Wednesday, November 30, 2011

I heart you!

Life is C R A Z Y! I have barely been able to snap a photo in the morning, let alone tweak any last minute bits. My teachers used to always write "neatness counts" on my work since I usually did not spend the extra time to complete my work in the tidiest manner. I feel like all of the lunches from the past week would have had that little reminder on them! haha.

Heidi
heart shaped boiled egg (sort of squished!), strawberries, cantaloupe,
nutter butter bites & mini nilla wafers, heart shaped cheese sandwiches.


Rose
star shaped boiled egg, strawberries, cantaloupe & grapes
nutter butters & min nilla wafers, heart shaped ham & mustard sandwich.


I don't have 2 heart egg molds and there was NO TIME in the morning to mold two heart shaped eggs one after the other so Rose has a star egg. I was going to make her a a whole star theme and then she said she wanted heart sandwiches. She doesn't even like her clothes to match so I think she was perfectly happy - LOL.

The hearts were cut using a Wilton comfort grip flower cutter and then I just used a knife to make it into 3 hearts. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I really love using those comfort grip cutters for sandwiches as they cut so nicely through the already made sandwich. When I use plastic cutters (even lunch punch ones) it's always neater to  cut each piece separately and then assemble the sandwiches. The instructions say that you can cut through a ready made sandwich but it always seems to smash the bread too much. There has not been any extra time to cut individual parts and then assemble sandwiches for 3 kids' lunches. I might go back to assembling all of the lunches sans sandwiches the night before giving me more time in the morning.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Gobble! Gobble!

Turkey shaped sandwiches for the girls today - in honour of US Thanksgiving tomorrow. Everyone had the same lunch except Rose's sandwich was a different design and it had cheese, no one else wanted any cheese today.


Heidi's
mandarin oranges, strawberries, goldfish, vitamins
cantaloupe, grapes, ham sandwich

Rose's

Amy's


The lunchboxes all came back pretty empty today - Amy didn't eat her oranges, everyone left a couple of goldfish. I originally found the turkey design for Rose's sandwich either from searching google images, or on Pinterest. I can't remember which was first! This is the one I pinned a few weeks ago. It was very easy to copy. There were some other really cute turkey sandwiches made with apples or bell pepper strips too - lots of creative Momma's out there :)

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends !


Saturday, November 19, 2011

Elephants

Heidi's choice. She pretty much picked everything for her lunch.

diced peaches, clementines, honeydew melon, vitamins, granola bar
peanut butter elephant mom & baby sandwich

And she ate it all!! Gotta love a kid's choice lunch.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Fashionista & a Daddy lunch

I started making animal themed lunches today. I always leave the sandwich until last and had everything else in it's place. I was all set to make a bear and an elephant sandwich to go with these lunches.  In fact I had the cutters out. That was just about the time that the girls had finished getting ready for school and wandered into the kitchen to give me their suggestions. So then we had a change of plan. A girl in a pretty dress (designed by Amy) and a Daddy sandwich for Rose. She wanted pinstripes on his shirt. I couldn't make it work with those darn food writers.

Amy's lunch
 carrot sticks, honeydew melon, clementines, vitamins, PB dip for her carrots
granola bar, ham sandwich in an Amy original designs dress.


Rose's lunch
carrot sticks & tomatoes, French dressing dip, granola bar
honeydew melon, clementines, vitamins, Daddy ham sandwich.

They were thrilled with the results. Almost all of lunch was eaten - except Amy's dress. She didn't like cheese today!

Sharing on:

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Alien Pancakes

We have been having pancakes on Sunday mornings for as long as I can remember. However, there was a little break in our routine as life at the end of pregnancy and then with the new baby took some twists and turns. When I asked who was going to make the pancakes last Sunday the girls were so happy to be back on track they all volunteered. Usually, Rose is my go to pancake maker and she has been making them with me since she was a wee one. This week everyone helped and we decided on Alien pancakes.

Measuring the dry ingredients. I make up a homemade mix and store it in a container. This makes for very fast work in the measuring department.

Next we mix up the wet ingredients. Eggs, water, vanilla, melted butter...

Mix it all together and then I put them on the griddle.

Voila! pancakes.

These are just plain pancakes.  We make many different kinds but plain is still a favourite. To decorate them up a bit we made aliens by adding bacon, clementines, grapes, blackberries, apples & candy eyes!

Yum!


Wednesday, November 16, 2011

hodge podge lunch.

A little of this, a little of that. I thought I had plenty of time in the morning to make lunch. Somehow the morning slipped away and these ended up a bit shy on the finishing touches. Never mind, The girls were happy as they each chose the different parts of their lunch so really it was EXACTLY what they wanted ;)

Rose
Bunny shaped boiled egg, ritz pretzel minis, grapes, vitamins
celery & carrot sticks, grape tomatoes with French dressing dip

Heidi's lunch
car shaped boiled egg, ritz crackers, string cheese
grapes, blackberries, vitamins & a ham car sandwich


Amy's lunch
fish shaped boiled egg, ritz crackers, celery & carrot sticks
grapes, vitamins, shark/fish sandwiches



Monday, November 14, 2011

Local find!

I have been hoping that the grocery store would have something fun and seasonal soon. Lindo's didn't disappoint. I found these large Wilton cookie cutters. These are a good size for sandwiches. I haven't used them yet but I measured them on the bread and they are going to be great. The Santa works best on an angle and the snowflake just fits. They had some other smaller ones too but I must confess - I already bought them last year!



I also found these cupcake liners & picks. Good used inside out for lunches, MTMs and then of course right side out and as intended for some fun cupcakes!

I can't wait to use these. Hopefully soon - but I think it's a tad early for Christmas lunches.

Butterflies

Food Writers again? yup. This time directly on the bread. Didn't work any better and it seemed harder even. I thought it would be easier since the cheese's moisture might be what makes it difficult. Well the bread's texture makes it pretty difficult too!

Rose's Lunch
 grapes, granola bar, honeydew, raisins,
ham butterfly sandwich - she chose the colours.

Amy's lunch
grapes, granola bars, honeydew melons raisins
ham butterfly sandwich. She wanted black, orange & purple.

This was the first one I did. Not so pretty. She still loved it.
Anytime I use these food writer markers she thinks it's FAB.
The smallest things make her so happy - Bless her.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Kid's Choice lunch

No real theme here. Kid's choice lunches but it was time to go grocery shopping so fruit choices were minimal anyway. It was music day at school so at least those picks were for a reason. The rest just because it's what they asked for  :)

Amy's Lunch
grapes, celery, carrots, peanut butter dip,
honeydew melon, raisins heart shaped sandiwches 

Rose's lunch
 same as Amy except ranch dip and added tomatoes.

Heidi's lunch
grapes, granola bites, honeydew melon, raisins
tulip shaped sandwich - I can't remember what she had - it was ham or cheese or both!


These hardly seem note worthy but I always share my not so fancy lunches as well as the truly fun ones - just keeping it real :)

Saturday, November 12, 2011

After School Snack

This is Amy's from last week, packed in her favourite Hello Kitty bento. I made it simple as she doesn't have much time to eat a snack before her after school club, and she's always starving.


Clementine, ritz crackers, ham flower

It was kind of a rush job on the ham flower and I didn't really have time to tidy it AND take a new picture. Also - she said the candy dot flower center kind of melted by the time she ate it. So no more candy flower centers. The baran worked and the ritz crackers weren't mushy from being next to the clementines.



Friday, November 11, 2011

Fun With Food Writers

Some fun with food writers lunches. Amy's been in her glory since she always begs for me to "colour" her sandwich. The food writers still annoy me as I haven't discovered their trick yet. There just HAS to be one or two secrets to making these work better. I try to avoid them all together but when Nana bought home a new package with pink, purple & orange I couldn't hide them in the drawer fast enough and the little munchkins have not forgotten them!

Amy's Lunch
popcorn, cantaloupe & grapes, diced peaches, celery sticks, peanut butter dip & carrots
raisins, ham sandwich with Dalmatian topper (provolone cheese)

 Rose's Lunch:
 popcorn, raisins, cantaloupe, grapes, peaches, celery, carrots, tomato & ranch dip
raisins, ham sandwich with *calico* kitty topper


Heidi's lunch
popcorn, cantaloupe, grapes, peaches, raisins, mozzarella cheese
ham sandwich with butterfly cheese toppers

I had NO intention of putting a food colouring filled, cheese topper on Heidi's lunch until she stood at the counter to watch me make lunch and then asked so sweetly "Where's mine?". I cut the butterflies out of the cheese scraps. I have NO willpower in the morning these days. I'm just glad they aren't asking for candy.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Sandwich Star

Since it's National Sandwich Day -- I decided to make the sandwich the star of the meal :) Our fruit is almost all gone in the house so everyone has very similar but slightly different lunches today.

Amy
diced peaches, 1/2 clementine, yogurt covered raisins, granola bites
honeydew melon, pineapple, ham sandwich with cheese topper

Rose
diced peaches, 1/2 clementine, yogurt covered raisins, granola bites
grapes, honeydew melon, ham sandwich with cheese topper

Heidi
diced peaches, grapes, yogurt covered raisins, granola bar
clementine, ham sandwich star




Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Shark Attack!

Well maybe they are sharks. My Mom thought they were dolphins, I think they look like Tinfoil Barbs, kids said they are sharks. We'll just call 'em sharks then. Everyone had the same again.

Amy & Rose

pineapple, goldfish, yogurt covered raisins
honeydew melon, PB sandwiches



Heidi's - no picks, just a mini fork

sharing on What's for Lunch Wednesday: