Food, Family, Fun.

carrot sticks, celery, cucumber, grape tomatoes, red grapes, 2 fig newtons

candy coated sunflower seeds, 2 vitamins in the little chick container.

Mommy duck, baby duck and sun ham sandwiches.

Rose's lunch -- hopefully it will put a smile on her face. She was a bit unhappy to go to school without her sister who is feeling under the weather today.

2 peanut butter cookies, strawberries, honeydew melon

gummy vitamins, wheat thins & mozzarella cheese

cheery butterfly ham sandwich with fruit leather body and jumbo sprinkle decorations

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What a fun new sandwich cutter! I have used this a couple of times now but I don't think that I have shared any photos before. The cutter set actually makes several different sandwiches - frog and bear pictured and cat & pig not pictured. There is the option of either stamping out or cutting out the face making for endless possibilities and not just sandwiches. 

Heidi's lunch - not travelling anywhere, just sitting in the fridge until she comes home at lunchtime.

Christmas Crack snack mix (recipe) , strawberries, veggies and a froggy sandwich

I know she'll want some ranch dip and I'll put it in the veggie cup when she asks.

Rose & Amy had very similar lunch items - neither one wanted the snack mix so just fruit and veggies for them

For Rose: Bear sandwich, hummus dip for her celery, tomatoes, cucumbers and carrot coins, strawberries

For Amy: cucumbers, carrots, celery, strawberries and a froggy sandwich

Recently I received my order from All Things For Sale with lots of fun goodies inside. Hopefully it will give me a little inspiration as I feel that the creative juices have not really been flowing lately. Do you ever get in those kinds of ruts? Probably I need to go through and tidy up my bento accessories storage area. That usually helps me get back in the swing of things. You know, kind of like how little children clean their rooms - 10% cleaning and 90% playing with stuff they just found! haha.

These are some items that I used in these lunches today.

cucumber slices, carrot coins, goldfish, cantaloupe, craisins

bear shaped ham sandwich

Rose wanted something hot again and has spaghetti and meatballs in her funtainer.

I still sent her a little side of fruit to go with it.

She chose cantaloupe and grapes. I included a little lunchbox love note in each of their lunches as I have been everyday for a while now. They have a sale on right now and it's a good time to grab some. The girls really look forward to their little notes and trivia each day. I think it's a hit at the lunch table :)

If you missed the sale you can also buy Lunchbox Love notes and some other items I used on Amazon or All Things for Sale:

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!

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.

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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vanilla pudding with sprinkles in the mini cup, red grapes & cantaloupe, carrot sticks & cucumbers

little birdie friend cut out of fruit leather, squirrel shaped sandwich

I fully intended on putting chocolate sprinkles on top of that peanut butter for the tail but when I looked in the cupboard we didn't have any left. Doh!

All of the food is the same just a different the theme 

I saw the idea of putting sprinkles in a cutout on a couple of other bento blogs this past week including: Lunches Fit For a Kid, and Meet The Dubiens. It's so easy to do for a little something special.

Heidi has the same lunch as well -- her vanilla pudding is in that mini dipper cup made by EasyLunchboxes. It's my first time trying it out. More on these soon!

So what IS World Animal Day?

BEFORE you do that, don't forget the blog hop -- next up is Keeley McGuire click the button in each post to continue along the hop to see more fun animal themed lunches. We all picked our animal ahead of time so each one will be a different animal. My choice was the squirrel. The others I made were a bonus :)

 

carrot sticks and cucumber trees, strawberries

red grapes, Madagascar gummies, and a Gloria hippo sandwich

I used my animal picks to represent some of the other characters. Even though you can't tell in the photo, the gummies are characters too. She ate everything! I didn't have time to make lunch in the morning for Rose and Heidi to put in the fridge. I made their lunch at lunch time. It's definitely better when I make Heidi's lunch in the morning and put it in the fridge so she can eat right when she gets home. The first thing she said when she walked in the door was "can I have my yunch now?" Mommy had to work fast!

 

This morning I am off before the girls wake up. The house is so quiet at this time of the morning, just the sound of my typing and the hum of the aquarium. Ah peaceful bliss! Just what I need before a busy weekend,

Amy's Lunch

strawberries, honeydew melon

oreo thins, triple layer ham sandwich

I didn't plan on making a 3 layer sandwich. I guess I was in a bit of a Monday morning daze and I buttered the wrong side of the bread! I just cut another slice of bread, buttered the correct side and then made it into the top of the 3 layer sandwich, using the other pieces as a middle and bottom slice. 

How do you butter the wrong side of the bread? Very easily if you are using cut out shapes that only match up a certain way!  Since I was using the regular Wilton cookie cutters I cut the bread before making the sandwich. Usually I am making 3 or 4 sandwiches at once and I stack the slices of pre-cut  bread correctly right away so that I don't mess up. As I was only making one sandwich,  I didn't do that today so the 3 slice sandwich was born. Amy thinks it's great and she couldn't wait to see if it would fit in her mouth.

A fun monkey lunch for Amy. Sorry for the horrendous photo. Amy was about to run out the door to go to camp and I was just trying to snap a really quick photo. Her tooth is very wiggly, so I made her pudding as it's very soft. When I grabbed a mini cup to put in some sprinkles it was the little monkey that caught my eye, so I decided to make it a monkey themed lunch. I didn't plan this out very well for a spur of the moment lunch as it took a little more time than I had in the morning - but it's just so cute it was worth the rush.

Amy's Lunch

vanilla pudding with rainbow sprinkles in the monkey cup,

strawberries, pineapple, cantaloupe

monkey sandwich - ham with cheese,  fruit leather and candy eye features

I can't take any credit for the sandwich design -- I saw it ages ago and knew that I wanted to try it one day.When I thought about making a monkey theme it came to mind immediately. Here is the fabulous original. It was made by Lise of Veggie Bento.  She has so many cute ideas. This is another favourite  that she has made: Earth Day Tree Hugger.

These are the cutters that I used to make the Monkey sandwich.

We had a bit of a late start this morning so I made an easy little lunch for Amy to take to camp. 

Amy's lunch

strawberries, pineapple, cantaloupe

craisins, goldfish & fish shaped sandwiches

I cut the fish with a Wilton cookie cutter and then used a mini fish cutter to cut the scraps into baby fish :)