talk to him about nutrition. "See," I said, "even your teacher agrees with me. You should eat more real food, not just meal replacement bars." We talked about how some processed foods may fill you up, but that your body doesn't use all of it, so that "filler" is empty calories, and how filling up on empty calories may make you feel full, but you didn't eat anything your body needs, and now you don't have room. I told him it's okay to eat some empty calories - he does share my love for candy - but only after you've eaten enough of the good kind of calories that your body needs for fuel. (If there are any dietitians reading this, constructive criticism on what I told him would be welcomed!) Here's another typical Beanstalk lunch, in a Fit & Fresh Chill container:

Oh, I am turning this into a long story... get to the point right? I told him I would really love to see him try more real food. Yes, there was nutrition in his Boost and Clif bars - but they were processed, and what if they suddenly weren't available? And really, he might find out he likes things that he thinks he doesn't - he's been saying "I don't like ______" for so long now, it might not actually be true anymore - our tastes develop and change as we grow, and he might like something now that he didn't 5 years ago.

So, I asked him if he would be willing to try new foods if there was an incentive. He suggested video games. Figures. But, that's what he likes, so if the promise of video games gets him to try more real food, is that so bad? I hope not... I suggested this: If he tries something from each colour's list on the Today I Ate A Rainbow chart every day for a full week, I'll buy him a previously-viewed video game (they cost less). Deal! And he wanted to get started right away too - last night he ate a whole strawberry! (OK here's where those of you with good eaters are thinking - one strawberry? Big deal. But I don't think this kid has eaten a real strawberry in years, in fact, for longer than I can remember.) He started slowly, with little nibbles and a grimace on his face, but the last couple of bites he chewed and swallowed without his gag face. Woo, celebrate! *sigh* Wish me luck with the other colours of the rainbow!

You might also like:

A Berry Cute Snack!

Making Meal Time Fun

2012-01-09T12:39:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, getting my family to eat a healthy meal feels like a job that I'm not very good at. And from the way my sproutlets occasionally act, I'm guessing they feel like they're the ones who have the tough job of eating those healthy meals. Who wants meal time to be a battle? Not me! But I also don't want them leaving the table with not so full tummies and not so healthy bodies. What can I do to make my family's dinners both a good time and good for them?

Well, like Mary Poppins said, "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and - SNAP - the job's a game! "

So, I've been on the lookout for ways to find the fun in eating a balanced meal.
Here are a few healthy eating games & activities I've found so far:

The Rainbow Kit from Today I Ate A Rainbow - Challenge your kids to complete their rainbow of fruits & veggies each day. We have this one, and the friendly competition with their siblings has encouraged my sproutlets to try veggies they had previously refused! The website also has a cute song and videos, and links to more healthy eating fun & games.

The FREE printable Family Dinner Kit from Family Day – A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children features menu planners, a recipe book, activity & colouring placemats, family mad-libs & other word games, and more! I haven't tried this one yet, but only because we are out of printer ink :)

Crunch a Color - The Healthy Eating Game card game, and free printable reward chart, conversation starters, and more from Crunch a Color. Another one I haven't yet tried but plan to! If your family has tried this one, I'd love to hear about it if you want to leave a comment or post on my facebook page!

The Garden Heroes Food Nutrition Kit from Learning ZoneXpress makes nutrition fun with game sheets, stickers, an activity book, plush Garden Heroes veggie characters, and downloadable activities.

I'd love to try them all!

And here are a few tips for making healthy meals go more smoothly:

Let the kids help! Whether it's with the shopping, menu planning, or even meal prep/cooking, kids are more likely to want to try a food they were involved with getting to the table. I've seen this work with my own sproutlets. I admit I have a tendency to just do it all myself because it's quicker and less messy - but I really should let them help more.

Keep offering foods again and again - even if they've been refused again & again. It might take many tries before a child is ready to accept a new food (and many could mean 12, or 20 or more, depending how resistant your child is... don't give up too soon)! I've been told this from Pickle's speech pathologist, read it in many a nutrition publication, heard it from other parents, and seen it prove true at my own table - eventually :)

Bella trying beets!

Eat with your kids, and eat what you want them to eat. Let them see you enjoying your meal, and the time together as a family. Comment on your meal and how good it tastes... but be aware of the Phrases that Help and Hinder!

I found a bunch more great tips here: Be a Healthy Role Model for Children - 10 tips for setting good examples. I especially like the idea of naming a food that a child helps make! At least that child might be more likely to try it :)

Disclaimer: This post has not been endorsed by any of the companies associated with any of these products, and other than receiving a Rainbow Kit to review (though not for this post, for an upcoming post) I have not been compensated in any way. I just think they seem like useful and fun tools and wanted to share them :)

A taste of what's to come

2012-01-07T02:00:00.000-08:00

It's so odd not blogging about our lunches after all these months of doing so... but without pictures, the posts would be pretty dull... so when I get my camera back, I'm going to make up for lost time with some very colourful lunch pictures; we're going to have a Rainbow Week! We have a Rainbow Kit from Today I Ate A Rainbow that we started using over the holidays, and I think a week of rainbow themed lunches will make it even more fun!

We've not yet had a day where everyone ate a complete rainbow of fruits & veggies, but we're having a good time trying :) Before I was without camera I snapped this pic of Birdie marking the colour fruit she just ate on our chart:

Blue for blueberries!

I can't wait to get my camera back so I can get some pictures of some of our rainbow lunches and snacks - and sometime during Rainbow Week, I'll be posting a review of The Rainbow Kit, and doing a giveaway too!

For now, here's a tasty rainbow bento lunch I made last summer:

It's one of my first EasyLunchbox bentos. I didn't have any silicone muffin cups yet, but the foil one worked well :) A mini bagel is the perfect fit in the medium section. Bella loved this lunch!

And here are some rainbow lunches I've admired on other blogs!

A rainbow butterfly bento by Shannon of

BentoLunch.net - What's For Lunch At Our House

This rainbow bento box by Wendy of

Wendolonia

I'll link to more of my favourites during Rainbow Week :)

All pictures belong to their blog owners.

Click on them to see the full posts on the original sites.

First Lunches of 2012

2012-01-03T15:10:00.001-08:00

The first school lunches of 2012 are also the last lunches I'll be able to take pics of, for the next week or two - I'm sending my camera off to be repaired. It takes pictures just fine but the flash doesn't go off - Birdie hit it with a baseball. I'm so so so so thankful my smart Sailor Boy purchased the repair or replacement plan! I may have to do without it for a bit, but I'll get it back as good as new - or I'll get a new one :)

Pickle's first peanut butter sandwich of 2012, with fireworks!

Oh! He gave me a little scare over the holidays... Boxing Day he announced he didn't want any more peanut butter sandwiches, that they were boring! So for nearly a week all he ate was yogurt, Cheerios, and Life cereal... I was getting worried! The list of foods he will eat is so short, and the peanut butter sandwiches are his main source of protein - so boy was I relieved when the night before school started back up, when I asked him what he wanted in his lunch the next day, he said "A peanut butter sandwich. A surprise one." Thankyouthankyouthankyou!

Beanstalk's bento boxes from yesterday and today. Bun, ham, Clif Z Bar, apples. He too is a creature of habit. He did vary the Clif Z Bar flavour :)

Of course yesterday and today it was barely light out when I packed lunch - I sure could have used that flash! ... otherwise, I kind of like it... I like it gradually getting lighter, it's a nice way to ease into the day, especially after my 2 weeks of sleeping in while my husband got up with the kids - I'm out of practice :)

Bella made it easy for me yesterday, she wanted spaghettios. I also packed a bottle of apple juice, a couple of maple cookies, her spork and a cloth napkin:

Tip: When packing hot food, I fill the Thermos with boiling hot water while I heat the lunch, cap it, and empty it just before filling it with the hot food. Preheating the container helps keep the lunch from losing any heat. Bella says her lunch is always still hot at lunch time :)

Today, she did not make things as easy for me. She said she wanted the school's pancake hot lunch, but then 20 minutes before we had to leave she changed her mind. Pickle did that to me last time the school had pancake lunch! I quickly packed her an Easy Lunchbox with the other half of the apple I sliced for Beanstalk, plus some ham, cheddar, carrot and cucumber slices, and a bun. Didn't take any time preparing it in a cute way, but the flower muffin cup and picks were cute enough for her ✿

I made the little girls bentos with a cheerful orange theme - hoping to get them to give mango a chance. They also got familiar carrots, cheddar cheese, and cheese crackers. I alternated the mango with cantaloupe, on party picks. Looks yummy to me!

Birdie and Bean Sprout didn't even want to TRY the mango. Sprout said she wasn't going to eat the melon either since it was touching the yucky mango, and of course Birdie followed her big sister's lead. Gah!

There's half a mango left, I'll try again today... maybe cut it into cute shapes...

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T21:39:00.000-08:00

May this year bring good health & happiness to you and yours!

I've only been blogging since July - so I present my

Top Ten of the 2nd Half of 2011

#1 T.G.I.F.D!
Friday fry day! Pita Pockets stuffed with ham, cheese & apple "fries".

#2 Angry Birds Sandwich

Pickle's loved his favourite game as a sandwich, but it was too good to eat.
Really.

#3 A-Camping We Will Go

Campground favourites in a muffin tin meal!

#4 Hugs & Kisses

A picnic lunch packed in Easylunchboxes.

#5 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...Refuel

Lunch meat packaging repurposed as bento boxes.

#6 I ♥ Lunch

Lunchboxes full of love. And stale pitas turned into tasty chips :)

#7 You Are My Sunshine

Sun chips, cheese & quesadilla suns, Sun-Maid raisins...

#8 Under The Sea Lunch Adventure

Blue noodles! A muffin tin meal full of fishy fun.

#9 Sea, How Cute

Still my most time-consuming bento - and my first Bento of the Week win!

#10 Welcome Jack Frost

This merry muffin cup lunch, plus snowflake sandwiches, donut hole snowmen, and Santa strawberries.

To everyone who follows my blog, thanks for all your comments, likes, pins, and shares this past half-year! And to all my new blogger friends, thanks for all the inspiration, encouragement and fun! Have a happy, healthy New Year! ♥

A Down-Under Dinner

2011-12-29T13:33:00.000-08:00

My Sailor Boy is back to work after his holiday leave, boo. It was so nice having him home every day, letting me sleep in and laze about, even making lunches and cleaning up! (xox thanks sweetie!) School is still out, so I'm not packing the sproutlets' lunches yet, but I packed the man an EasyLunchbox with a down-under theme:

His leftover-Christmas-ham sandwich in the shape of Australia (with a wee imprint for Tasmania, cute!) was made with a special Lunch Punch - it's a Landwich ;) There is a slice of pepper-jack cheese on there already but I added a cheddar kangaroo in case he wants more. Or maybe it's a Wallaby, the cookie cutter doesn't say. In any case, there are a couple of peppers underneath whatever marsupial it is :) On the side, some sliced kiwifruit, and I wanted to include some kumara (sweet potato) but he said he wouldn't like that cold, so a raspberry, blueberry, and green grapes toss went into that compartment instead.

The following isn't food but I want to share it anyways:

Pickle's Calm Down Jar

A friend posted a pic of this craft on facebook a couple of weeks ago and I immediately thought of my Pickle, he had asked if we could make a craft with one of his empty peanut butter jars. I found the blog the pic came from to get instructions to make our own - thank you Chasing The Firefly!

The "recipe" is simple: 1 tablespoon of glitter glue per 1 cup of hot water, and add extra glitter as desired. Combine in a clean jar and seal.

Cross-eyed with concentration - cute!

We used 2 small tubes of Elmer's glitter glue - 1 blue, 1 silver, and added about a teaspoon each of blue and silver loose glitter. I'll use a bit more next time.
I wasn't keen on giving Pickle a glass preserving jar, plus we have heaps of empty plastic peanut butter jars at our house :) I don't know if the plastic makes a difference in the jar's ability to seal, but when we first turned it upside down, it leaked. I took the lid off, wrapped pipe sealing tape around the threaded part a few times then screwed the lid back on tight, and that did the trick. Pickle and the rest of the sproutlets have taken turns shaking, swirling, even accidentally dropping the jar, and Pickle prefers watching the sparkles swirl upside down... but no sign of a leak so far so I'd say it's sealed :)

Everybody wants one now!

A Jolly Bento & more

2011-12-22T16:45:00.000-08:00

I've hardly made any lunches for my sproutlets lately! I've been busy shopping, decorating, painting (our kitchen/family room) and shopping some more - leaving Sailor Boy, who's on leave, to prepare lunch in my absence :)

But today I decided to stay home and make lunch for my family. Beginning with this light bento lunch for my sweetie :

He laughed at his jolly bento. It contains a cucumber cup wreath, carrots (stacked like logs) with red and orange pepper slices arranged like flames above them, raspberries topped with sharp white cheddar snowflakes, and cauliflower "snow" with more cheese snowflakes.

Isn't the wreath adorable? It's a wide slice of cucumber, with a bowl hollowed out then filled with ricotta cheese, and topped with bits of chopped green and red peppers. I copied these Cucumber Cups from Super Healthy Kids, subbing ricotta for the ranch dressing because that's all we had :)

I forgot to snap a photo of Bella's, Sprout's or Beanstalk's, but they were just slightly different versions of Birdie's (below), but in different containers. Birdie got hers in a Happy Holidays Jell-O Jigglers tray mold :)

Banana snowman & stars, cheddar gingerbread men & stars, cucumber tree,
cauliflower (in Santa mold, almost the right shape!) sugar sprinkled cookie,
raspberries & carrots. Cheddar cheese scraps tucked under gingerbread men.

Pickle requested a gingerbread man sandwich. I have 4 sizes of gingerbread man cookie cutters, but go figure, none were the size of the bread! So I used one that was just over half the bread's size and made candy canes with the excess sandwich.

I made them with white bread bottoms and wheat tops so I could make the candy cane stripes without wasting any bread. For the first man's face I used bread crust cut out with a straw and a tiny food cutter, but I didn't like the way he turned out, so for the second man, I just poked his features out with the same tools, and I like him better.

Pickle also reminded me not to forget the yogurt! We've been out for a couple of days so he hasn't had any - and yogurt is like a major food group to him! I bought some yesterday though, and made it more festive with a little strawberry syrup swirled in.

Pickle was pleased :)

Linked to:

Holiday Sandwich Cookies

2011-12-21T23:44:00.000-08:00

My mom gave me this cookie embossing set years ago; it works great on sugar cookies. This year I thought, why not try it out on Pickle's sandwiches?

The photo does a poor job of showing how well they came out - it was around 4:30 pm when I made them and the light was dim (shortest day of the year, Happy Solstice!) but with the flash the embossing didn't show up at all. You can still tell they looked super cute :

We couldn't really make out the "Happy Holidays" under the tree, since the bread did spring back a bit (if I'd had some food colouring markers I probably could have highlighted those details... they are on my Christmas wish list though, hint hint Sailor Boy) but even so, Pickle loved his holiday sandwich cookie afternoon snack!

I love finding fun uses for stuff I already have, and getting closer to my goal of 101 peanut butter sandwiches :)

Muffin Pan Pizza Party!

2011-12-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

No school this Monday, the sproutlets are out for Winter Break - so we had heart-y personal pizzas for lunch:

We had a holiday muffin pan pizza party to make them!

Ham, sliced grape tomatoes, yellow peppers,

red peppers, green peppers, and pepperoni.

Shredded mozzarella, monterey jack & cheddar mix, and sauce.

Heart-shaped personal pizza dough!

We took turns preparing the pizzas to minimize the mess :) Bella & Bean Sprout went first. I gave them a barbecue brush to spread the sauce; Bella helped Sprout "paint" her sauce on.

Pickle & Sprout went next. Beanstalk declined to make one, bah humbug :)

Birdie saying "Cheese!" and Bella giving her pizza a thumbs up!

Our heart-shaped pizza lunch was inspired by HeartJourney's pizza muffin tin meal linked to Muffin Tin Monday back in October :) Check out all the other fab muffin tin meals for more great ideas!

Festive Favourites & FunBites Winner!

2011-12-18T14:37:00.000-08:00

I could just announce the FunBites Giveaway winner and be done with it, but that doesn't make for a very fun post :)

So, since I didn't make a bento or any other lunch to post about today (Sailor Boy fed the sproutlets), I'd instead like to share with you a few of my favourite fellow lunch bloggers' festive creations:

By Keeley of Keeley McGuire Blog,

Amazing Advent Lunches!

Keeley's been counting down the days until Christmas with a different holiday lunch every day! Awesome! I love them all! Here are a couple of my faves:

This cheese-topped sunbutter & honey Santa Claus sandwich waved at Keeley's Little Miss from her EasyLunchbox. A carved Baybel cheese round counted 24 days left until Christmas!

Frosty the Bagel's earmuffs counted 18 days left :)

By Karen of What's In John's Lunch Bag,

Wonderful Winter & Christmas Lunches!

Karen makes extraordinary lunches every day for her son John, most by request! She's so talented and creative! See for yourself:

Watching A Charlie Brown Christmas on TV has been one of my favourite holiday traditions since I was little girl. I'm sure John loved this Snoopy snoozing on his decked out doghouse sandwich & Woodstock 'Nilla wafer cookie - I know I do!

This Polar Express themed lunch Karen made for her John was the inspiration for the Polar Express peanut butter sandwich I made for my Pickle.

Another favourite holiday TV special brought to lunch life! The Grinch, his dog Max, and little Cindy Lou Who count 24 days until Christmas :) I love all the detail Karen puts into her edible paintings!

All pictures belong to their blog owners.

Click on them to see the full posts on the original sites.

And now, for my FunBites Giveaway Results....

Wow, how often does this happen? Congratulations Kristina Franklin, your comment was #1, and you win your choice of a Luv it! from FunBites!

Thank you to everyone who entered, for visiting my blog, and FunBites' Facebook page! If you would still like a FunBites of your own, FunBites is still offering FREE shipping (US only) through December 25th with the code FreeShipDec2011, and if you're outside the US, you can use the code FriendsHoliday2011 for 30% off. Enter at checkout on the FunBites website http://www.funbites.com/

Last School Lunches of the Year!

2011-12-15T11:33:00.000-08:00

Wow, Beanstalk let me pack his lunch with a little festive touch today! He still chose what went in it though. Today's the second to last day before the winter break, and they don't take a lunch tomorrow - there will be a classroom party with lots of food - so this is his last school lunch for the year 2011!

Beanstalk's Lock&Lock bento box contains honey ham, raisins,

Jazz apples, & organic Clif Z Bar white chocolate chip brownie.

Here's Bella's last packed school lunch of the year:

Her EasyLunchbox contains carrots, celery, and cheese bites left over from trying out the FunBites Cube it! She also has a couple of pepper Christmas lights, a cauliflower snowball, cucumber Christmas trees, honey ham, and the last of the leftover wiener bites. Butter cookies on top of the cheese are supposed to make it look like a little present with a bow... kinda sorta?

I love Pickle's peanut butter sandwich present!

It came out just as I pictured :) It's made with regular and white wheat bread, cut into squares and rectangles and arranged with a wheat bow on top (made with a flower cookie cutter).

Half day of school tomorrow, then my sproutlets' Winter Break begins!

Happy Holidays!