Thursday, December 13, 2012

Ho Ho Hopping for the holidays!

This time of year is so busy for us. It's a little tricky to keep up with lunch photos and I must admit that I have scaled back the cuteness a tad in the girls' lunches. I made these lunches yesterday and suddenly realised that there are only a few days left of school! The time has flown by so quickly. 
Here is Rose's lunch
carrot sticks, apple slices, raspberries with white choolate chips, snowman marshmallow
tree shaped pretzels and a Christmas tree sandwich & a LunchBox Love note about Christmas trees
I love these little notes and the girls do too. 
Amy had almost exactly the same as Rose but there was not enough time so I took one photo only. She wasn't going anywhere near those raspberries or pretzels so she had goldfish and extra apples instead.

My bento blogging friends are having another hop and this post is part of the hop. This time it's a holiday themed hop spread out into three shorter hops over three different weeks. This is week two. At the end of the post click on the button to hop through all of this week's hops and then also check out the Bento Blogger's and Friend's Blog to check out Week 1 (live on December 6th) and Week 3 ( live on December 20th). 

Heidi's lunch
carrots sticks and dip in the EasyLunchBoxes mini dipper, apple pieces
stocking sandwich with sprinkles and marshmallow snowmen
red mini cup with a gummy vitamin inside

I made Heidi's lunch a little later in the morning and left it in the fridge until she came home at midday. I have an activity at school every morning this week so we are even busier than usual. Yesterday I went with Rose's class on a field trip to a senior's residence and sang some songs and delivered holiday cards that the children made on Monday's craft morning. They sang a Baha'i song, Hanukkah Song, Kwanzaa Song and two Christmas Songs. They did a great job! Today is Amy's holiday musical concert and thankful lunch and Friday is her Creative Writing Workshop presentation where the children will read the books that they have written and illustrated this term. I am looking forward to the school break and spending some time at home with the girls :) Hopefully you will all enjoy a little break too!

Now onto the hop.
Click the button to visit Lunch Snack and Sninner to see what holiday lunch Tracie has come up with. If you keep hopping  until you get back to me you will have seen them all. There are 17 fabulous lunch blogs in total.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

New cookie cutters!

It feels like Christmas already -- first a new camera lens and now new cookie cutters! This cutter set is great. I bought if from Amazon using a link from another blog. The set looks great and they are a great size for sandwiches but I can't wait to make cookies with them!

Amy's lunch
grapes, carrot sticks, goldfish, half a pear and a Christmas tree stamped sandwich

Rose's lunch. She had the same except she had seasonal shaped pretzels in stead of goldfish


It's time to go grocery shopping! We were at the end of the grapes and almost out of all fruit. The smaller portions in lunch are helping a bit and almost everything is being eaten again.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

North Pole Breakfast and our new Elf on the Shelf

I caved into the pressure. I bought the Elf and the kids LOVE it! They named their new elf Snowflake and this is the breakfast when he arrived for the first time. I had originally wanted to start on December 1st but Amy went to a friend's birthday party sleepover so we postponed 1 day, starting on December 2nd. I had a few other fun touches that were meant to be added but the special items didn't arrive in time - so I am saving them for some fun elf scenes in the coming weeks.
The girls had - raspberry mini muffins, snowballs (powdered donuts), Hot chocolate with marshmallows, whipped cream & sprinkles and a few elf kisses. Snowflake bought them all new pajamas and a book for Emily instead. I had printed up a menu and was planning on making these cute reindeer pancakes but they didn't want any! Another day then.
Each place setting had a little namecard, a fun plate and a new Santa Mug (from Gibbon's Company). The new plates that I had ordered did not make it in time so thankfully I had some fun holiday serving trays and I used those instead.
I typed out an introduction letter using these party printables and we also read the book in the morning. Well Amy read it to her sisters. I just cuddled on the couch with them :)


I think the hot chocolate was the highlight!

Rose woke up early, tried on her new pajamas and then promptly got dressed! 

I purchased this stationery set from PaperGlitter and set it up so that they could write letters to Santa. 
That was fun. Heidi wanted me to write for her. "Santa I really like you and please bring me these presents." Right to the point <3

All smiles! Those little blue 80's style glove things were a party favor from the birthday party. 
She wore them ALL DAY!


Snowflake has had a few adventures so far. Nothing too crazy. She took a ride on a dolphin, brought the girls the Elf on the Shelf DVD and watched it and tonight she is hanging out in our Christmas tree and decorated it with some reindeer candy canes. She is definitely a nice elf and I don't think she will get up to much trouble ;)

Saturday, December 8, 2012

New lunchbox -- LunchBots

Amy has been having trouble eating enough lunch on a Monday as she eats quickly and then goes to choir at lunchtime during school. I tried out this new lunch box and packed a smaller lunch that hopefully she can eat in the allotted time. I also sent a much larger morning snack to help even it out. This seems much better than the usual "pack a normal lunch and then she only eats a few nibbles and comes home ravenous and has to rush to ballet after school eating a snack in the car and complaining that she's hungry as we drive" scenario that has been playing out for weeks. These are also her favourite things so there are no excuses! Well so far it worked. Will have to keep this up for future Mondays.

clementine, half a sandwich, carrots and peanut butter, goldfish

I've had my eyes on the LunchBots for awhile now and I finally bought a few to try at People's Pharmacy. I think they are fun to pack but the lids were kind of hard to get off. I prefer stainless steel to plastic for lunches and was hoping that this might be another  style  that Heidi would like but she can't take the lid off herself and I predict a lunch flying through the air disaster when she tries. So for now these are going to be for Amy. If the lids loosen up a bit Heidi can try them too. The local price was very reasonable but selection was limited as they have been in stock for ages and have been picked over.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Pita chips and Hummus

Well I made it to the store - all kinds of new things in this lunch. This is Rose's lunch. She didn't want a sandwich. No biggie - I bought her favourite hummus and pita chips so that was easy :)
celery, petite baby carrots, seasonal pretzels, grapes, cantaloupe
Hummus and Stacy's plain sea salt pita chips - YUM!

We don't  often get any kind of fresh baby carrots so I was surprised to see these in the grocery shop - only the second time ever. There were no local carrots so I bought these. I prefer the taste of the local ones but the kids said these were OK too. We have carrots planted in our garden but they won't be ready to harvest for quite a while. Hopefully local carrots will be back in the shops soon.
Celery doesn't make an appearance that often as it's not a favourite, but since Rose will dip anything in hummus I packed a little bit of celery for a change. I was right she ate her celery too :)

The other girls has similar lunches with sandwiches and I didn't take any photos - it was a busy morning!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Mini sandwich buns

I know it's a poor workman who blames their tools, but seriously I just cannot take good pictures with other people's cameras! I dunno why but I seem to take better photos with my own camera. Had a terrible time this day trying to get a decent photo. Oh well - I gave up and left the shadow/reflections and sent the kids to school! 
Rose's Lunch
carrots sticks and diced peaches, yogurt tube
cantaloupe, grapes
mini bun sandwich

We were out of bread (this has been happening a bit more than usual lately -- probably because I have been busy and going to the grocery shop less often.) The kids sure didn't mind as they love these little mini rolls that my Mom picked up for them. These lunches were low on flair but full of favourites so they were gobbled up at school!

Amy's Lunch
Hers was slightly different. I sent carrots sticks for her morning snack so left them out of lunch.
Also - those were the last grapes so she only got one. She likes cantaloupe better anyway so it worked out.

Heidi's lunch
apples, pretzels, fruit snacks, carrot sticks
sandwich on a mini bun

Seriously - I needed to go to the grocery store. There was definitely some odds and ends going on in these lunches. I kind of like days like that though - uses up what's left before a big shop :)

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Busy Mama, easy packed lunches

Life is BUSY these days. Work is busy (that's good!), family life is hectic and my favourite holiday is just around the corner. I have been spending all of my :free computer time doing everything but blogging! I have just a few photos of lunches from the past few weeks (remember my camera lens broke and I've been borrowing one here and there). Well just last night I got my new lens - yay! I'll be back to regular photos. So first up are two lunches for Amy and Heidi from a week or so ago. I have no idea what Rose ate that day but I promise I sent her lunch too :)

Amy's
goldfish, strawberry fruit leather  ( Stretch Island Fruit co - it doesn't look that yummy in the photo but it's delicious!)
grapes and strawberry and a sandwich cut out with a lunch punch

Heidi's
Pretty much exactly the same --except I packed hers in her favourite EasyLunchbox. I think she likes the EasyLunchbox so much because the top is not attached like the planetbox and it's much lighter. She's only 3 and wants to eat immediately when we get home. Sometimes we bring her lunch and go on an errand so I think for lunch on the go it's much easier for her to manage.