Food, Family, Fun.

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 :)

 

It's my birthday today! Tomorrow is Emily's 1st birthday. This year has gone by very quickly! Today all of the girls wanted dolphin sandwiches. What a nice birthday morning- fast lunches and they all agree :) 

dolphin ham sandwiches,  goldfish, clementine, red grapes and carrot sticks. 

The one carrot stick looks wonky in the photo but I swear it didn't look weird in real life.

Vanilla pudding with sprinkles, clementine, red grapes, goldfish and dolphin ham sandwiches

dolphin peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, red grapes, clementines, vanilla pudding

I finally ordered the EasyLunchboxes cooler bags. I have been having a little trouble with packing 2 snacks when I use the planetbox lunch system. I only need to pack two snacks on Wednesday and Thursday when Amy has after school activities. Otherwise she just takes a morning snack and everything fits perfectly. So when I decided that I would try out the EasyLunchboxes for Amy today (and of course Heidi), Rose said she wanted it too. So with the help of my trusty lunchpunch, these lunches were made quickly and easily.

This morning I went on a field trip with Heidi's class to pick up trash to help clean up planet Earth. (We all wore gloves and there was nothing too bizarre -- mostly candy wrappers, plastic straws and wraps from juice boxes etc). She was very excited about her field trip, then after about an hour she said "I'm tired of this." She's only 3 and she picked up lots of trash so we took a break and then all of the children played on the playground which I am sure she will tell you was the best part!

You might be interested in these items that I used today:

Under the sea lunches for the girls. Heidi was up feeling very ill in the middle of the night and is staying home from school with a fever. I hope she's better soon. I am desperately trying to get to the last bit of sorting out from the room switch but something keeps popping up! I don't mind a day of cuddling on the couch with my little darling though :)

Amy's Lunch

carrot sticks and cucumbers, goldfish, sharkbites

honeydew melon, grapes and a starfish sandwich

Rosie has almost the same packed in her planetbox

I added a small container of ranch dip for her veggies and gave her S'mores goldfish instead of cheddar.

Even though Heidi was sick last night and had a fever this morning, I still packed her a lunch in her EasyLunchbox and put it in the fridge. If she's not interested I can always eat it!

Heidi has peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, cheddar goldfish with grapes & honeydew melon.  It might be difficult to see in the picture but those are small portions of fruit and crackers in the hopes that she will eat something.

Here are some things that I used for these lunches:

Hot dog octopi and crab, star onigiri with candy eyes (not my best moment! haha)

penguin mini cup with ketchup for dipping, 2 cherry tomatoes from our garden

grapes, fish shaped apple pieces, carrot sticks

goldfish crackers.

Rose ate almost everything  :) This was a real morning rush job and one of the times that I should have been a little neater. Next time I'll plan ahead a bit more. I saw this tutorial a while back and quite frankly I just wanted to try it. I had previously bought some hot dog punches but I could never get them to turn out right so these are a free hand attempt. I actually didn't even have time in the morning to look up the tutorial and just went from memory. I see now that I didn't do the crab cuts correctly.  ah well that explains it :) I also saw this fabulous Sea, How cute! bento on Bent On Better Lunches where she made the hot dog critters perfectly. This is way neater than mine and probably one of my favourites of hers. I just think it's so cute :) I'll try this again when I have a plenty of time in the morning as I think the features really make the whole thing look fabulous and features take just a little extra time. Rose was still extremely thrilled with her lunch so that is what matters most!

diced peaches, bunny boiled egg, yogurt covered raisins, granola bar

honeydew melon, grapes, ham bunny sandwich

Amy wanted her bunny egg to have 2 different coloured eyes :)

Pandas for Rose

diced peaches, boiled egg, granola bars, yogurt covered raisins

honeydew melons, grapes, ham & cheese panda bear sandwich

When I send unwrapped chewy, store bought granola bars they seem to break up a bit in their lunch boxes. I am trying out leaving them in the wrapper and so far it seems better. They just bring the wrapper home with them.

 

sharing on:

Heidi's lunch

car shaped boiled egg, ritz crackers, string cheese

grapes, blackberries, vitamins & a ham car sandwich

Amy's lunch



Amy & Rose

Heidi's - no picks, just a mini fork

Heidi's Lunch

lemon cookies, grapes, vitamins

strawberries & mandarin oranges, PB crab sandwich

This sandwich was supposed to be for Rose and I was going to make her an ocean theme. BUT Rose saw me making lunch and decided that she wanted the hearts like Amy instead. So a little switcheroo was in order!

Rose's Lunch

goldfish, strawberries, vitamins,

grapes & mandarin oranges, PB hearts sandwich

She also said she wanted goldfish instead of cookies - Done!

This was the reason I was going to make it an ocean theme in the first place. Ah well.

Amy's Lunch

lemon cookies, strawberries, vitamins

grapes & mandarin oranges, PB hearts sandwich.

Amy wasn't up yet so she missed out on lunch choices - I don't think she'll object to cookies in her lunch though :)

Ocean themed lunches today. Amy took a book about dolphins for show and tell so it matches -- but mostly because the girls begged for shark bites!

Amy

fish shaped boiled egg, ritz crackers, honeydew, mandarin oranges

cheese stick, shark bites & dolphin sandwiches (cut with a lunch punch)

Rose

fish shaped boiled egg, ritz crackers, honeydew, diced peaches

cheese stick, shark bites, fish sandwich (PB) cut with a cookie cutter

Lunch #1

Goldfish & yogurt covered raisins, ranch dip, cucumbers, tomato, celery, carrots

strawberries, blueberries, honeydew, cherry fruit leather fish, fish sandwich ( it was ham I think)

Lunch #2

goldfish & yog covered raisins, dip, cucumbers, carrots,

berries & melon, cherry fruit leather fish,

ham cat sandwich with a very crooked mouth - lol!

Lunch #3 - Heidi's lunch

pretty much the same as the others except no dip, no celery, no picks

and a peanut butter duck sandwich

Lunch #4 - Amy's lunch choices

butterfly crackers, boiled egg, yogurt covered raisins, cucumber flowers & carrot sticks

blueberries & strawberries, honeydew melon, cherry fruit leather butterfly

cat sandwich - either PB or ham I can't remember!

Lunch #5 - Rosie's lunch

butterfly crackers, yog covered raisins, dip, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, celery

strawberries & blue berries, honeydew melon, fruit leather crown, butterfly sandwich.

I didn't over decorate her butterfly with jumbo sprinkles as I usually would as I didn't want it to seem unfair to the other children who only had a candy eye or two on their sandwich! So a very plain butterfly it was - no complaints :)

Rose didn't eat too much of her lunch as she wanted to go back to playing - the others ate lots :) I realised afterwards that I had put a little too much in Heidi's but she still ate a good portion of it.

Rose's lunch

brown sugar & cinnamon ritz, frozen frubes yogurt

grapes, blueberries, strawberry, shark bites

seahorse & mini fish PB sandwiches.

Amy

exactly the same except no blueberries

Neither one of them liked the ritz! Oh well - more for me :) I haven't bought them before but they were on sale so I thought we'd try them. Everything else was gobbled up.

Rose's Lunch

popcorn, cucumber & carrot sticks, grape tomatoes

pineapple, grapes, shark bites, dolphin sandwiches

Amy's Lunch

everything the same except no tomaotes.

It's official. I am addicted to the planetboxes for packing lunch. I really don't even want to use any of my bentos. They are just so easy. School is almost out here but I will have to pack some summer day camp lunches so I'm not going to be totally finished with packing lunches. I feel like I should use some of my other bentos to justify their drawer space in the house!! So maybe something different in the next few weeks.... I'll ask the girls if they would like a change.

Even though it's kind of late --  I think I will still share this on:

Ocean themes for lunch today. The girls had pretty much the same again today. I was actually up early - but way too early as I couldn't sleep. So basically awake and tired and didn't manage to boil eggs to mold into fish as planned. Lunch was still cute enough and both girls came home with empty lunchboxes today, so a success.

Amy's Lunch

goldfish, craisins, frozen frubes yogurt, shark bites

cantaloupe, strawberries, octopus PB sandwich

Rose's Lunch

goldfish, craisins, frozen frubes yogurt

I even changed to their under the sea magnets today  to complete the theme :)

I recently organised a group order from Planetbox and for myself I bought some extra magnet sets & new carry bags. So now we have several magnet choices to change around. I haven't named them all yet since I will need some for Heidi in September and I didn't buy 3 sets of each. Everyone has their name on their actual planetbox so I am not especially worried. I might just go ahead and put last names on the new magnets so that they can all share. I don't think Heidi will be too picky but the others are very verbal about their preferences. Already Amy is complaining about using her new pink carry bag (which she picked out!) and not a purple one like her friend. I packed an extra colour away for each of them for next school year but I guess she saw them all. I'll probably cave in and give it to her - I'm weak like that!

Tomorrow is hot lunch at school for Rose so hopefully I will come up with something creative since I will only have to make one lunch. KMFX that I don't sleep in :)

Catch up post alert! I have two days of lunches to share. Today's lunch is up first - because is came out better :) Both girls have identical lunches.

Amy's Dolphins

granola bites, craisins, frozen frubes yogurt

mandarin oranges, strawberries, vitamin

peanut butter dolphin sandwiches

Rose's Dolphins

everything is the same as Amy - easywork for Mom :)

Here are Tuesday's lunches. They kind of came out a bit sad looking to me :( We were running late ( as usual!) and I had a hard time cutting the butterflies for some reason so the bread looks a little mangled - and they look kind of white and boring! The girls sure didn't mind though.

Amy's Lunch

boiled egg, carrot sticks, string cheese,

mandarin oranges (& a few other orange pieces)

apple slices, vitamin, butterfly sandwich

Rose's Lunch

carrot sticks, grape tomatoes, string cheese, vitamin

mandarin oranges, apple slices, butterfly sandwich

I'm linking up with WFLW so come check out the other lunches!