Food, Family, Fun.: seasonal

Showing posts with label seasonal. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Happy Easter!!

The last Easter lunches of the season. These were from the last day of school before the term break - Thursday. I am so grateful for the break. We need a little time to slow down as a family. I'm sure we aren't the only ones.

Amy's lunch.

Easter bunny & egg sandwiches, mini chocolate in the plastic egg, boiled egg & honeydew melon

Rose's Lunch - same as Amy except fruit snacks in her plastic egg

Hope that you all had a great Easter!

Friday, March 29, 2013

Easter lunches made Fast

These are from Wednesday. It was a busy morning and I made both of these lunches, plus 2 snacks and 2 drinks in 15 minutes. We were running a bit late so I didn't get a good picture of everything lined up. Just one each of their individual EasyLunchBoxes. I also didn't make Heidi's lunch in the morning like I usually do. When she walked in the door from school at lunchtime and had to wait about 5 extra minutes for her lunch, boy was she unhappy with Mommy!

Lunch for Amy: Ham sandwich, carrot sticks, assorted fruit - grapes, pineapple, strawberry (from our garden!) and honeydew melon

I had been trying to stay away from the continual ham sandwich lunch and have been mixing it up a bit in their lunchboxes lately. On Wednesday, I did not have a plan in mind, there were no decent leftovers in the fridge and as we were running late I caved in and went back to their favourite sandwich. Just yesterday, I got a new cookbook from Amazon. Cooking with Trader Joe's Cookbook - Easy Lunch Boxes. There are lots of interesting things to pack for lunch in there - and really you don't need to have a Trader Joe's nearby to use the ideas. I certainly don't have one near me! Hopefully Amy will see some things that she likes in the pictures and I can try some new lunch options.

The same lunch for Rose plus I added a few grape tomatoes

I realise that her sandwich looks little messier than Amy's but it's because I used the off cuts of ham after I cut out Amy's bunny and just tucked them into Rose's sandwich. No waste! This bunny is from my favourite cookie cutter stamp set. It's very fast to stamp the bread and it makes for an appealing end result. No peanut butter gluing of eyes, noses and whiskers. Saves 3 minutes at least!

shared on:

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Well didn't this lunch come out a little wonky!?! I don't know how I messed up that sandwich. The bread got all mangled - you should see the bottom 0_0. Happy St Patrick's Day!

Clover shaped sandwich (no really, it is :p) goldfish, strawberries and pineapples

I have my share of lunch flops - gotta post 'em - just keepin' it real - LOL.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Some bunny loves you!

It was a very busy morning yesterday. Heidi has snack duty at school this week so there was a little extra morning work. It's good system really. The students take turns to bring in snack for the whole class and for the half day children they end up with one turn all year. When the half day students go to school in the mornings they don't have to bring anything usually - just themselves. So on this busy Monday morning I made some very simple lunches. This was Amy's lunch but they were all pretty similar.

bunny sandwich, carrot coins and celery with some peanut butter in the mini dipper.

grapes, apples & a strawberry

I did put the lid on the mini dipper of peanut butter when I sent it to school. The little cupcake wrapper in there was actually practical not just pretty. It's kind of annoying to wash peanut butter out any of our little dip cups (no dishwasher!); it makes cleanup so much easier if it's in a wrapper :)

This was a super fast lunch to make. To make 3 kids lunches I cut two stalks of celery, one large carrot into coins, one apple into slices and halved a few strawberries. Then it literally took a few seconds to fill the compartments. The sandwiches were easily cut with a cookie cutter and then it was very easy to add the little candy eyes and candy nose. I bought some kitchen tweezers recently that made adding the sprinkles super fast. I think this turned out to be one of my cuter bunny lunches (other bunny lunches here) and it was probably one of the fastest to make!

Here are some items that I used to make this lunch:

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Gingerbread House 2012

I realise that Christmas was last month and a Gingerbread House post is sort of out of place in January but I still want to share our Gingerbread House. I ended up with a bit of a long blogging break over the Christmas Holiday It wasn't planned, just sort of happened. With the girls out of school I really enjoyed spending time with them and our family and blogging took a back seat. Now I want to catch up!

So again we went with the Gingerbread House kit made by Wilton I really think it's a good way to go instead of baking the house from scratch. I bought a few marshmallows and some extra candy to go with it but you certainly could make due with what's in the box. This year, somehow, I made the Royal icing a bit too thick. It worked out OK but was hard to squeeze. In general our Gingerbread House procedure went as follows. I am in charge of assembly and the icing. The girls tell me where to put icing and they glue on the candies. This year we also used some squeeze tube coloured icing and I let Amy use that on her own. We used a muffin tin to keep track of the candies again. I forgot to take a before picture so this is an after photo. Obviously there was lots of candy on the house already!

This is such great fun. There's a little laughter, a little candy and icing eating and everyone ends up happy and proud of their work.

Rose and Heidi wanted me to take a picture of them sneaking into the photos. Goofballs.

Emily was still a little too young to help but maybe next year. She did try to sweep the floor afterwards in the hopes of finding some stray candies I'm sure! She was most upset that I wouldn't give her any but they were all choking hazards. I did give her a little taste of icing though ;)

This is one of the Gingerbread House kits and these are the brands of icing that we used for the coloured icing. It worked quite well to "glue" the candies on the house.

Monday, January 14, 2013

A family of penguins.

School is back in and I haven't quite gotten back into our routine. I've made so many lunches already this year and only managed to take a photo on 2 days! Both of which had the same penguin sandwiches :) So here are a plethora of penguin lunches. A whole family of penguins if you will.

Last week sometime -- all girls actually had exactly the same lunch. Rose and Amy took their EasyLunchboxes and I used an old divided lunch container for Heidi. Our other two EasyLunchboxes were already packed with yummy dinner leftovers in the fridge for Mommy & Daddy.

Ham penguin sandwiches, mini penguin cup filled with white chocolate chips, goldfish and oranges & red grapes

Heidi's Lunch

Today's Lunches -- all three girls had the same Easylunchbox but I didn't have a chance to snap a photo of Heidi's.

Amy's lunch

Raspberry muffins (that I made this morning!), strawberries and penguin ham sandwiches. There are mini marshmallows inside the mini penguin cups today.

Rose's lunch

All of the same food as Amy plus I added a few grapes. Amy had grapes in her morning snack so I didn't put them in her lunch again.

I happened to be at school at lunch time today so I know that Rose ate all of her lunch, Amy had choir at lunch so hopefully she had time to eat all of her lunch. She ate 3 muffins for breakfast today so I doubt she was starving at lunch! That little girl just cannot resist warm raspberry or blueberry muffins. Just like her mom :)

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 ;)

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Pumpkin Shaped Sugar Cookies

Rose had her Me Museum last week at school. It's kind of a fun thing. Every week it's a different person's turn and they bring in some items and photos to share all about themselves. We decided to make some cookies to share with the class as it represents one of her favourite things -- cooking!

Here she is cutting out the pumpkin shapes

Putting on some sprinkles

Rose decided to take her spider craft that she made last week, some turkey cut and paste and colouring pages, some information about her name and a list of some favourites, her favourite book Bugs A-Z, her favourite stuffed animal, lots of photos of her doing various activities - gardening, swimming, dancing, gymnastics etc, a CD of her favourite songs, some family photos including our pets and lots of pictures of her cooking in the kitchen. She's really the go to kitchen helper in the family. Collecting the photos is the part where I did the most work to help. We talked about what she wants to bring photos of and then I just used the computer to arrange them on the pages and type a description where it's needed. We don't have to arrange these like a project. The teachers have a special board and they put them up each week :)

So how did Rose make these fabulous sugar cookies? Easy peasy. We made our favourite sugar cookie recipe -- Wilton Roll Out Cookies -- and added some neon pink and regular yellow food colouring to make the dough bright orange. Then I helped roll out the dough as this recipe is a no chill dough and is very soft and a bit tricky for a four year old to handle. Rose cut out the pumpkin shapes, added the sprinkles and I did the oven work.

This is the pumpkin cookie cutter that we used:

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

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!

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:

Pages