Food, Family, Fun.: October 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween!

Today the girls get to dress up for ~~Halloween~~ Character Day at school. School doesn't celebrate Halloween so for Character Day they can dress as a character from a book or a nursery rhyme. It's optional, but of course we're dressing up! I wonder if anyone ever opts out?

Heidi is the Greedy Bee, Rose is the cat from Hey Diddle Diddle,

Amy is Miley the Sylist Fairy from the Rainbow Magic Fairy series

My husband made Rose's fiddle out of cardboard and some paper last night. I went to bed and basically said please cut this cardboard into a violin shape and draw some features on it with a marker. Well he had his own idea. He said he couldn't find a ruler or the exacto etc and it was late so he didn't quite finish. It's only missing strings and a chin rest but for a one time costume prop you totally get the idea! I think it looks fabulous (way better than what I had in mind!) and Rose was over the moon.

In other news -- I broke my camera the other night!?!? Well I destroyed the lens. The body seems OK. The whole thing fell off the bookcase and the lens snapped off and broke into several pieces :( Hopefully Santa will bring me a new lens -- until then I am using a borrowed little camera when I can so my photos might be a little off.

Hope you have a fun day!

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Oh, there you are Perry!

I haven't been feeling especially creative lately and then I found a theme inspiration in a bag of fruit snacks! Phineas and Ferb fruit snacks. I picked them up when I was away for work since I've never seen them in Bermuda and I thought they might be fun. When I was rummaging around in the snack container the other day, I spotted one and knew it would be perfect for Heidi's lunch.

Ham sandwiches with cheese accents - Perry, Phineas & Ferb

carrots & cucumbers, apple & pear slices underneath fruit snacks

She had some dip for her veggies when it was time to eat. I googled Phineas and Ferb and saw several images of a Perry sandwich and the Phineas sandwiches. No idea who thought of this first, but those links are the images that caught my eye. This was one sandwich cut into three pieces. I just freehand cut the cheese for Phineas and Ferb, it was pretty easy. Heidi thought they turned out really cute, so she had to eat her lunch at 10:30 am!

Amy and Rose had already left for ballet camp when I made this. Their lunches were a flower theme with sandwiches exactly like this one from last week. I didn't have time to take a photo of theirs as they were in a rush to get out the door, but I was able to leisurely pack Heidi's lunch and take TWO pictures even! It was so nice not to be in a crazy rush!

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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

A Trio of Easylunchboxes

All of the girls wanted their lunch packed in an easy lunchbox! Actually I think they wanted to take the carry bags the most. They each have a different colour bag and they really like the colours - we have black, blue, pink and purple carry bags at home. Blue and purple are the favourites :)

This is Amy's lunch - it started out with a halloween theme but the bunny egg doesn't quite fit!

ham sandwich with a black sprinkle cat cut out, cucumber slices and carrot sticks,

boiled egg, cantaloupe and strawberries

Heidi had a similar lunch
Hers stayed at home as usual and she ate it for lunch when she came home from school at noon

2 custard creme cookies, cucumber and carrot sticks, ham sandwich

bear shaped bunny, strawberries, cantaloupe and raspberries stuffed with tiny blueberries

Rose didn't want a sandwich and only wanted a rice cake!

She has all of the same sides as Heidi to go with her rice cake. I offered to put peanut butter on it but she said no, she only wanted a plain one. I think there is enough protein considering the egg so I didn't worry. Her little cup has ranch dip for the carrot sticks. In case you are wondering why Amy didn't get any cookies -- she doesn't like them or anything else that I offered her instead! She was happy with her lunch as is.

Everyone is on midterm break right now and these lunches are actually from last week. I am very busy with work and haven't had time for much else. I am still packing fun lunches as Amy and Rose are at ballet camp, but I haven't been taking any photos. Since I have been working late, I just have not been getting up early enough to snap a picture. They actually have to leave as early as a school day since ballet camp is a farther drive than the 5 minutes to school!

Some items I used:

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Flowers for Rose

I took a short break from Halloween lunches and gave Rosie a pretty flower lunch. She's been out of sorts lately and I thought something pretty in her lunch would be cheery.

raspberry and black berry flower, grapes, strawberries and cantaloupe

carrot sticks & ranch dip, ham sandwich flower with a flower cupcake ring center

At first when she saw me making her lunch, she said hey where's my Halloween stuff. Then when she saw the finished lunch she was so happy she wanted me to take a picture with her and her lunch :)

She didn't eat everything and left pretty much a small amount of each item. When I look back at it now I see that it was likely too much food. Smaller portions tomorrow!

Here are some of the fun items that I used to make her cheery flower lunch:

Food Decorating Pick Puffy Ring Mushroom Flower 9 pcs

Food Decorating Pick Puffy Pick Baby Flower 14 pcs

Japanese Bento Accessories Sauce Container set of 4 Lovely Mayo Cup

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Halloween Blog Hop

It's getting closer and closer to candy night! I can't wait to take the girls trick or treating. Today is another lunch blog hop to get us all in the fun Halloween mood. Click the button at the end of the post to hop along to the next blog.

Here's Amy's lunch packed in a planetbox

carrot sticks, green grapes, gummy vitamin
strawberries & cantaloupe, witch finger sandwiches (ham) with fruit leather fingernails
She told me that she wanted lots of picks and things. So she has 2 bat picks, 2 witch fingers and 2 ghost rings

Halloween lunch for Rosie in a planetbox

Chex Mix (sort of looks like Jack O Lantern parts), green grapes, apple Jack o Lantern Mouth,
cheddar Jack o Lantern, pumpkin shaped cantaloupe, Jack o Lantern Pizza Pocket
The paper behind is a small wax paper treat bag.

Last night for dinner we had cheese & onion pasties. I used a small amount of the shortcrust pastry to make some pizza pockets for the girls. It was very easy, cut out pumpkin shapes using a cookie cutter. Put a small amount of pizza sauce, one slice of pepperoni and a bit of grated cheese on one pumpkin shape. Cover it with another pumpkin shape and seal the edges with a fork. Cut a small slit in the top to allow steam to escape, brush with milk and then bake at 400F for about 15 minutes. Yum!

Heidi's EasyLunchboxes Halloween Lunch

Heidi had apple monster mouth, grapes and a spider PB & J

The original plan was to draw a spider web on the circle cutout with a food safe marker and then stick in a spider pick. Well, my marker skills were lacking today so I flipped it over and used a spider cutter to cut a spider out and then left it all together so there was enough sandwich. The spider alone wouldn't be enough.

Of course the other side with the messy marker didn't have the little crusty bits of bread showing - DOH!

If you would like to see all of my Halloween lunches, crafts and activities click here.

Now on to the hop! Click on the button below to hop along to the next blog. I expect there will be lots of fun and creative Halloween lunches to see. I can't wait to hop through them all myself :)

Monday, October 15, 2012

Spooky Halloween Lunches

Ok maybe they aren't so spooky - more like fun Halloween lunches! These are form last week.

This is Rose's lunch.

pear slices, apples & diced peaches, mini cake ball, goldfish & fork for the peaches

cheese sandwich with a cheese jack o lantern topper. I used an upside down mini bird cutter to make the mouth, stamped side by side.

This was Amy's lunch.

She has all of the same ingredients except for the sandwich. Her sandwich is ham and I made a witch's hat, a bat and a black cat. This was all from one sandwich as the hat leaves a bit of extra bread around the edges.

Everyone has been getting Halloween jokes in their lunch boxes lately. This one is a free Halloween printable from Paper Glitter. I added the text jokes myself (google Halloween jokes for kids - there are tons) or you can go here and find ready made joke cards that you just have to print and cut. I recommend using index card stock for the best result. Also - I don't actually put the joke in with the food either - that was just for the photo. I usually put it on top of her lunch container. Amy can read her own jokes and Rose usually has one of the older children read her joke. They look forward to their joke everyday!

Heidi's lunch - the lunch didn't travel today -

just was made and stuck in the fridge ready for her as soon as she got home

grapes and apple slices, mini cake ball, goldfish, gummy vitamins

Jack o Lantern Cheese Sandwich - One upside down bird mini cutter to make the mouth

Almost everything was eaten out of these lunches!

Halloween Toilet Paper Roll Spider Craft

It's a spooky spider! The girls had fun making these toilet paper roll spiders yesterday morning.
I saw this Halloween craft last year on this blog.

Here's what you need to make a spooky spider:
toilet paper roll
black paint
glitter
2 googly eyes
4 pipe cleaners
something to poke 4 holes with (Daddy used a knife)
assorted embellishments - sequins etc (optional)

It was super easy and I only offered slight direction. We used a glitter medium and mixed it into the black paint to make black glitter paint. It's still sparkly and a bit neater than shaking glitter around. We were out of glitter glue, but you could use that also to make it sparkly without the mess of loose glitter. This was a minimally supervised craft so I was making it as easy as possible. They were working at the kitchen table and I was cooking in the kitchen.

1. Paint the cardboard tubes and then let them dry (this was the hard part -- the waiting -- so we did some colouring pages and other cut and paste fun stuff while we waited)
2. Have a grown up poke four holes on each side to thread the pipe cleaners for legs.
3. Thread the pipe cleaners through the holes and bend to make it look like legs.
4. Glue on googly eyes and any embellishments that you want - we got out our collage art box and then everyone decided to put lots of extras on their spiders!

Here they are adding the fun bits. They started to look less like spiders after a while!

Heidi concentrating on her glue - I love it!

Amy decided that hers needed a stinger like a scorpion.

Rose thought feathers would be just the thing for her spider. Usually we use an art tray when we work with the collage box materials. There was a slight mess on the table but they packed it away and then swept the floor. The art tray definitely contains the mess better. I was busy making pumpkin pie at the time and I just didn't think to get out the art trays.

Heidi finished first (top photo) then after she saw what her sisters were doing, she added some more embellishments :) Here are all three finished *spiders*.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Light lunch - mini pita pockets

I found some more unposted lunches form the summertime! I believe these were from a swimming lesson day when they ate these early, right after swimming lessons.

This was for Rose.

2 mini pita pocket sandwiches - one is tuna and one is chicken salad, watermelon, grapes, carrot sticks and cucumber stick. I can't remember what was in the little cup. Likely it was ranch dip or vitamins!

Heidi's Lunch

All of the same foods as for Rose -- she just had little bears instead of a mushrooms theme

And finally Amy's Lunch

2 ham and cheese roll ups, carrot sticks, naan bread, grapes and watermelon pieces

And if I remember correctly she didn't like the naan bread! I already knew she wouldn't eat the mini pita pockets or the tuna, or the chicken salad which is why hers is different in the first place. Oh she's very choosy my little Amy!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Unposted Lunch from Summer Camp !

I was looking quickly though my camera yesterday to try and delete some photos and make room on my camera card when I found a lunch from summer camp that was not posted! I only vaguely remember making it but I do know that this was for Amy :)

grapes with "gumball" picks, peanut butter crackers, watermelon, fruit snacks

a gumball machine shaped sandwich (likely ham!)

I can't figure out why it was never posted but I am going to go through

my whole camera card now and see if I can find any more!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Jack O Lantern sandwiches and pizza

More Halloween fun lunches for the girls today. Emily was up playing in the middle of the night last night and my husband and I were both really tired this morning. Lunches had to be super fast and easy. Here's what I came up with.

Rose's Lunch

cookie (I didn't make these, my Aunt brought them over last night), string cheese with ghost rings,

gummy vitamins, apple pieces, honeydew melon

jack o lantern sandwich

The ghost rings were one of a few fun Halloween trinkets that I found at Party Plus on the weekend.

Amy's Lunch

Amy's is the same as Rose's. Just a different cheese and no mustard on her sandwich. The cookie sure looked lonely in that compartment all by itself but there has been a little bit of uneaten food coming home lately, so I didn't want to overpack again.

Heidi had a cookie, grapes, apple pieces and a cheese pizza.

For Heidi I still made her lunch in the morning, but I didn't heat up the pizza until she got home from school. I am sure that this is the first of many Halloween pizzas I'll make this year as the girls always request them once Halloween nears. The ghost cutter below also makes a great Halloween pizza, cover it with grated mozzarella and sliced black olives for eyes and a mouth instead :)

Everyone ate all of their lunch except Amy, who left some cheese.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

First Halloween lunches!

I made the girls a Halloween themed lunch. I don't usually end up doing too many Halloween lunches since school has often been out for midterm break right around Halloween. This year Amy & Rose will be going to ballet camp over the break so I should have plenty of opportunities to make some more Halloween lunches. These are Rose & Amy's first Halloween lunches of the year.

Amy's EasyLunchbox - Frankenstein

Frankenstein sandwich, carrot sticks and peanutbutter

jack o lantern clementine and apple slices

Rosie's EasyLunchbox

carrot sticks and tomatoes with dip in an easylunchboxes mini dipper (I decorated it with a few stickers)

ham sandwich on a really soft and delicious roll, nilla wafers

jack o lantern clementine made using a food colouring marker, apple pieces

These lunches were gobbled up!

These are the items that I used to make this lunch:

Monday, October 8, 2012

Cute bugs birthday party

Emily is one! I can't believe how fast this year has gone. It seems like just yesterday she was a teeny tiny baby keeping us awake at night. Here are some photos of her birthday party. We had a cute bugs theme.

She had a blast! It was a small, family only party on a budget. My Mom and Aunt helped me get organised on the day and my cousin came and put up the decorations for us :) No matter how small the party is, it always seems like a lot of work when there are 4 little ones underfoot and very excited! I am very thankful for the extra help.

I made these cookies on Saturday. I must say that a made a bit of a mess in the kitchen but it was fun and I think they came out so cute! I used 20 second Royal Icing from Sweet Sugarbelle and the mess was from making all of the different colours and trying to bake and decorate cookies with so many little helpers.

The party food was very simple: assorted sandwiches, veggies and dip, fresh fruit, malasadas (which are yummy Portuguese Doughnuts that my mother in law made -- THANK YOU!), cupcakes, birthday cake, cookies and some chips and salsa.

A few weeks ago I was browsing the internet for some fun party food ideas. I came across a fruit pizza shaped like a butterfly on Hungry Happenings blog. I didn't want to make that but I thought it would be a perfect way to display some fresh fruit. I really just freehand arranged the shape and didn't use any sort of template.

The theme was cute bugs and I used some party printables from Cupcake Express to decorate and add a few special touches. These are the party bags, blowouts and Hershey's miniatures that I made using the printables. There really are so many things that you can do with the printables set but I didn't get a chance to make a full use of the files this time.

Emily's older sisters wrote her a nice birthday sign on a chalkboard

I also made a nice banner and some cupcake toppers. I have a lovely photo of the cupcake toppers but there was an icing fail on the cupcakes. I almost didn't post the photo but it's too funny not to share. It was a very hot and humid day and for whatever reason my pink cherry, super delicious icing started to slide right off the cupcakes! I never got a before photo -- so here's an after. I tried to rearrange and put the "best" ones in front. It was only downhill from this point. haha. The ones that semi-survived were very yummy!

Here's the birthday girl enjoying her very own cupcake!

She was very happy all afternoon.

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Party Leftovers Lunches x 4

Yesterday was Emily's first birthday party. We had a few leftovers from the party so everyone had a little of those in their lunch :)

Amy's Lunch

carrot and celery sticks, caterpillar cookie, mandarin oranges, honeydew melon and a butterfly sandwich decorated with her favourite fruit leather

Rose's Lunch

carrots sticks and grape tomatoes, grapes, diced pears, honeydew melon

flower cookie and cheese roll up sandwiches

Rose was insistent that she did not want a sandwich - only a cookie. Of course I wasn't going to give her only a cookie so we compromised and I gave her the equivalent of half a sandwich. Usually I have a bunch of other non-sandwich options for her but it was a bit late this morning and I couldn't find anything else quickly.

Heidi's Lunch

cheese sandwiches, ranch dip for her carrots, celery and tomatoes

the last of the cookies from Emily's party and some honeydew melon pieces

I made her lunch in the morning after everyone left and popped it in the fridge until she came home. I also made my hubby some lunch to take to work today.

cheese & crackers, celery, carrots, tomatoes

clementine & grapes, ham and swiss sandwich on a roll

Emily's birthday party was fun. I'll post a few party photos soon

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